Feel
Joy in good company.
Joy in good company.
Feel
Comfort wherever you may be.
Comfort wherever you may be.
Feel
Peace on Earth and among all creatures.
Peace on Earth and among all creatures.
Feel
Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Indian Summer
First off, a quick observation: I don't know about you, but the Internet here is giving me fits lately. It's very slow or doesn't work at all. Several times I gave up trying to blog posts. I even had to take some pictures off the blog in order to get it to load. Surfing and just reaching many web sites is almost painful. I'd be more upset except that I expect the grid will go down entirely at some point. I'll miss electricity, but then we are used to having the power go out here.
Hunting season has been good for us this year. Tom got a buck with his bow on the first day of bow season, and he got a nice doe the day before yesterday with his rifle. I was grateful he shot it before it got dark -- I hate trying to drag a deer out of the woods after dark. Yesterday when he was out in his deer stand across the road, someone got smart and decided to spend the day in the back yard. She liked munching on my blackberries and kept eyeing my Honeycrisp apple tree that I wisely enclosed with a fence. The chickens watched her warily from afar (perched on the forest garden fence that protects most of the other fruit trees and berry bushes).
My Solar Return (a.k.a. birthday) was pleasant and uneventful. It was three years since I made myself a birthday cake so I figured I would make my favorite -- German Chocolate cake. It lasted all of three days around here!
I bought myself a beautiful pair of wool combs from Paradise Fibers and 400 heddles to add to my loom. Now I can buy a whole fleece and practice combing the wool. Here's a question for you fiber artists out there: Can I spin wool from just combing it, or do I have to get some carders and card it first?
Sarah sent me some fancy coffee beans and hot sauce. I ground the coffee in my Great-great-grandmother's coffee grinder. Boy, the smell of that freshly ground coffee was wonderful!
Tom bought me a neat book called Putting Down Roots. I really got into it because I found that I am doing what a lot of the early pioneers of Wisconsin did like growing gardens in beds as opposed to row gardening, making fences with wood brush, drying and preserving crops for winter food and next year's seed, and so on. There are even recipes; I may try making the rutabega pudding though I won't tell any of the picky eaters here what it is until after they eat it!
We had some more snow right before Election Day, but since then the weather has been mild enough. I've been able to get most of my fire safety zone cut back and expect to finish in a couple of days. It feels good to believe I am moving forward in my homesteading work. I'm eyeing a spot near the house for a root cellar.
Well, it's a holiday weekend so I'll keep this short. Be safe and have a wonderful holiday!
Hunting season has been good for us this year. Tom got a buck with his bow on the first day of bow season, and he got a nice doe the day before yesterday with his rifle. I was grateful he shot it before it got dark -- I hate trying to drag a deer out of the woods after dark. Yesterday when he was out in his deer stand across the road, someone got smart and decided to spend the day in the back yard. She liked munching on my blackberries and kept eyeing my Honeycrisp apple tree that I wisely enclosed with a fence. The chickens watched her warily from afar (perched on the forest garden fence that protects most of the other fruit trees and berry bushes).
My Solar Return (a.k.a. birthday) was pleasant and uneventful. It was three years since I made myself a birthday cake so I figured I would make my favorite -- German Chocolate cake. It lasted all of three days around here!
I bought myself a beautiful pair of wool combs from Paradise Fibers and 400 heddles to add to my loom. Now I can buy a whole fleece and practice combing the wool. Here's a question for you fiber artists out there: Can I spin wool from just combing it, or do I have to get some carders and card it first?
Sarah sent me some fancy coffee beans and hot sauce. I ground the coffee in my Great-great-grandmother's coffee grinder. Boy, the smell of that freshly ground coffee was wonderful!
Tom bought me a neat book called Putting Down Roots. I really got into it because I found that I am doing what a lot of the early pioneers of Wisconsin did like growing gardens in beds as opposed to row gardening, making fences with wood brush, drying and preserving crops for winter food and next year's seed, and so on. There are even recipes; I may try making the rutabega pudding though I won't tell any of the picky eaters here what it is until after they eat it!
We had some more snow right before Election Day, but since then the weather has been mild enough. I've been able to get most of my fire safety zone cut back and expect to finish in a couple of days. It feels good to believe I am moving forward in my homesteading work. I'm eyeing a spot near the house for a root cellar.
Well, it's a holiday weekend so I'll keep this short. Be safe and have a wonderful holiday!
Sunday, October 28, 2012
The Leaves Have Flown
I can't believe the end of October is here again. Happy birthdays go out to our friends, Bill (Tom's Air Force buddy) and Pat (Carrie's mom).
Tom helped me fix the road side facing fence in the field before the ground got hard. The fence looks alot better! I didn't realize just how many fence posts were down! I have been trying to figure out how many 6' and 8' fence posts I'll need to replace the creek side of the fence next spring. Cutting poles in the woods will make for good exercise before the snow gets too deep. And speaking of snow, we had our first snow on October 5th. The weather went from balmy --
to
in a matter of hours. Happily the snow melted quickly though the temperatures have steadily declined. When I got up this morning it was 18°F.
