Tag: Rural life

Between Shitty & Country

Having become far more accustomed to the surreal ‘nature’ of ‘reality’ in the last decade or so, I was less baffled by the still ever-increasing Suburban Sprawl on my recent roadtrip through the Hill Country of Texas.

Because of course, by now we are all hearing constantly the war drums of the Globalists and their plan to put all ShittyZens into Smart 15-minute Cities™ under Palantir Surveillance Systems™ paid for with our tax dollars and paving the way for digital money cheered on by ‘Freedom Fighters’ where everyone will be eating food manufactured by Pig Pharma, who begrudgingly keeps the ShittyZenry alive through forced drugging deemed voluntary.

Homesteading gets sold as a solution, which it is not, and never was, and even I knew that as a novice 15 years ago, before it was cool. Homesteaders rarely last 5 years, I’m told, like most small businesses. Makes perfect sense to me, because it’s the only work I’ve ever done that gets harder with time instead of easier.

It’s a lot like all the lies being sold to us about everything, everywhere, all the time.

Perhaps the 15-minute city agenda works in some places, but I see nothing of the sort here. The Shitty Sprawl continues, unabated and unabashed, developing the vast parcels of land without the people, in an unstoppable concrete jungle that clearly doesn’t listen to the same news as we are subjected to from the 24-hour Cybernews Today Club.

Residential and commercial alike, vast development continues, and sits empty for tens of miles outside every major city in Texas: Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston. The foreign populations increase, but not nearly at the rate the buildings to house and employ them get constructed.

And out, and out, and out they go, encroaching far worse than infesting cockroaches. Blocking the views, crushing the landscape, sculpting and paving and polluting any and every open space where someone can maybe hope to make another dollar.

11 new Commercial Mega-projects for the Austin market!https://aquilacommercial.com/learning-center/megaprojects-planned-for-austin/

“The project is set to deliver 1,200,000 square feet of office space, 140,000 square feet of retail space, 1,700 multifamily units, and 200 hotel rooms. The development will also create 14 acres of green space. ”

Mind you, there are already huge empty building ALL over the shitty.

Plus,

(A whopping 14 acres of green space! 😂)

I like when I hear rural (and other wise) folks refer to the cities as ‘shitties’ because I think it fits. Let’s call a spade a spade. What I saw on my roadtrip was horrendous and makes me thankful for the wee refuge we have created here, for now. But the Shitties aren’t the real problem here, in fact. We are being swallowed up, everywhere, by the relentless Shitty Sprawl.

Amazon and Walmart will be offering drone delivery service, so perhaps that will alleviate some of the choking traffic that stagnates around every Shitty, all day long. Those drones must be very adept at navigating through the expanse of electrical towers and fat mess of wires that crisscross every skyline and create a hideous hellscape of prison-like bars. So much for the vast open horizons of our fabled cowboy days.

In Houston, veterans and cripples beg at every underpass and intersection, weaving themselves like Frogger players through 5-lanes of traffic. San Antonio has been ruined by tourism and is now, in just the last 5 years since I was last there, a crowded, filthy slum pretending to be full of family fun. Austin is just more of the same which started well over a decade ago, and continues its relentless expansive march into the drought-stricken Hill Country, paying no heed whatsoever to the limits of water or other pesky human needs. Technology!

Yes, technology is both the Great Driver and the Great Savior. As well as the Great Disrupter and the Great Connector.

While the water gets diverted into Data Centers, swimming pools and water sports for the foreign tech teams, tourist traps sprout up like, well like tourists traps always do.

Mystery Tours and Great Escapes (TM) and Wild West Simulations based on previous historical simulations. Hotels that require Smart phones to check-in and coffee shops that sell fancy foamy cocktails, but don’t take cash.

Such is the American Dream I’ll be expanding upon in the next posts, based on my recent, rare roadtrip. There will be highlights among these many Shitty Horrors, I hope they will be enough to create some kind of basic balance, as temporary as I expect that will be in the grand scheme of things.

The Pie in the Sky Tech dreams are in fact nightmares for a great many of us. The kind of projects ‘our betters’ have planned for the world are little more than anti-human miseries sold as ‘fun’ and ‘sustainable’ while they are in fact conning the populations of the world to build playgrounds for the uber-wealthy on the backs of the common man: THE story as old as time.

