Cattails

Fyi this is -NOT- my picture... I'm have camera issues again...
  We went out this morning and gathered some cattail shoots to try. I have never eaten them before and neither has Silver. So we went over to the pond across the street, me wearing shorts. To gather some from our neighbor as the ones we have planted do not have enough of a hold in the pond to be worth harvesting from. I am glad it is a not cold morning as the water was definitely cold and let me say unless you have a dry spot, you will be in the water to try and get your shoots. They are almost at the stage of not being small enough to eat. Granted there are tons of “baby” cattails growing there, no bigger than wild onions. From the instructions I received on it the section I want is the white part closest to the “tuber” without cutting up the tuber. I harvested about 8 of them of different sizes. They have a pleasant aroma when they are cut semi-sweet. After cleaning off the outer section that was a little tough and washing them thoroughly we tried them raw. They taste very good raw, slightly sweet. I have discovered that lightly frying them in olive oil ruins their flavor. Silver's estimation of them they would be best serves sliced up on a salad raw or maybe in a stew. If anyone has an “cooking” recommendations for cattail shoots please pass them along. I love the flavor and want to find other uses for them. BE Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Snow Day version 2

As in yesterday the kids had a snow day.  We had a reasonable amount of snow finally for this winter, and due to the rain that fell before the snow...
  As you can now see the pond is now full!  YEAH!  Now if it just stays full we'll be doing very well.  The fun part we had yesterday was that the top was all slush. so just to see we were tossing snow balls onto the top of the pond and it would hit the slush leaving a dent in the slush which under it would fill with liquid water.
Do you see all that wonderful snow??    It was a fun storm that is for sure as it had started us off with rain Monday afternoon.  Then in the evening, and I was watching it happen.  We got large fluffy snow flakes that as I watched were "sticking" to the ground.
 ...and as for my comment about watching it.  I was standing at the door making sure the dogs didn't run off while they went out to go do their business; which took less than five minutes.  So I saw the snow starting to fall and "stick" in that time frame.
 At 4 am yesterday morning we got the message that the kids would be off of school for the day.  Which after I opened the door yesterday morning I understood why buses here wouldn't be able to pick up the kids.  As I know the buses here do not use chains they would not have done the dirt roads here yesterday.
 So this morning looking at all the school closings lists the kids were semi disappointed that they were going to school today.  I guess the school determined that the roads were used enough so their would be grooves in the snow on the dirt roads.  I am not sure how much the school bus the kids are on traverse the dirt roads around here.
 This morning the weather person told us due to what the storm is doing we may have snow for the next few days, on and off.  Well I know this will help our "rainfall totals" so that's good.  Though we may wind up with a bit of flooding when it all melts.  Good thing we live on a hill.
 We lost our internet for a portion of yesterday as after the snow storm the dish was coated with snow.  So Silver had to go out and clean it off carefully, and that did it.  Though  for some reason at some point last night it went out again.  Maybe one of these days I'll get to pintrist and put in all the pics I have to put in there.
 Well I have to run the kids around to get them moving a bit more this morning.  Have a great day.

 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Pond News

Well this morning on my way to feed the chickens I got myself a nice surprise(yes I know "got is baaaad grammar but in this case it suits my needs).
   As you can see we seem to have a tad bit more water in our pond.  As yesterday when we went out to work it was about 1/8 of the way full seeing it at about 1/2 was a big surprise.  A good surprise  but still a surprise.
 Yesterday the pond was not was smooth as it is now in this picture, and as you can see it is only half the pond.  That... unfortunately is due tot he fact that after I fed the chickens I ran back into the house for the camera and got a beautiful picture of the full pond.  Then I slid on the ice and it fell into the water.
 I fished it back out, but as I don'rt know if I'll get the image off of the camera I went and got our old smart phone and used it's camera as I know it has a nice camera on it.  I guess if this keeps up I need to get use to using the phone camera, we should know in a few hours to a couple days if the camera survives the trip into the pond.
 As for the pond itself we are suppose to get more rain today then it changes to snow tonight for the next to days.  So it is very possible we will have a full pond by week's end.  Now we just have to hope it stays full.  If it doesn't we will try Silver's method of "sealing" the pond bottom with clay cat litter.  He says if you get straight clay cat litter and make a slurry of it and coat the bottom of the pond it will seal the "leaks" in it.  Hey, if it works that's good.

