Review of Listia.com

HEH... well I've been having some fun over on www.listia.com bidding with credits,not money; on seeds. Me and Silver have managed to win some dwarf teddy bear seeds and some sugarcane seeds. I also got some acorn squash seeds this morning on it.

Now I really enjoy this website as it's a good way to pass along seeds you don't need and to pick up some hard to find ones. I.E... the sugar cane. You join the site and start with about 500 credits to bid on auctions, you gain more credits by “gaining levels”, buying them, or from auctions you set up.

Me and Silver set up separately auctions of the two packs of carrot seeds I had that we can't use yet. Our ground just isn't good enough as yet to grow carrots in a year or two maybe.

Now while perusing this website I have discovered a few “funny” things about this site. ...not bad funny though... First one... in the seed category you will see many seeds up for auction and sometimes muti-auctions by the same person that are the same item. Also these seeds come in small amounts. My dwarf sunflowers are only 6 seeds... which if I were paying cash I put out I might not be willing to put out as much as I did.

The other thing is while tech everything on it is FREE.. tech... I think if you buy credit it's not free. There are people who make you pay shipping... even on a few seeds... come one.. they aren't willing to put out one stamp? I could certainly understand not being willing to do shipping on a LARGE item... but a pack of seeds... or just a couple... it's silly.

Then.. oh this is good... finding “organic” Lambs Quarters, and this morning... “heirloom” cattails..., I've got “heirloom” cattails across the street, and I know a few other spots that have them. Though, I imagine some people might not know that while yes you can eat both of these plants... one is by most considered a weed. The other is grown as “pond decor”, which is sad as cattails are a supermarket of food; well food and weaving material.

However overall I think the website is good, and fun too. Just remember what I mentioned if you go into it. Also if any of my readers wants to join if you use the following link I get a bonus and supposedly you'll get an extra 100 credits.

https://www.listia.com/signup/1604452

We have a mass of bean flowers right now, my secondary beans are sprouting up front as they are a different type. If I'm lucky my melons will stay around and produce. I picked another pint of berries this morning and we did some pond digging too. Gotta send my son out to cut wood later.

Have a great day!

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed BE...

One nice Saturday morning...

Good Saturday morning all!

Nice warm-ish morning here, and we started the morning off with a fresh loaf of my sourdough cooked in my new cast iron dutch oven. However, I think this new “toy” has a slight problem, I believe the lid handle is painted.... I hope the paint will safely burn off. As the handle itself seems to be metal and probably is cast too.

I have taken up to making a very multi grain sourdough for now on, our discount grocer has a “7 grain” mix, it also has flaked barley, then I add oatmeal, hulled (non salted) sunflower seeds, and flax seed. It makes for a wonderful tasting bread.

Our first two “dinner guests” actually did not come to dinner, we gave them to Queen Sized Tink and now are deciding what to do with our two polish roosters. Now I said deciding as well, even though we keep a good amount of “water bowls” out for them and our couple cats that prefer to be outside; they prefer to drink out of our septic. I don't think I want to eat them now.... I'm sure a few people will agree with that.

So I have to spend part of today seeing how many of my seed potatoes they ate, and how many more of the onion sets they dug up. If you didn't know, chickens (at least mine) don't eat onion. Also as a friend on another website has asked me some info about my chickens after I posted the Record Keeping post I'll post what I wrote there in case anyone wants to know this information:

I buy feed from our local feed store as the organic feed is about 4x's the price here. I feed my 16 birds (1 rooster) 3, 50 pound bags a month @ about $8 per bag. That is the lest expensive feed here and it's mixed at the local major feed company on site. They get kitchen scraps and in summer the odd "weed" that I found they like. (chickens will eat almost anything).

We haven't used extra light, but our coop has that big screened opening at the east side that gives them tons of light. They have their "yard" that they if they chose to be in at any hour. They get cicadas (in season), and tomato horn-worms (in season). They are also almost a year old and haven't had their molt yet.

we also don't have extra heat, this winter was mild, we are going to upgrade our coop this year (crosses fingers) with a power box in it for if it is necessary. I do not feed them back their egg shells, I buy oyster shell only, I don't want to risk them eating their eggs in any way.

... also I would occasionally add milk to their water or some molasses (heated water and added it). We have also made our own suet when we had tallow for deep frying and it would get a tad "old". I'd mix in some grains I have for my bread making, some milk powder, dried berries, and pour in the hot tallow then let it harden overnight in a cool spot (in winter outside works well) Then I'd put it into the chicken yard in a suet feeder for them to inhale (which they did, the one time I had walked back to the house to get them some water and by the time I came back it was gone).

So they are pampered a tad...

I thought this info might be helpful and if it is good.

We have as of today shrunk our “indoor” wood piles down to just one as if we need heat it might be a first thing in the morning to rid us of the chill. So where we had the one wood pile under my girls' ladder, we are putting in some shelves. ...I like shelves... shelves are nice... I don't have many shelves, now I'll have two more.