Will Austin become the next Neom?

city of neom saudi, future home of the 2029 Asian Olympic Winter Games
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neom
Yes, there is the usual rumblings of faux climate concerns.
“Amidst increasing global-warming concerns, the project raised multiple issues ranging from the expected high temperatures in the desert land, the energy impact and detour of local water resources to the construction of artificial ski slopes from scratch.”

Our Texas mega-Shitties equally demonstrate ZERO authentic concern over their continued expansion.

“The new construction home market in Austin, Texas, remains vibrant, with homebuilders offering attractive incentives like rate buy-downs and closing cost contributions. Demand is steady, as Austin continues to attract buyers drawn to its growing tech scene, great schools, and high quality of life . . .”

In Shitty-speak, a ‘high quality of life’ is apparently defined by constant drought, non-stop shitty-wide traffic and enough beggars to make one feel rich even while living in a mini-studio apartment above a freeway.

Pay no mind whatsoever to Austin’s infamous traffic. It’s main corridor, dubed ‘A Freeway Without a Future’.

I-35 in Austin is one of nine freeways where the infrastructure is “nearing the end of its functional life.” Photo courtesy of Getty Images
Apparently this was a problem inherent in the 1928 Master Plan of Austin’s infrastructure that is now visible to ALL: The Master Plan was in fact, rascist. So that explains everything.

The Master Plan https://austin.culturemap.com/news/city-life/austin-i35-freeways-without-futures/was rascist, of course!

Perhaps the future plan will mirror a devotedly Non-Racist plan, like that of Neom, Saudi Arabia, where everyone has equal opportunity to be a ShittyZen, provided they don’t mind being surveilled like a prisoner.

From Wiki:
“At one company meeting, Nasr said on record, “I drive everybody like a slave, when they drop down dead, I celebrate. That’s how I do my projects.”[108] He also threatened to replace employees stuck in other countries during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in 2020, which included the former director of branding and marketing.

Surveillance
Designers of The Line announced plans to use data as a currency to manage and provide facilities such as power, waste, water, healthcare, transport and security. It was said that data would also be collected from the smartphones of the residents, their homes, facial recognition cameras and multiple other sensors. According to Joseph Bradley, the chief executive of Neom Tech & Digital Co., the data sweep would help developers feed the collected information to the city for further predicting and customizing every user’s needs.
However, Saudi Arabia’s poor human-rights record and use of espionage and surveillance technology for spying on its citizens emerged as a roadblock, according to digital rights experts. Vincent Mosco, a researcher into the social effects of technology, stated that “the surveillance concerns are justified” while further adding that “it is, in effect, a surveillance city.” The Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology did not respond to digital rights experts and researchers’ requests for comments.

Other criticisms
The project has been critiqued as a “laboratory of false solutions” inasmuch as carbon capture and storage (CCS), green hydrogen, and carbon-offsetting are self-serving panaeceas backed by the fossil fuel industry which do not work at scale. Furthermore Salman’s vision for the city includes such fanciful technologies as flying cars, robot maids, dinosaur robots, and even a giant artificial moon.”

Even a giant artificial moon?! Wow! Who needs water anyway, fly me to the moon! 🤪

Millennial Pep Talk

The Millennial Gardner gave a great little pep talk at the end of this confessional concerning his myriad gardening mistakes over the years. There should be more such vids as this. The positivity movement is dead, in my opinion, though MG is still a devoted adherent.

Positivity–Capitalism couldn’t survive without it!

He’s not yet reached the ripe age of bitterness. He thinks he will be able to continuously throw money at the problem, and I rather doubt that’s a viable long-term solution. I hope I’m wrong.

But overall I really appreciate his rejection of the typical appraoch to problems today: The Head in the Sand vs The Pie in the Sky. That’s what I see most often, and on that I think he’d agree with me.

So, more power to him!

We all need a pep talk now and then and Millennials especially it seems to me are inheriting the ends of the Shitshow and are expected to pull it all together again after the wrecking ball.

Hardly a lesson in equity, or perhaps the best lesson that could be.

The gist of his little pep talk is valid–anyone who excels at anything worthwhile has experienced, and learned from, the greatest teacher of all–Failure.

It’s not nice or pleasant or fun or comfortable to learn the lessons of failure. And we live in a culture addicted to nice and pleasant and fun and comfortable.