 Here is the other picture of the pond.
  The only spot it hasn't done much yet is on the shallow end, which is where my cat tails are going to be growing when the pond is full and it gets warmer.  Though I imagine the blackberry canes that grow on that side of the pond will now wind up HUGE with all the extra water they will have there.
 Pity Paris died over the summer she'd have a blast this summer with a pond in our yard, the two pups do not even seem interested in investigating the pond as it is now.  Neither does Midnight their daddy.  Can't wait to see the cats when it's full of water and try to walk across that log over the middle.
 As for the rest of the water that is in our yard...
 All of our trenches have water in them, also the new septic for the house has a layer of water in it as well.  Funny thing is as I was leaving to feed the chickens and was walking next to the electric trench and noticed the water I thought to myself.  I'd live to see that much water in the pond.  Guess that falls under the "ask and ye shall receive" heading huh?
 We still need to get the piles of mud down a bit, which I am figuring they will work good to "deter" some of the plant growth I don't want in some areas.  We also have to restore the trench that went from the section of woods that line the road to our pond as it was the natural draining area.  I'm going to have to hand dig it.  At least it will ensure steady influx of fresh water though.
 I also did notice that when I watched the water in the pond yesterday that it was still bubbling from the ground up, so it's possible it may stay liquid at the deepest parts in the winter which would be great for raising fish.
 Well that's it before breakfast, which is going to be beef hash (leftover from last night's roast) with eggs on top and maybe some of my fresh sourdough.  While my oven is on the fritz I can only make my "no knead" sourdough bread as it cooks at 500 degrees.
 ..and don't forget today's moral... don't stand on ice above a pond to take pictures with your camera!
 Have a good day all!

 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Happy Track Hoe Day!

 Well today was FUN, we picked up the track hoe,;(again I am amazed that there is such a thing) and after seeing the full sized back hoe up close I defiantly think the track hoe is the better option for us. I was very happy when we picked it up that the hitch held, which I was worried about it. As we left the young man who got us hooked up (literally).
 However as you can see when we got very close to home the tire... ...didn't last. Well I called the person about it, and he came out quickly with a replacement. Within 20 minutes and considering where we were sitting that was fast. He even made a joke, as he used the track hoe to lift the trailer. “It comes with it's own jack”, cute joke especially while we were pissed off at the loss of the time. So we drove it home, the dirt road was so much -fun-; we had no traction and we had to go at about 15 miles an hour to go up the first hill. We had to “get off to the side” twice on the way to the house on the dirt road as no one would yield for us.

 So the first order of business when we got home was, COFFEE! For Silver anyway, (btw pics will now be tossed in at random)I set up a new pot of coffee and put cookies in the oven for a warm treat. While he “figured out” how to start it.
While he has used heavy equipment before this was a different model than he was use too using. Of course our dogs were not happy with this new loud scary looking device and only stopped barking once Silver stopped using it at about 4pm. After he figured out how it worked he started on digging the pond out for our fishies to go in. I am also going to grow the edible water lilies and cat tails for food production. We are also considering either ducks or geese to keep in the pond, mainly to keep the algae down. If we get pairs then we can butcher the extras. So we have a short area for the little fishies and the cat tails to grow in. Then a deeper area for catfish and full grown other fish. We are considering Tilapia. I think the deep part is at least 6 foot deep maybe deeper, hard to tell until the extra dirt is “ground down” and we can tell the “actual” ground line. After we finished it off and worked on a few other projects we discovered something that may be very good news. We may have a spring under where we dug for the pond. I will know more tomorrow after it has sat overnight.
  When we finished working the pond Silver went out and dug a septic for the dome out past our tree line. The only problem we had there is he was hitting something too hard for the track hoe to cut through after about 3 foot down. So he had to opt for a wider septic than a deep one, which we would have preferred. Once he finished that he dug the trench for it all the way into the area we have cleared for the house.
  The next item we did was “unpleasant”, but necessary. We needed to dig out some more on our current septic. No I did not take pictures of it, I didn't want to take pictures of it shudders it's disgusting.

