I’ve got some complaining to do today, but there are some rays of sunshine, too, fear not!
Let’s get the crap out of the way first, don’t you think?
That’s ‘man-made Climate Change’ alright!In the mornin’, in the evenin’, ain’t we got fun?!
“Climate change”— aka Geoengineering/Weather Modification — continues to haunt us. That is, in droughting us out, mercilessly. I have little hope for the fall garden. I’ve had very poor germination in some crops, none at all in others. That could be the high soil temperature, the still scorching sun and heat even now into October, or perhaps it’s all that crap in the atmosphere.
The pastures are so parched, which means, as I mentioned last time, more sheep than we’d wanted to will go to freezer camp.
The upside is, we are eating very well these days. We’d slowed down on meat consumption over the summer because the freezers were low. The hens had really slowed down laying too in the heat. Now we’ve got meat and egg surplus and we’ve been indulging accordingly.
That also means tallow, which is like white gold to me!
Hubby also pressure canned us some lamb and broth. Yum!
They want a pretty penny for this stuff, which makes sense considering all the costs and effort involved. A basic tallow balm will set you back $15/ounce! I’ve already made one hand balm with rather erotic-scented essential oils that’s got the thumb’s up from my sole customer. 🤗
On to the garden . . .
The purple Czech hot pepper is still my season favorite. It’s still doing beautifully (under shade cloth) and is a lovely little plant I’ll try to over-winter indoors. Hubby is making hot sauce in the fermentation crock that I’m sure will be top-notch.
Pictured: the purple Czechs in the center back, Thai basil to its left, sweet basil upfront—so it is protected from full sun in every direction except from the east.Even under shade cloth and screening the fall crops are not germinating. Luckily I was able to start a few indoors under grow lights.Tomatoes also started indoors mid-summer under grow lights, now looking pretty good transplanted outside last month. Fingers crossed it doesn’t frost too early and we’ll get the rare fall harvest of plump red tomatoes. Dare to dream!
We’ve finally fully weened the kids and it’s been a very loud few days! I’ve got enough milk again to make some good cheeses, which is just about my favorite thing to do in the world. Or, I just really missed it all summer and I’m really sick of the garden.
The kids will be fine without their mamas, they just don’t know it yet. 😆
I’ve got to get practicing my cheeses again, because the interest in homesteading has really been growing around here. A nearby group has formed and asked us to share some knowledge, which we are pleased to do. Hubby will be lending a hand in the butchery department and I will be offering my fermentation wisdom— in kombucha, soft cheeses and sourdough—for now, hopefully moving on to more advanced skills if interests persist. It’s been a very long time since I’ve done any teaching and I’m already nervous! But, I’m so pleased folks are really starting to see the value in more self-reliant living.
Whether it’s out of necessity or innate interest, I’m thrilled more folks are choosing a more natural lifestyle.
And . . .I think the more the big shit stinks, the more we should be celebrating the small stuff.
And . . .Just in time for Halloween . . .a visit from a black widow!
No rest for the weary around here! Our goal of year-round garden harvesting has been met and is every bit as rewarding, and exhausting, as I expected.
Living, working and eating according to the season is remarkably satisfying. In the last couple of years especially I’ve spent much less time learning from books and much more on direct observing and experimenting.
I’m thinking our next goal should be to throw the calendar and the clock out with the garbage. Show those Amish what a real Luddite looks like! HA! 🙂
This time of year the spiders tell me it’s a good thing I’ve got the cool season crops out already. Many of them were started indoors, then transferred outside under shade cloth which will remain until the heat breaks, fingers crossed we don’t get an early frost.
I’ve just started harvesting the sweet potatoes, the luffa and peppers are going crazy, the radishes, volunteer cherry tomatoes and lettuces are finally happy again and I’m most excited for the mirliton squash (chayote) that is finally getting its first flowers. This will (hopefully) be our first success with mirlitons following multiple failed attempts. I love this squash, but it thrives in southern Louisiana mostly, because it needs a very long warm season, even longer than we get here. I started these indoors in February, along with the turmeric, also a first for us this year.