Not really a conducive atmosphere for learning.

Yet, sometimes the results of the lessons are far more pleasant than we might expect. Like, in my case, my greatest lesson in gardening so far has been flowers.

Flowers and ‘weeds’.

I had no idea the delight they offer when I first started gardening and I made little room for them in my garden, whether the classic garden cultivars or the wild weeds who long to make themselves welcomed. HUGE mistake!

I’ve been working on correcting that for many years now, and it’s absolutely paid off in myriad forms: more bees, more joy, more pleasure, more beauty, more sense of wonder.

The garden feels like less of a chore and more of a privilege with every bloom. The attraction is magnetic, to insects, to birds, to me. I observe better, I take more time, I allow my natural esthetic sense to align with the food crops and converge into a very satisfying balance of food and fancy.

Somehow, whether in my heart, or soul, or imagination, co-mingling the wild in with the crops has engaged me in a way that is a continual wellspring of curiousity and desire, even in the worst of times.

The rapture of emergent colors, the allure of fragrance on the breeze, the dance of the petals and the delight of the bees, I think what my early garden experience was missing was in fact the essence of ME. Because you don’t get that from books.

Learn from our failures dear ones, that’s why we tell y’all about them. Don’t let them dim your spirits, but use them in good faith, and find a way.

Weather Psychos

“We successfully got DVD hail!” He’s so excited! Is this guy working for the weather gods? The Texas Weather Modification Association perhaps? Or maybe Weather Modification, Inc.? A new startup with funding from the Gates Foundation?

I suppose they will soon be selling gardeners’ and homesteaders’ insurance. I’m really looking forward to the days I can list my squash on the future’s market so assholes like this can bet on it’s failure and cheer when he adds another 10 cents to his electronic wallet. I long for the new opportunity to fill out paperwork to get reimbursed 3 cents on the dollar, or rather, on the CBDCs: Was it crooked neck squash or zuccinni? Were the onions beyond the bulbing stage? Were the seeds purchased at a WEF-approved supplier? How much rainfall did the seeds receive in the initial 30-day growing period, so that we can deduct that from your refund?

Weather derivitives are already a big thing, so the insider trading when companies can boast about their crop and property destruction potential is bound to up the ante. But, it’s not war, don’t think of it as war.

It’s really about resilience and making communities stronger. And if the youth have a hoot while destroying their neighbors’ gardens, well, you know, boys will be boys!

What do you care about some lost work and produce when you can contribute to the future of science anyway? What are you, some kind of Luddite?!

More Bees Please!

I don’t follow this very popular homesteading channel, Off-Grid with Doug & Stacy, too chatty and hyperbolic for me, but that’s what gets the clicks, so more power to ’em. Yet somehow, the Algos knew to put this particular new episode prominently on my feed.

Natural beekeeping in horizontal hives!

It’s excellent! I first heard this beekeeper many years ago and am so glad to see he continues to promote natural beekeeping and adding to his informational website. He’s also added equipment, books and events, and if I still lived in Missouri, you can bet I’d have befriended him ages ago.

Dr. Leo Sharashkin
https://horizontalhive.com/index.shtml

It really is a thrill for me to watch the growth of treatment-free beekeeping over the last decade. It used to be not only terribly difficult to find good information, but also it was treacherous. I’m not joking either. Natural beekeepers are the anti-vaxxers of the beekeeping world, with all the bullying, ridicule, and obnoxious bloviating to prove it, which I experienced for years with this simple preference.

I do not want Big Pharma livestock. It’s really not a crime, though you will be treated like a criminal to suggest it or admit that it’s your practice to most mainstream and commercial professionals. According to many of them, the fact that treatment-free beekeepers exist at all explains why their colonies are filled with diseases. It’s blind faith in The Science. And The Science is not rational.