 After that Silver went and turned the garbage pile of things we cannot burn or are already burned and is just the garbage ash. The thing that surprised me was that it seems some of the things “out there” are decomposing. Now before anyone rips my head off. Please recall the post where I commented on the fact that while I really want to be “green” I know in some things it not possible. Garbage, is one of those “things” I burn my trash, then I dispose of the ash and the “unburnables” in a pile that will not if it ever composes down be used for food crops. However, I will be happy to grow flowers over them. That is all we have managed to do today, tomorrow we dig the trenches for the well and the electric. Then Silver will have to find things to do with it.... I am sure he will figure something out, one thing he wants to do is remove that engine block that was here when we moved in.

 I am baking some sourdough brownies right now, and tomorrow morning is a bread/laundry day.

 Have a happy weekend everyone!

 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Pond Work

I'm not sure how many of you know this, but we've been trying to dig a pond since last fall.  I had secretly hoped to get it done before the end of fall so this spring it would have filled up with rain water.  No such luck.  We have however had some luck now in digging it.
  The "red thing" is my daughter's sweatshirt, but this is the space we are putting the pond in.  The lower right of the picture is one of the spots we are digging in.  We are also digging just past the sweat shirt where we have a fallen tree broken into two pieces.   There is a little bit more space to the right and left of the picture that will be included in the pond as well. As I said in an earlier post, the dry ground has made digging a little bit easier as since we are digging it by hand the pick we are "cutting" the ground with is going right through it like it's nothing.

   This spot is a fairly natural depression in the ground we came upon when we first cleared this area of trees. Right about where I was standing to take this and to the right of the image is where we are going to put in a small waterfall to help aerate the pond.  The side with the fallen tree will be our shallow end and where we'll have cattails growing.

 We are also going to get some fish when it's done and filled, I read in a book that it's a good idea to get a bucket full of water from a local pond to make sure you have the right microrganisims (spelling?) in your water.  Good thing there is a pong across the street that I can get some from then.  I also have permission from the people who own the spot across the street to transplant some of thier cattails into my pond when it's done.

    I imagine it'll probably take all summer to finish digging the pond out, but I'm not fully sure on that.  We might get done in a month if we keep at it good and not skip a clear day digging.  I guess it's a good thing we needed to fill in the root cellar we were digging as we're putting the dirt there.

   That's it for now,

 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

First major kid work day!

Since the kids have been off of school since the afternoon of the 14th they have been going to ... bible school ... the last week.  Well now they are officially on our work time now, and today they are getting their first full day of work since they started school.  We are also putting them on a "withdrawal diet", as they'd been eating food from the school which of course is all prepackaged.. and then I learn as par for the course they'd get soda's from teachers.  They'd come home very crabby from this and so we are taking the processed crud out of their diets  this whole week.

We started the morning off with some pond digging, the one good thing about the dry weather we've had is it's making it much easier to dig the pond.  Our pick is cutting through the dirt much faster now, the only thing holding us up now is my eldest daughter who takes 10 minutes to shovel the dirt that we cut out in a couple of minutes.  We only got 5 wheel barrows full done before the time allotted for that chore ran out.

After our lunch break we are going to dig out the chicken yard some more, this will be assisted by my youngest as my son helped with the pond.  So the older 2 kids will be on puppy watch while me and my youngest works on the chicken yard.  Silver's been out clearing more with the weedeater, and I'm hoping this fall we'll get all the brush out of our clearing and we can start setting up for  new garden beds in late fall.

I have some pictures to show you now that I had to take with our phone as our camera still has no batteries, so if the quality isn't that great sorry:

This is one of the buckets we are going to use for our tomato plants, as you can see the bottom has a big crack in it.  We got 5 of these about 2 years ago from the MFA here for $5 each.  They had contained some kind of feed for livestock, they sell the broken ones for a song to anyone who wants them.

This is one of the buckets after I have put in three of my tomato plants and a dill plant.  I read last year that dill will keep horn worms off of tomatoes, so we will try it.  The soil for these pots is, chicken manure, our clay soil, perlite, and oyster shell.

This tire pot has 2 basil plants and a stevia in it.  Yes, I'm using tires; they are our old tires from the van.  I am hoping that it works out well for growing things in, I've heard recently a large amount of people using used tires for all kinds of things so; I figured what the hay.

This one has marjoram, oregano, thyme, and peppermint in it. Now these pots have the same mix as the tomato one, except I did not put in any oyster shell.  As I am using the oyster shell to prevent blossom end rot on the tomatoes.  TI worked last year when placed on top of the soil, so I'm trying it mixed into it.