The chicks are getting big and nearly feathered out. I have given them the run of the coop and leave the door open in case any want to venture out into the yard.
The bigger hens are not bothering the little ones. In fact, I have two hens that insist on staying with the chicks and laying their eggs in a corner of the coop near where the smaller chicks like to congregate. They coo and cluck while some of the smaller ones watch them build their makeshift nests. I am surprised that the hens are laying. With sunlight hours decreasing I did not expect to get any eggs till spring. The eggs are too small to sell yet, but we are happy to eat them. Even though they are tiny, what a difference in taste to store bought eggs!
I canned up my sauerkraut. This year I tried using plastic bags filled with water to seal the kraut under the brine. It worked very well on one crock, but the bag was leaking on the second crock and I had to replace it. I worried about the brine being watered down, but because the kraut had only just started to ferment, I decided to leave it alone and the batch turned out fine. In the first crock I didn't even need to remove the top layer, but I skimmed a bit off anyway just to be sure the kraut was ok. You readers sure leave some great comments!
I also went on my yearly trek to Bayfield in search of apples. (I forgot to take my camera so no pictures this year!) I was not disappointed. I came home with three bushels that went into apple pies and canned apple slices, apple sauce, apple juice and apple jelly. Two bushels were "seconds" and sold for half price, and I bought one "first" quality bushel for fresh eating. Since I was in "canning mode" I took the last of the hot peppers from the greenhouse and tried making some hot pepper jam. Oh, yeah. It's good. Hot, but good. Then I dug up some horseradish roots and made some horseradish. It came out pretty mild, but that's ok.
Tom decided to dress up the fireplace so we hired our neighbor, Scott Tomek, a stone mason, to do it for us. He did a beautiful job! I could feel the feng shui improve as he worked!
Say, I found a neat You Tube series from the BBC called Wartime Farm. It's very enjoyable and broken into hour long segments that make it easier to watch. I learned a lot! It was amazing what the farmers in Britain had to put up with and did during World War II. Food for thought . . . .
The wild rose hips are pretty hanging on the bushes. I decided to leave them this year for the birds instead of collecting them for tea.
Happy Halloween!
Tom helped me fix the road side facing fence in the field before the ground got hard. The fence looks alot better! I didn't realize just how many fence posts were down! I have been trying to figure out how many 6' and 8' fence posts I'll need to replace the creek side of the fence next spring. Cutting poles in the woods will make for good exercise before the snow gets too deep. And speaking of snow, we had our first snow on October 5th. The weather went from balmy --
to
in a matter of hours. Happily the snow melted quickly though the temperatures have steadily declined. When I got up this morning it was 18°F.
The chicks are getting big and nearly feathered out. I have given them the run of the coop and leave the door open in case any want to venture out into the yard.
The bigger hens are not bothering the little ones. In fact, I have two hens that insist on staying with the chicks and laying their eggs in a corner of the coop near where the smaller chicks like to congregate. They coo and cluck while some of the smaller ones watch them build their makeshift nests. I am surprised that the hens are laying. With sunlight hours decreasing I did not expect to get any eggs till spring. The eggs are too small to sell yet, but we are happy to eat them. Even though they are tiny, what a difference in taste to store bought eggs!
I canned up my sauerkraut. This year I tried using plastic bags filled with water to seal the kraut under the brine. It worked very well on one crock, but the bag was leaking on the second crock and I had to replace it. I worried about the brine being watered down, but because the kraut had only just started to ferment, I decided to leave it alone and the batch turned out fine. In the first crock I didn't even need to remove the top layer, but I skimmed a bit off anyway just to be sure the kraut was ok. You readers sure leave some great comments!
I also went on my yearly trek to Bayfield in search of apples. (I forgot to take my camera so no pictures this year!) I was not disappointed. I came home with three bushels that went into apple pies and canned apple slices, apple sauce, apple juice and apple jelly. Two bushels were "seconds" and sold for half price, and I bought one "first" quality bushel for fresh eating. Since I was in "canning mode" I took the last of the hot peppers from the greenhouse and tried making some hot pepper jam. Oh, yeah. It's good. Hot, but good. Then I dug up some horseradish roots and made some horseradish. It came out pretty mild, but that's ok.
Tom decided to dress up the fireplace so we hired our neighbor, Scott Tomek, a stone mason, to do it for us. He did a beautiful job! I could feel the feng shui improve as he worked!
Say, I found a neat You Tube series from the BBC called Wartime Farm. It's very enjoyable and broken into hour long segments that make it easier to watch. I learned a lot! It was amazing what the farmers in Britain had to put up with and did during World War II. Food for thought . . . .
The wild rose hips are pretty hanging on the bushes. I decided to leave them this year for the birds instead of collecting them for tea.
Happy Halloween!
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