As soon as it cools down I’ll also be harvesting honey, lots of herbs for drying and pesto, along with foraged leaves and roots for teas— sassafras, beauty berry, sumac—and once we finally get some rain, it’ll be time for mushrooms.
Hubby will be filling the freezer with lamb and pork and freshening our flock for spring lambs and a few to add to our growing herd of milking goats.
Hibiscus in May, hibiscus today . … still not blooming because I got a late start.
The honey bees love the Thai basil and the native bees especially love the salvia and the sweet potato and luffa flowers. We’ve decided next year to plant an entire row of luffa in the orchard just for the bees and pigs.
Hope you can enjoy a moment of piglet playtime! Surely there will be time for a wee rest in late winter?
The Sweltering Season has officially begun, later than usual for these parts, lucky for us.
Long weeks of crazy heat and zero rain makes for four lazy dogs and one crabby wife.
So Handy Hubby comes to the rescue once again!
I wanted to share this one because it’s a cool off-grid hack, even though we aren’t off-grid. The ability to pump water from your natural spring, creek or man-made pond or other source has advantages for any landowner. There is the savings on your water bill of course, and the peace of mind in having an alternate water supply, but beyond that the untreated water is better for the plants, animals and environment.
While it does take some significant time and expense initially, to set it up, move it around and then conveniently store it away when not in use is just what we need around here.
We soak the yard and garden with it, and then soak in it ourselves in our 200 gallon stock tank. A real redneck sort of system, but so refreshing!
I asked for a detailed explanation on Hubby’s handiwork to include here for anyone interested and he mumbled, “Just glue it and screw it.”
Yes a man of few words, but great actions, just like I like ‘em. 🤣
On further pressuring him he said if there was anyone reading this that must know the details, just say so in a comment below and he’ll let me figure out a way to persuade him to oblige.
There is the famous gardening adage of ‘4 in a row’ but it seems there should be another one something like ‘Every single success brings 4 new challenges’.
Because of course, now that we’ve spent years building up a gorgeous loamy soil from our heaps of sand and clay, the moles, voles and gophers have moved in with a vengeance. It’s gotten so bad I’ve had to enlist Handy Hubby with his big guns.
Rodent traps: a lot of work, but at least they are working, 4 captured, and counting.
And now that we have the fanciest coop in the county, we’re losing more eggs and chicks than ever—to the only beasts still able to penetrate the walled and fenced fortress—snakes. Another job for . . . Guess who?
Yes, that’s a water moccasin, poisonous. Hubby’s also found a couple of HUGE rat snakes stuffed full of eggs and chicks.
A dozen chicks lost and a broody hen giving new meaning to ‘a bucket of chicken’
Of course the snakes don’t go after the rodents, why go to the extra effort of hunting when there’s free food lying around everywhere?
Of course the cat doesn’t go after the snakes or the rodents, or maybe she does, but she can’t keep up with the steady traffic.
So we’ve lost all our cabbages, most of our broccoli, a couple dozen onions (don’t believe the hype, onions are not a rodent deterrent by any stretch of the imagination).
But, at least the forest beasts are well-fed.
Tori: “I don’t like onions anyway, where’s the chicken?!”
We had a Foraging Walk that was well worth the two years waiting. The first postponement was after a tornado leveled their property during one of their tribal ceremonies, the Caddo Mounds in Weeping Mary, which I wrote about here and here.
The second time was during the initial stages of the Plandemic, when I cancelled due to mask mandates.
On this fun foray, 3rd time was a charm, no storms, no masks and a very educational afternoon. Top 3 things I learned:
1. Medicinal weeds should never be dehydrated in a machine, something about chemistry. Two ubiquitous weeds I thought had no other redeeming qualities besides bee food: Goldenrod and Carolina geranium, are in fact beneficial medicinals.
2. There’s a compound in red cedar that inhibits the breakdown of alcohol for 18 hours. So, a common practice is to soak some branch tips in strong spirits for a month. The final product becomes kind of like Absinthe in that it’s potent enough to cause hallucinations, which can lead to great art, says me, or, a cheap date, says Hubby.
3. Foraging in areas where there was once iron mining operations, quite common around here apparently, unbeknownst to me, should be avoided due to potential mercury contamination.
A super exciting swarm event is next on the Fun list!