Folks might be surprised to learn that the lifespans of pets and livestock has decreased sharply over the decades. Bees, like all the animals, are basically treated as a disposible commodity. One disgusted veterinarian who turned his practice to homeophathy complained about this in milk cows, but actually it can be observed in ALL livestock:

“While my cow patients in Wisconsin often lived well into their teens, some to over 20 years, the average California operator culled cows at 2 years old. They’d been pushed with so much grain and ever higher production goals that their health suffered and they were literally dispensed with when they couldn’t keep up.”
(3) When “organic” dairy ain’t – by Will Falconer, DVMhttps://vitalanimal.substack.com/p/when-organic-dairy-aint

But that is clearly changing! It could be that more are recognizing the false science of Pig Pharma, finally. Or, that there is so much success now in the treatment-free circles, and so many more are starting to practice it, that the bullies in the business are starting to become outnumbered. That’s my hope anyway.

One commercial beekeeper replied to Leo’s inquiry with a common fact:

14:45 “If I stopped treating my bees, I’d lose 85% in a year . . .”

I would LOVE to try a skep hive!

That’s right! And plenty of beekeepers, commercial and hobby, have experienced that, unfortunately. I also had a very hard time in the beginning. It took a lot of failure and a lot of research.

Mostly it took conviction. Good health is not found in medications. It is achieved through wholesome practices, which are the same for bees as all of life: Clean living and being left to pursue the most natural ways as possible.

From the interview we learn Doug & Stacy had similar issues as I had when beginning in beekeeping, and it was through Leo’s work and presentations they understood why and began to change their practices with continued success. Leo insists, you don’t need to invest much money, contrary to popular opinion. You don’t need to keep buying bees to grow your apiary.

Treatment-free practices rely on the natural intelligence of the bees to care for themselves. We do not requeen when we make a colony split, requiring the bees to raise their own queen. This keeps all beekeeping local, as it should be.

One of our horizontal hives with an observation window.

Instinct of the local area grows in the colony from one generation to the next. Also contrary to popular opinion, the bees get more resilient with each generation when left to their own decision-making, ie. when to swarm, how much honey to store for the winter, when to build up brood in the local conditions, which queen to keep, and when to get rid of her.

Leo’s entire apiary was grown through trapping swarms and making splits. I’ve not had much success with swarms and will try to start following more of his advice for attracting them. You’ll actually have more success attracting swarms in less rural areas, as counter-intuitive as that might sound. But bees are a bit like deer in that regard, they are attracted to the closest and most abundant and varied food sources, which often means near where humans are residing.

While he uses horizontal hives, like I do, he also has some good advice for beekeepers in cold climates and hive designs which help keep colonies alive during long winters.

 LOVE SWARMS: The Complete Guide to Attracting Honeybees

by Dr Leo Sharashkin, Editor, Keeping Bees With a Smile

I once drove all the way to Arkansas on my search for treatment-free bees. This is what the car looked like when I arrived home! 😆

Unfortunately, after all that trouble, these bees also did not survive a full year. BTW, I was not stung once.

When I finally understood the importance of getting bees locally and allowing the weak colonies to die off, I finally had some success. But, it’s still a work in progress and I’m so happy for all the advice and expertise from those with more experience and success.

Live and learn!

Beauty & Bounty

Such a busy time of year already, made busier with our remodeling projects, but we always make time to stop and smell the roses.

And bow to the weather gods, or geoengineers, who have spared us this time, and after so much barking, we are grateful there was no bite. Before I sing our praises, let me acknowledge those further north who are biting the bullet this time around. Our picture perfect skies are so very rare, I don’t like to think about all that means.

We did prepare all we could for the worst, annoying as that was. Out came the row cover fabric again and the wheelbarrows full of logs to hold it down, after just having cleaned all that up and took it to storage the week before.

We expected a frost for sure.

All the pots had to be gathered to cover all the peppers and tomatoes. And considering it was so hot and humid and over 8o degrees when we were doing all of this, it felt more incongruent than snow along the coast of the Gulf of America. 😂

But, I can’t complain, because as I just said, we got very lucky. No hail, tornados, landocaines, flooding and we just barely scratched by the frost threshold.

Just look at that sky! I can’t tell you how long it’s been since seeing such a sight!

There is so much beauty and bounty, in nature, and in cyberspace too!

Just yesterday I was scrolling through my Youtube feed and about every 100 suggestions up pops a true gem, like this old Mexican lady cooking her heart out and sharing it with the world. This is the very best of the power that’s right at our fingertips, I truly believe that: The world’s people sharing about their cultures. The cuisines, the histories and myths, the music, the dance, the landscapes, the languages, the gardens, the architecture–and the ordinary folks sharing them. Unfortunately, as the AI gods have demonstrated, for every such miracle there are about 100 curses.