Out during my normal garden walk this morning I noticed one cabbage sprout from the seeds I planted. Now from the cabbage plants I transplanted only one seems to be “holding on”, the others have changed to an odd color, and I can't figure out what is causing it. According to what I know I transplanted them at the right time, the broccoli I planted near them are actually doing about 100x's better, and has some noticeable new (and better) growth. The Hyacinth that I saw coming up (which I planted 2 years ago and this is the first year it has come up) has bloomed with pink flowers. The elderberry trees(?) are coming along in their leaf growth. I am worried about the fig however as the buds don't seem to be getting larger, but we'll see what happens with it. The rosemary plant that I transplanted into the ground last fall has new growth on it, Silver thinks we might wind up with a bush of it this year. The prickly pear that I planted last summer also has new growth, as does my yucca plants. I planted some chives in one of my trunk “pots” and they have sprouted, and about ½ of my tomato and peppers have as well.

So far this year is promising to be pretty good on our food production side, I am hoping it will only get better. I am waiting, and waiting for our dogwoods to finally bloom, they've had their flower buds on them for months. I do hope they bloom soon they are always a good show in the spring. With all the nice weather and not seeing much green yet outside I've been looking at ornamental plants with lots of color, just to see some color. Anyone else feel that way right now?

Hope you have a good weekend!

Be Well Be Safe and Blessed Be...

Odd moments while driving

Dang I wish I had my camera working, because then I'd get pictures for what I'm about to comment on here.

For what it looks like here there are a good amount of farms now up for sale, and that bothers me. A year ago these same farmers were doing fine, and even considering the happenstance that these people just might have only just decided to go to the city to make life easier. That is still a lot of farms.

I saw at least a dozen farms up for same and 10 of those dozen were not up for sale last year. I think it is a disturbing trend. I do hope that it does not continue. I also wonder if it is due to the current issues in farming over the big M and it's policies? Especially with their GM products.

I personally don't want GMO food any where in my diet. Not even in the feed for the meat I may/ may not eat. Once it gets into the "system" where does it stop? What happens down the line? Maybe this will happen:

The farmer walked out to his field shaking his head, looking at the corn crops all dead; and not knowing why. This has been the first time this has ever happened as far as the farmer knew. He had been growing corn for about five years after his father stopped and gave him the farm. As he looked around even across the street he could see those corn fields dead as well, and those weren't his fields.

As far as he knows all the corn fields are dead, the only place he had heard of any growing still was on a tiny farm about five miles away. He knew though that he couldn't grow that corn, it would kill him. About a year ago someone had gotten into the county grain silo some of that corn, and it had mixed into the rest of the good corn. It was a disaster, all the livestock fed that corn died and so did the people whose food was tainted by it.

The farmer shakes his head thinking about what else that farm was growing. What was a tomato anyway? He had never heard of such a thing as a tomato, and what were beans? The only food that existed (at least as he grew up knowing) was corn made or processed meat. Everyone who grew food grew either corn, chickens, or cows. So what weird kind of food were those people growing?

He could not believe it, as he was offered food from those people the one time he went over to there. He was sick for a week after and the doctors gave him five bottles of pills to get rid of what ever was in that food. He was told by the doctor later that whatever that farm grew it did not have the one thing that all life. It was a a non-modified food, the farmer had never heard of such a thing before. His father when he had asked him told him that when he was a kid they had such foods. Also that people had only started eating the modified foods.

So he guessed someone must have hid those seeds when they were destroying all the non-modified seeds. It didn't matter now if there were as now people could only eat the modified crops now, same with the live stock. The farmer shakes his head again, his dad's childhood days were over 50 years ago, it must have been an odd time.

While yes, this is not going on now; we do not know the future affects of GM products. What if... one of the future side affects is that anything fed with them can then only eat them? What will happen if humanity becomes dependent on those alterations in the food to survive? It would change our genetic code, and then people who stayed away from them would be a different species from the “normal” humans. While this might not happen, we just don't know. We need more study of these products before humans should ingest them in any form. Even 2^nd hand form.

I do truly wonder about it...

Be Well, and Blessed Be...

What's in a name?

The name I chose has two reasons, the last half is due to my partner's last name; but the first part... Me and my partner both have affinity to wolves and love anything about them, so it is "Wolf Woods".

Yesterday I sent out my contract for the land back to the Ozark Land office and because I wanted to make sure they received them I sent it priority mail... cost me almost $20 but I believe it is worth it. It is suppose to arrive by Monday afternoon. I was so excited to see on their website the 'sold' plastered across the property I copied the image to my laptop to look at it when I'm not busy.

Anywho... My partner is in the process of designing our temporary home for us to live in before we build our 'dream' home. That home we are planning to be as "green" as possible, which means... I hope we can afford to make it "green". When we start the temporary house I will also start a small garden for now with seeds that I have already so I won't be buying any more this year. Next year I am planning to plant much more.

When my partner has a image of our temporary house I am going to put it on here for people to see. All we really need to do now is find something to transport all the things we are planning to take with us down there and then we can move down and start.

Wish us luck!!