I’ve been wanting to populate a couple of re-furbished TopBar hives, but the dimensions are not the same as those Hubby’s crafted, so splits would prove very challenging.
Bearding in summer, not too unusual in our hot climate. But, bearding in spring, probably a sign they’re really cramped.
I was hoping for swarms, and got one off the ‘bearding’ hive I recently wrote about (pictured above). They stationed themselves about 75 feet away in a young cedar tree and I got lucky to find them there immediately, while I was nearby harvesting mulberries. This is our first plentiful mulberry crop and I’m not sure what to make with them. Any suggestions?
I did recently learn from the Deep Green Permaculture site that it’s possible to get a 2nd crop of mulberries by cutting the branches back after the 1st harvest.
As far as the swarm goes, my first attempt was dismal, in the ‘Don’t do this!’ category of the pathetic novice, which I should know better by now, which I post so y’all can laugh at me, as I well deserve.
I don’t know what I was thinking! I wasn’t even good at holding a tray like that as a cocktail waitress. Spontaneous blasphemy makes this quick clip RATED R—For Mature Audiences Acting Immaturely Only. (Bet you didn’t know in a past life I was a sailor!)
Cringe-worthy
The 2nd attempt was successful, thanks to Hubby, who sawed the branch off into my waiting hands so I could gently walked them over to their new hive. They seem to be adjusting nicely! These thoughtful bees saved me lots of messy work.
The Ninja* colony has attracted a gorgeous bird, which I’m pretty sure after consulting my field guide, is a Summer Tanager. Though I don’t approve of his hunting live bees, he does also forage dead bees under the hive, so he gets a pass.
*Ninja colony, so named due to their constant battling yet relatively calm nature. I believe this is at least partly due to their position right next to the house, where they get constant traffic, but seem unperturbed by it, unlike the more remote colonies at the far end of the orchard, who are just plain abusive.
Just a wee update with some happy snaps because we’ve been keeping as busy as bees around here!
The bees are busy indeed and multiplying like rabbits. Time to expand their chambers or to do some splits.
Bearding in summer, not too unusual in our hot climate. But, bearding in spring, probably a sign they’re really cramped and fixing to swarm.
I did end up losing one colony, the only one I have in the conventional Langstroth model hive. I’m going to blame myself for that though, I left a super on over winter and we had a really bad winter. They made it through alright from the looks of things, but left about a month ago, probably because their numbers were still too small to keep a mansion clean while trying to nurse babies to build up the colony again. There was no evidence of freezing or starving, so I suspect they left as a small swarm. That’s my story anyway.
Construction continues on the best project so far. Handy Hubby is building an addition to our house and I’m over the moon excited about it! This place was never meant to be a year-round residence, it was initially used as a weekend cottage and hadn’t been used for many years by the time we moved in.
Handy Hubby with his loyal helpers!
We’ve been cramped for quite a while, but now we’ll have a new, very necessary and very functional, climate-controlled Utility room. Thank you, my love, better late than never! 😉
We aren’t cat people but we adopted a barn kitten last year to try to help with our mouse, vole, mole, gopher, snake problems. Apparently she didn’t get the memo, or realized the problem was so bad she needed a crew.
Skittles, our frisky barn kitten having kittens.
Our piglet population is back down to a manageable size since trading 2 piglets for a milking goat to be delivered next month and 2 others for a breeding ram after a friend has freshened her flock. We also traded a beehive for some bantam hens because they are known for their strong broody behavior, and sure enough, here’s one tightly tucked on her clutch. It’s one of my favorite things to trade with folks and leave Uncle Sam with his funny money out of our pockets for a change.
You can’t see me! Bantam hens, known for tucking up in tiny corners to brood.
As for garden developments, I continue my efforts incorporating permaculture features. I keep experimenting with good companion plants; I’m planting more perennials amongst the annuals; I’m doing more succession planting; I’m getting lots of comfrey growing for ‘chop and drop’ composting.
Spooning the onions
Comfrey—useful permaculture plant
Bees on chervil gone to seed
My latest addition is a ‘poison garden’ including such toxic beauties as datura, belladonna and castor bean. I’m testing a few tricks like ‘spooning’ the onions, which is to remove the dirt from the bulb tops to encourage larger storing onions. I’m watering weekly with ‘poop soup’ that is, watered down cow manure I’ve gathered from the stray cows sometimes wandering our property.