Make food not war!

There are the tiniest gems not to be missed through all the noise and all the neon glare.

And it seems like they are beckoning me to slow down and notice them.

What would you rather do . . . follow me around the garden, or do more of that thing you call work?

A plot of volunteer poke weed and garlic, as if they’re just screaming, we are here for your good health, so happy to be here, we keep returning for you!

Sometimes, when I least expect it, we learn how to grow together better. Like I was thinking of the old Southern trick to set out red-painted pebbles to fool the birds into keeping off the strawberries. I thought, I bet some well-placed breakfast radishes would have the same effect, and sure enough, it’s working. The birds have moved off that bed ever since those radishes started showing their little red tops, and bonus, we adore radishes, maybe even as much as strawberries.

We have been eating giant salads every day, with enough surplus for our neighbors.

Along the country roads all is flourishing. The bluebonnets are brilliant and I even caught a roadrunner, just barely.

Beep, beep!

Such gifts of beauty and bounty! What a precious, ephemeral time to infuse their bursting energy into our year ahead. What we put into it is what we’ll get out of it, just like life.

I hope your spring is being beautiful to y’all, too! Thanks for stopping by!

Country Life, Modern Style

Still, no time. I’ve lost a month, maybe two, in projects and to-do. Now I risk missing the whole spring to more of the same. And yet, in spring, it’s never all that bad.

There will always be time for baking delicious bread, and making fabulous cheese. Even in the midst of kitchen face-lift chaos, the healthy food must go on.

Quinoa-rosemary sourdough made with potato water
Fantastic!

Still, no time, but still want to share some quick happy snaps and briefest of updates, because I’d hate to be totally forgotten before even gone! 😊

It was a beautiful day, so I decided to take the scenic route to the herdshare where I pick up one gallon of raw milk at the cost of $15, that’s about a 1 hour round-trip. On this day, it took more like 3, with multiple occasions for nearly getting stuck in the mud. But it was very scenic and an adventure to boot!

Excuse me, sir, might I pass?

Apparently they get much more rain than we do and the scenic route proved impassable.

But the cows didn’t seem to mind.

Meanwhile back on the wee homestead, Patty has had a big brood!

………….

And the wild cherry has never looked so good! I wish I could get a better pic.

…………..

We’re spending so much on our interior face-lift the roosters are taking over, no time to reduce their numbers, the benefit being, no sleeping in.

………..

The garden is growing so fast, and the citrus and magnolias I planted last year are just now sprouting. But all that for another post, too much to do!

Hope all’s springing with y’all, thanks for stopping by!

Another fixer-upper on the route to my herdshare. Looks a bit over our pay grade.

How about this one, also on the route?

Destined to become a Black Heritage museum, so they say! 😆

Homestead Happenings

It’s been quite a long time since an update on the wee homestead projects and activities; it’s hard to know where to start! How about, for consistency sake, I bitch about the weather for a bit, and then move along to better tidings.

Of course the geoengineered chem-filled skies continue, as does our Yo-Yo season (formerly known as winter). We are using the air conditioning now, it’s been 80 degrees for days.

Buttercup is especially sensitive to the YoYo, to the point of regular getting seizures at such times, also lethargic and losing her appetite.

Buttercup hiding in her box all day.

There was of course the lows not long ago in the 20s and I was very concerned for the newly planted citrus. We employed quite the set up of lights and covers and they faired very well, I’m happy to report.

Invasion of Asian beetles on the citrus cover

But there has been a bad invasion of these awful beetles, which we’re vacuuming off the ceiling multiple times a day. Not to be confused with the garden-friend, the lovely little lady bugs, NO, these little beasts are really nasty. They infest, as obvious from the photos, and they bite, and as if that’s not enough, they stink.

I don’t like when folks call them lady bugs, they are not at all ladylike, so I try to correct them anytime I hear complaints, which is more often than you might think. The reaction I get is much more open and accepting than when I inform them about the manufactured weather.

Old lettuce bolting, replacing with new lettuce started under lights indoors, along with broccoli and cauliflower.

It does keep us on our toes, dealing with the Yo-Yo. Lettuce and herbs bolt prematurely quite often, seedlings come up then freeze or wither. We never know from week to week what to expect or how to plan.