This is one of the volunteer squash plants, if you can see it; they are getting ready to flower.  I am guessing it's a summer squash type, but I am not sure which kind of summer squash it is.

This is one of the four wintergreen plants that I bought and planted.  As you can see it has new growth on it, I am hoping they all take well to the ground.

This is part of our bush beans that I planted, they seem to love the space they are in as they are growing very fast and lush.  I am hoping that they flower out soon, and I'm hoping to get lots of beans as my favorite thing in the garden is to go out and pick beans right from the plant and snack on them.

This is the Darkstar summer squash that I planted, every single seed had sprouted, I am hoping they grow well past this point, as I'm looking forward to having some nice squash stir fry's for lunch in mid summer.

This is the one lonely sweet pepper that we got from the ones I started, all the rest of our peppers are hot ones.  So I put the sweet out into the garden and when I get more soil set up I am going to be potting the hot peppers.

This is 3 of our now 5 Brussel sprouts, they are having some minor cabbage worm issues but otherwise they seem to be fine.

This is one little bit of the wild blackberry plants growing in  our clearing.  I wanted to show everyone how many berries are appearing on the plants this year, which is like double that there were last year.  I just hope they get good sized by picking time.

I'm hoping this is an actual wild grape, I need to locate the book I have that shows the difference in the leaves between the grape and the other plant (I can't recall if it's moon berry, or moon weed).  They seem to be producing a lot so far.

This is the wild rose that I have been "training" into a piece of fence.  It is going to have a ton of flowers this year!  I can't wait to see them.

Well I need to get off here and heat up lunch, we're having beef soup from last night.  Then I get to go out and drag my girls to help me muck out the chicken yard, so we can mix up more soil later.

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

Long Hot Day

I spent a fairly long day in the heat today, I was woken up at almost 7am by Paris who wanted out apparently. I harvested some lovely lettuce that we had for lunch today. Silver having new string for the weed eater was out clearing more of the clearing. The grapes.. well I hope they are wild grape, are doing wonderfully this year and I see tons of bunches forming on them.

I had the kids out to work on digging out the pond. I had my son take the dirt via wheel barrow, to a pile up in front so I could mix some soil for our herb plants and possibly the tomatoes. We discovered the cats eating our nice new catnip so it is now in a hanging pot so our cats cannot eat it.

I baked my first yellow cake from scratch, I've done chocolate before; but I wanted to try a yellow and we have one now. It is a bit hard to eat a whole slice so it might last a bit.

I used the wheel barrow to mix my soil, now I have to mention we are using the four old tires for some of our plants. I have the herbs in 2, including the new Stevia plant. I used chicken manure, perlite, and our clay soil for the tires for the herbs. The pot with the tomatoes and dill got also some oyster shell in it as we learned last year it needed it for blossom end rot. I am thinking of putting our hot peppers in one of the remaining tires and the luffa gourds in the other.

Well that's it for now,

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

Not a pond Day

Well I had a nice quiet morning, I woke up at about 7am here. I went and fed all the animals and watered the garden then sat and enjoyed about 2 cups of tea before anyone else started waking up. The plan today was to go out and do some digging in the pond before midday.

Well I went out after breakfast this morning and discovered something. I had sent my son out yesterday with the weed whacker to cut from the front back through all of the clearing. Well he went out, he cut some of the grasses down. Only by where the dog house we aren't using is. So we spent this morning clearing the rest of it, between the weed whacker and clippers we got most of it clear before noon. Funny thing where we are digging the pond we have JUST grass growing, after cutting about half of that I raked tit up for the chickens to go wild on.

It seems all my Dark Star zucchini are sprouting, so we will have about 6 plants; which hopefully will produce lots of fruits. The Lemon ones are just starting to sprout now, and one of the pumpkins has sprouted.

We used the Weed Whacker so much that we are now out of string for it. Pity it's one of the few types that cannot use the plastic permanent blades. So we have to wait till after the first to get more string for it.

The man who had my girls fostering the puppies and training them, is going to lend us a kennel for Paris and her puppies. Which will be wonderful as I’m going to have to bleach my floor as they puppies now almost a month old are wandering a peeing everywhere. Anybody living fairly nearby want a puppy? We will have 4 of the chocolate females available in about 2 more months. Mom is of hunter line (no we have no proof) she chases birds, as does the father of them. Just contact me if you want one.

That's it for now,

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