It’s a dirty job, but anything for my plants!
As always, I let the herbs and greens go to seed, but this year I’m going to get better about seed-saving. The price of seeds is going through the roof! Another new project I’m dedicating time to is more propagating, but not just the easy stuff anymore, like figs and roses and mulberries.
I’m going for the big time—‘native’ trees! Wild cherry (because they taste so amazing), Osage orange (because they are so useful) and prickly ash (because they look so cool) are at the top of my current list.
Prickly Ash—prickly is an understatement!
Wild cherry—the most delicious cherry flavor EVER!
As for foraging, a favorite spring activity for me, in addition to pokeweed and dandelions, I’ve got another new favorite: greenbrier tips—taste just like asparagus. The root, along with sassafras root, were once the main ingredients of root beer, which I plan to try soon. Yum!
It’s time again for some fun snaps. Apparently my ‘extremist’ opinions are not nearly as popular as far as posts go. What a mystery! 🙂
As usual, not suitable viewing for vegetarians.
But, our veggie of the year has definitely been the turnip. Not too sexy, I know. Personally I think the turnip is way under-rated. Lucky for us, they were so prolific this year we’ve been giving them away, feeding them to the pigs and eating them ourselves pretty much daily. Raw, baked, stewed, roasted, fermented—don’t knock ‘em ‘til you try ‘em! (And if you have any yummy suggestions for preparation, please do share.).
Hakurei F1 Turnip from Johnny’s Seeds—fantastic producer, delicious and nutritious
Our small asparagus bed was so over-packed we created 2 huge beds for them, had to go outside the garden fence and cut down a few trees to do it, and still had enough to give a big box away to a sister homesteader.
I also dug up the ‘naked lady’ lilies, day lilies and iris, replanted a bunch of them and still had loads to give away. I love to spread the wealth! It was A LOT of work, but hopefully worth it. Time will tell.
(Note to new gardeners: DO NOT crowd your asparagus, those crowns are a nightmare to separate once they get over-clumped. Lesson learned the hard way.)
Fava beans and lovely greens and my favorite herb, chervil.
Mama Chop, ready to pop! Papa Chop must be very proud, he got Virginia preggers too, her first time. Loads of piglets coming any day now.
We had to borrow another ram, apparently the last one was sleeping on the job. He’s been keeping very busy.
Handy Hubby’s Grand TajMa-Coop post coming up soon, it’s a beauty, so stay tuned!
Dare I say, it’s the classiest coop in the county?Have a Great Dane of a day!
Just wanting to share this educational and inspiring Homesteading blog for anyone interested in these no longer lost arts without the sassy opinions and superfluous political commentary of some, so-called, homesteading blogs. Not mentioning any names (besides ours! HA!) 🙂
I’m not much for new year’s resolutions. But I am big on having goals and doing new things each year. I think it’s important to have something to look forward to in a new year. It feels like we’re sorely low on hope in our society today, so make plans, I say. Have something to…
Relatively speaking, we had an excellent year. I’m not the type to gloat, really. It comes as no surprise to me at all that my experience is pretty much the polar opposite of most folks most of the time. I accepted that ages ago and prefer to think I’m perfecting this ‘gift’ bit by bit, year by year.
Following are some highlights, some whys and hows and so forth, not meaning to boast or give advice, but rather to contrast previous years with my rosy 2020 perspectacles.
I perfected sourdough bread. I’ve been getting failures regularly for years without understanding why and thanks to one farm friend and her new guru, Elaine Boddy, I got the bitch slap needed to learn I was doing it ALL wrong. Not only was I making it infinitely more difficult than it had to be, I had a flabby starter and was creating needless waste. We’ve entered into higher consciousness sourdough on the wee homestead, praise be.
She doesn’t just make it look easy, she actually makes it easy.