I don’t normally have such a fancy setup, but these trays were gifted to me and they’re working quite well germinating some lobelia and snap dragons.

My indoor lights and heating mats make things easier, as does the row cover in the garden, but it is constant juggling. And if I miss a beat, death. Like happened with the Mexican oregano I was so proud of. I forgot about it outside one night when it frosted. Very disappointing considering our long journey of discovery, and how long I babied those few little sprouts, trying to anticipate their every need, carting them inside for warmth, then outside for sun and wind, and just when they were getting their legs, gone. All my fault.

Well, except for the geoengineers, because I wouldn’t be doing this constant refrain if our weather was consistent or predictable or seasonal.

I’ve tried twice since then to sprout the herb again with no luck. I will succeed eventually, of course, we’ve come too far in our quest to fail. The Mexican oregano has a long tale in these parts. Failure is not an option. More on that in the last HH post, if you like. https://kenshohomestead.org/2024/11/14/homestead-happenings-43/

I’d like to say it was the same with the milk quest. Unfortunately, I’m not nearly as confident; I feel failure is probably inevitable and maybe even imminent. For the time being I’m counting my blessings I’ve found another (perhaps temporary) source. Last time I was complaining about the cost, this one is even more expensive at $15/gallon. At that price I’m not going to be experimenting with any new cheeses, that’s for sure. To make cheese at all is not really feasible, except for the most delicious of selections—Camembert. Otherwise the precious commodity goes toward morning coffee, ice cream, and buttermilk for recipes and the extended expiration date.

Camembert to be draining before salting

I’ve been doing continued research on the topic of raw milk and what’s available and in general, where’s the market vibe. I found one young entrepreneur with a private herdshare selling cheese for $25 a pound. (A Herdshare Agreement or a Grade A license from the state are the only ways to sell raw milk in Texas legally.).

With my new herdshare deal I can buy more milk for cheesemaking, if I’m willing to pay $15/gallon. Considering the hard cheeses I typically made were 5 gallons ideally (better for aging in less than optimal conditions), that’s a really expensive cheese.

Certainly what can be made on-site are far better cheeses than can be bought at the store; that’s why I started making cheese in the first place. But still, it’s really hard to justify all that work, and expense, when we can still buy organic cheese for about $8/pound.

I will splurge one time in late spring, if possible, when the grass is thick and so the milk most rich. And we do still have two goats, hopefully pregnant, so there’s a small hope of cheesemaking in my future, if all goes well.

Moving on to the garden, the garlic is going strong and I’ve just got the onions in, 3 big rows of each. The garlic we plant is elephant garlic which does so much better here than any other variety I’ve tried, and I’ve tried lots. These are local for over a decade now and their productivity has yet to disappoint.

The onions are from purchased sets and they normally do well, though some years are a bust, like last year. I also started some from seed under lights, to compare if they are more consistent and adaptable, because the sets have gotten pricey in recent years and it’s irritating to pay good money for possible failure. Onions do not like Yo-Yo weather, but then again, who or what really does?

At least some seem to tolerate it better than others. We’ve got a couple of ‘oyster trees’ that are bringing us regular tasty gifts.

I’ve also tried a couple new things that have been long on my list. There’s the soap that’s just now cured, a bit earlier than I’d read is typical. I’m really pleased with it! It lathers very well and the scent is rather sensuous. My intention was something earthy and erotic, and I think I succeeded.

I got the sensual part down, now I need to up the aesthetic! Trust me, looks are deceiving here, I just need better molds! Never underestimate the power of packaging, eh?

After finishing up slaughter season and chopping up downed trees for a month, Hubby has moved on to a far more desirable and needed project, according to me, our kitchen! Yippie!

We’ve needed new countertops badly for many years, ours have been well-worn in 40 years, especially since we’ve gotten here and the space went from softly used a few times a year, to a daily year-round assault. It’s actually pretty impressive the counters aren’t near dust by now, considering how quickly more modern materials fall apart.

New island done, now for the hard part.

Old, ugly, not square or plumb . . . Good times coming in Hubby’s near future!

New countertops got us on a roll and now we’re planning new light fixtures and maybe even a new paint job. Big ideas, perhaps not backed up by time or commitment.

Those big ideas, I’m full of ‘em! In my mind the kitchen’s already painted and my next project is to paint the table, which I’ve wanted (and once tried) to do for as long as we’ve had it. I can imagine I might have a table with a surface that looked something like this . . .

But I’d be perfectly willing to settle for this . . .

Or this . . .

So, after I repaint the kitchen in the few spare moments between juggling plants in YoYo season, I acquire the skills of an artist, and paint something I can really be proud of . . .

Whenever I’m finally able to manage that, y’all will be the first to know!

In the meantime, here’s where we were at in the last update . . .

Homestead Happenings

Repost: Good Fats for Great Food & More

It’s time-consuming, but it’s so worthwhile. The Nourishing Hearthfire has posted a useful and instructive article.

I’m lucky, Hubby takes care of the rendering here. In addition to tallow making the best French fries, I also made my first soap with it. I use it for creams, salves and balms. I use lard in baking and it also makes for a good soap and lotion ingredient, and leaf lard is also great for pastries.

How to cook with tallow, how to render it, how to store it (and why)

Herbal Explorations: Osage Orange

Maclura pomifera (Moraceae family) has a great many common names besides Osage Orange: bois d’arc, bodark, horse apple, hedge apple, murier du Texas

It’s in the same family as mulberry and has a similar growth habitat and widespread adaptability.

For our ancestors it was a highly prized tree that went out of favor in late Colonial times after the widespread use of barbed wire and later heavy harvesting machinery.  Before that time it had multiple crucial uses as a wind break, in preventing soil erosion and especially for creating living hedges for livestock containment.  It was also used for it’s very hard but flexible wood in making bows and rot-resistant building materials.

It was also used as a rodent and insect repellant and many still use it for this purpose.

But here we are most interested in its many medicinal uses.

The seed is edible, and often enjoyed by squirrels, but not easily obtained.

There are plenty of anecdotal stories of cancer cures, like this one:
Randy-Wilson

Biological Application of the Allopathic Characteristics of the Genus Maclura: A Review

“The fruit of M. pomífera has shown an effect on human cancer cells (kidney, lung, prostate, breast, melanoma, and colon) as an inhibitor of histone deacetylase (HDAC) via the prenylated flavonoid pomiferin, showing antiproliferative activity in the six cell lines evaluated [23]. In this sense, the compound pomiferin (contained in the fruit of M. pomífera) has been shown in tests with cancer cells to behave as an inhibitor of cancer stem cells from a human glioma [22], showing a reduction in the expression of genes associated with stamina (the ability of the cell to reproduce repeatedly and form stem cells). Also, M. pomífera has been helpful as a marker in the diagnosis of cancer since it allows the distinguishing of patients with prostate cancer from those patients who present benign prostatic diseases and normal subjects, this being through the high affinity of the sera of patients with prostate cancer towards the M. pomífera lectin [21].

Additionally, the fruit, bark, leaves, root, and seed have been reported to have a high content of oils, sugars, and compounds such as isoflavones, xanthones, triterpenes, and stilbenes, with isoflavones being the most representative [15].”

“The seeds are edible and the heartwood, bark and roots contain many extractives of actual and potential value in food processing, pesticide manufacturing, and dye-making. Various parts of the Maclura species are used in folkloric medicine worldwide. Decoction prepared from the roots of M. pomifera is used for the treatment of sore eyes by Comanche Indians in the North America (Carlson and Volney, 1940). The bark of Maclura tinctoria has been reported to be used against toothache by Kaiowa and Guarani indigenous people living in the Caarapo Reserve in Brazil as well as the in the other parts of Amazon region, it was also recorded to be used in Southern Ghana for dental health (Elvin-Lewis et al., 1980, Elvin-Lewis and Lewis, 1983, Bueno et al., 2005).

The fruit of M. pomifera is also well-known for its rich isoflavonoid content as well as a content of xanthones (Delle Monache et al., 1984, Delle Monache et al., 1994, Toker and Erdogan, 1998). Several biological activities of the plant were reported up to date including antimicrobial, estrogenic, anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive activities (Mahmoud, 1981, Maier et al., 1995, Küpeli et al., 2006). Antioxidant activity of the major flavonoids of M. pomifera has also been studied (Tsao et al., 2003, Vesela et al., 2004).”