I have also become a Kombucha master. Really, a master. It’s easy to say that for a number of reasons, but especially because so few folks drink it around here, or like it once they try it, that it’s in the realm of ‘acquired tastes’ and only needs to appeal to Hubby, and two nearby friend-aficionados. I’ve been working on signature blends for months, using seasonal herbs and fruits, have Kombucha vinegar in a few flavors and am now aging Kombucha champagne. It’s the funnest thing ever. Or, I’m just a real geek like that.
Of course, no one becomes master without help, and in Kombuchaland, this is Scripture:
Even funner than making cheese and much easier too.
Three great gardening successes overshadow the multiple failures—like a second year of sweet potato perils and a fourth year of melon miseries. I leave those to ponder in an upcoming post. For now, it’s Cranberry hibiscus, Blue coco beans and Trombetta squash. I really can’t praise them enough and they were prolific and worry-free and I can’t wait to plant them again in profusion.
But I once said that about the sweet potatoes and the melons, so I’ll shut up now.
Trombetta squash, delicious as summer or winter squash, we have one still standing in the kitchen waiting to be enjoyed.It’s the sepals that are most popular for tea-making with the Thai red Roselle, aka cranberry hibicus or rosella.Still eating these six months later and a second crop of volunteers came back at the end of summer.All the wild grapes and pears we’d harvested and processed and froze in preparation for wine and cider-making were spoiled, because Hubby accidentally turned the deep freezer off. His one big dumb move of the year, pretty mild, relatively speaking again.
Extra-special mention goes of course to the best news of the year, Hubby’s layoff-rebranded early retirement, a somewhat unexpected miracle that has improved my reality already in very unexpected ways. Sometimes the true weight of a burden isn’t fully realized until it’s lifted.
I think he prefers his current working conditions.Pretty certain it will take him a while to get sick of us, but just in case, there’s always the sourdough.
I knew he’d take over most of my animal chores leaving me more time in the garden and the kitchen, where I most prefer to be. And that he’d build more and relax more and check off items on the to-do list at a more satisfying pace. We’ve added two large asparagus beds, coop 3.0 has raised the bar once more in poultry housing, the orchard looks positively professionally and my promised potting shed is in the planning phase finally.
What I had not expected was how good all of that would feel and that it would come so early and that he’d be so glad about it and that we’d be prepared enough for it to not miss the income much in the foreseeable future.
There’s incredible empowerment and peace of mind in preparing, and not just financially. It has gone in a single year from “Prepping” being something we heard mocked for a decade in the mainstream to now feeling like we were choosing wisely all along—not the easy road for sure, but the right road for us and the many others doing likewise.
And with that a wee bit of a boast.
And another. Still, mask-free, with no need or intention to alter that reality or any of the layers horse shit coming down the pipeline with it in future. Have I earned the right yet to say what I really think about these fucking vaccines? Decker, at Dispatches from the Asylum, says it best so far: vials of battery acid.
Just mark me down in your permanent ‘anti-vaxx’ file and if they send the goons to our house, warn them they’ll be given a good ole-fashioned goose chase. (hmm, bravado before breakfast, I must be feeling good!)
Food for thought for the New Year:
“Ignorantly worshiping our own being on the theater of the external world leads to pathological behavior and neurosis. We are ensnared and enslaved to the will of despots in all sorts of guises. We are wide open to irrationality, manipulation, mania and insanity. As parents often work to deliberately undermine our will and identity, the world’s leaders and misleaders use our psychic dissociation to their advantage. In fact, our estrangement from ourselves is the main reason for the rise of all tyranny. However, the deadly predicament ends the moment we heed the inscription at the Oracle of Delphi – “Gnothi Seuton” or Know Thyself. No other instruction is needed on the journey toward enlightenment.”
It’s GORGEOUS here. Sorry. The ‘weather gods’ Or, maybe that’s the weather engineers, are smiling on us, which is rare enough that we must embrace it for all it’s worth!
Sometimes I joke with Hubby, who chuckles like the Hero he really is: “Sweetie, the Sultans must be in town!” 😉
Time for few words, photos do it justice much better anyway. Happy Solstice, wherever y’all are!
New dog house and coop 3.0Weather whiplash less extreme, here, for the momentGhost garden :). Floating row cover keeping us in salads.Not too concerned about itRetirement sucks
Kensho Homestead 