Cholinesterase inhibitory effects of the extracts and compounds of Maclura pomifera (Rafin.) Schneider – ScienceDirect

Native Americans used M. pomifera for the
treatment of cancer [2]. In Bolivia, the plant sap is used for the treatment of tooth pain, and the bark and leaves are used for uterine hemorrhage [3]. Comanche Indians in North America used the Osage orange roots decoction to treat sore eyes [4]. M. pomifera and its components possess
several biological activities including cytotoxic, antitumor, antibacterial, estrogenic, antifungal, antiviral, and antimalar-ial activities [5–13]. Recently, isofavones isolated from Osage orange have been demonstrated to protect brain cells, or neurons, from the toxic effects of amyloid beta peptide, which is believed to be responsible for the degeneration of neurons in Alzheimer’s disease patients.”
M.pomifera produces several secondary metabolites belonging to diferent chemical classes including prenylated favonoids. Teprenylated favonoids possess diferent biological activities such as antifungal, antibacterial, antitumor, and antioxidant activities.”

(16) {“content“=>”Isolation and Biological Evaluation of Prenylated Flavonoids from.”, “i”=>{“content“=>”Maclura pomifera”}} | Mohamed Amr Ibrahim – Academia.edu

We have a few still around in our area and I’ve been propagating them from seed in the hope of creating a living hedge.  Unfortunately our summers have been so severe lately I’ve only managed one survivor, now 3 years old.  I’ll keep trying!

A very old specimen at a neighbor’s house in East Texas.

 

A neighbor’s old Bois d’arc tree
Spring 2023

A beautiful shade tree with so much to offer, I hope it becomes popular once again in our countryside.

A couple more impressive Bois d’arc photos from the Internet:

Just Food

A celebration of fresh food in photo! Because it is a true pleasure for both of us to produce our own food as much as possible; it is the main appeal of this labor-intensive lifestyle.

To think, it all started with a hurricane, and then a garden. We didn’t even have a dream or a plan.

Or a clue!

Left: Hot peppers and turmeric, dried luffa for sponges
Right: fresh from the garden—lots of lettuce, radishes, cilantro, dill, thyme, celery and roasted garlic.

The peppers are becoming a couple of sauces, one made by Hubby, chili garlic sauce, and was pressure canned for long term storage. It’s a copycat recipe of Huy Fong Brand and is fantastic.

Another will be made by me, inspired by Gavin Mounsey’s kitchen.

Photos by Gavin Mounsey

The peppers, garlic, elderberry, onion and other herbs will first be fermented and later made into a Sriracha-type sauce that will store about 6 months in the refrigerator. For amazing food photos and recipes, Gavin’s are spectacular, along with so much other refreshing content.

Previous year’s garden goodies.

From the pasture to the plate. It’s a very rewarding feeling!

Above: Hubby processing chickens with machine plucker.
Below left: smoking bacon Right: Pork roll just off the smoker

Left: Christmas pudding, a British classic and my first attempt. (Thanks Kath for the recipe!) We will see in a month or so if I succeeded. Also liver sausage, made from lamb liver and topped with roasted almonds. It’s not everyone’s thing, I know, but you might be surprised, I was never a fan of liver either. Right: Cured lamb and Mason jar Marcelin cheese, aging. Yes, you can put them in the same small space, I cover the cheese with a bamboo mat, in a closet with my seed storage, for about a week before moving to cold storage.

The cured lamb can be done from many different types or cuts of meats. This one is taken from the easy-to-follow recipe for Cured Venison Loin at wildharvesttable.com

The cured lamb thinly sliced with soft cheese and sourdough bread is better than anything store-bought in these parts.

We have learned so much about growing and cooking and preserving and the learning never ends.

But all the hard work has excellent rewards!

I’ve learned a lot about homemade wines and cured meats from this Italian YT channel. It’s amazing what you can do with just a little bit of space and minimal equipment and good ingredients. I’ll be trying this simple salami next.

Roasted sweet potatoes become Sweet Potato

Roasted sweet potatoes from this year’s harvest become a favorite dessert: Sweet Potato Praline served with fresh whipped cream and homemade chocolate liqueur.

Cooking is a wonderful way to spend the day, even when it’s just for the dogs!

A big pot of dog food, fit for a Great Dane

Hope you’re enjoying your cooking time, too! Thanks for stopping by!