Update!

As everyone knows we have been offline for quite sometime now. WE still will be for a bit as we are doing some bill catch up for the trip the kids took to see their grandmother. Once those are caught up we will be getting our internet back. Hopefully, before winter; if not it will be near winter.

As for updating everyone... We have all of the wood we think we need for the winter cut and stacked. I have one batch of my blackberry jam made up and one batch of melon jam made up. Once I can manage some more jelly jars I'll have much more blackberry jam made. WE didn't manage to get any peaches to can this year and all the wild grapes kinda died on us.

Our tomatoes have been producing fairly well due to the drought conditions. I imagine we'd have gotten more if we weren't under drought conditions. I have 3 of my own melons getting ready to ripen soon. Our main garden area has been a bit of a wash though as the 4-legged lawn mowers ate everything but the brussels sprouts. They even ate the leaves on the Elderberry trees! WE have discovered the luffa gourd plant is a very prolific one. I, not knowing how well it would grow; planted 3 at each of the “climbing points” for the plants. Well the plant is trying to climb everything now and we have to keep moving it daily. It looks like a tree! Silver says it grows at least 3 inches a day. It has tons of flowers on it and we have a few of the gourds growing at this point. The problem we had been having though was that the local ants love the plant but hate the flowers on it. So they have been cutting them off.

The kids are now back in school and I wound up with a few irritating things due to this. I discovered for my son to be in shop class I -HAVE TO- have some kind of accident insurance on him. ...when I took shop when I was a kid the school systems didn't require it. Seems our local school doesn't have the money to clean their gym floor daily or wax it more than once a year so, we have to buy shoes for the kids just to wear in gym and no place else. What fun when you have a son who wears size 14 mens shoes...

I guess I just don't understand how this is a necessity as if they have a bunch of sport programs that require money why not spend a bit less on the teams and more on the upkeep of the school? ...that would make much more sense to me.

WE are enjoying the leftovers from Issac since Thursday night, and enjoying the rain it has been giving us even though it is much less than they originally stated we would get. I almost wish we had gotten the projected 8 inches even if it flooded places, as it would have helped our rain total for the year to date.

Well that's about it for now, I am hoping to be able to post more soon … just a matter if we can get near internet the few times we go out.

Be careful out there...

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

I'M BAAAAACK!!!!!!

Well folks, it's been a bit but I am kind of back for a bit. We just “bought” today a “smart” phone that has internet capability. I am for now able to plug it into my computer for some internet usage but it's very limited so I'll update when I can. I also hope to hopefully catch up on my favorite blogs to read if I don't eat our data plan in the process!

OK, so to my updates....

We’ve had such a mild winter this year I have started my plantings. I already have ½ my potatoes planted, some cabbages, dwarf pak choy, edible chrysanthemums, peas, and lettuce planted. Tomorrow I will be finishing my potatoes (had to buy more seed taters), onion (sets and seed), kale, broccoli plants, and cabbage plants. I will be starting my 24 tomato plants as well, ½ will be paste as I am hoping to can a ton of spaghetti sauce before winter; next year.

Our chickens are earning their keep finally as for the last few months we have gotten so many eggs they have paid for themselves. The last month (Feb.) we had just over 21 dozen eggs out of 16 hens. … I can tell you we are starting to get tired of eggs.... I (and the rest of the house) can't wait for some fresh veggies.

I am trying to get some meat rabbits this year, I contacted a breeder today and hope they will get back to me on a purchase order for 2 does and a buck. So we can breed our own meat. We aren't quite ready for a pig/goat/cow yet though I am sure if someone offered we'd find some way to have it pastured.

We now have a full kitchen in our shed home as well as a full size water heater in our bathroom with that pretty bathtub from my last post. Again, Thanks to Little Creek Baptist Church out here you have been a great help!

Oh, on another note my kids are earning themselves a little money. One of the people from the church has them training/fostering 2 hunting labs, and paying them for it. So they are learning a little about how to take care of money.. and how to -not- spend it. They are doing a pretty good job as the owner is very pleased with how well the pups are getting along in their basic instruction. Of course one is learning better than the other, but that happens.

Well that's all I'm updating for now, I hope everyone is safe in this odd weather we've had in this last week, and...

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

Update!

Hi everyone out there, I know it's been a while and; sorry but we do not have internet again as yet. I am having a cheap lunch at a local restaurant that has WIFI. There has been a lot going on though so I will let you know all of that now while I still have a chance before we head on out of here.

First, our “boxed” tomatoes did so well! They however, did all wind up cross pollinating so we wound up with some interesting plum type tomatoes. I froze a few and am now adding them to stews as we have them. They finally wilted when we had the real hard freeze in the middle of November. We will be growing the cucumbers in that box next year and I am really hoping for a bumper crop! I now have two little Purple Smudge tomato plants growing inside for winter tomatoes. Hopefully they will do well.

We put in our wood heater, it wasn't the mass heater we wanted. It is a barrel stove, we put a concrete/vermiculite mixture; with a piece of goat panel into the bottom. It holds heat there very well, so even after hours past burning we have warm still radiating out. Also, the concrete has not degraded any I wonder if it's because it was portland cement we used? We purchased the bag or portland from Lowes in their damaged $2 spot and the bag was almost completely full!

We finally have a flush toilet, we installed the free toilet we found over the summer; at the beginning of November. The septic we dug is doing a very good job, I hope it keeps doing well during the winter time; we will see. We will be installing a old claw foot tub that is being given to us from a member of the church my girls attend. We also have a lead on a electric water heater that just needs it's elements replaced.

...and speaking of water heaters. The gas one we picked up at the local free store could not be repaired, however we have tried out an experiment we saw from You Tube. A few different people have tried turning old gas water heaters into wood fired ones. Well, Silver tried it out the other day while it was a good enough of a day to have a bath in our outdoor bathing area. It worked wonderfully! We heated a whole heater full in the time it took us to heat 20 gallons of water on the stove. Also with only the equivalent of two good sized logs worth of wood.

We had our “home grown Tom” turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner and he only just barely fit into my small oven. As it was he barely fit into our roasting pan, he legs hung over the side and I had to creatively foil him to cook him properly. So I know the “Jenny” will fit in our oven.

Now, we are short our car as one lovely fall day; we went out to head to the store just it seems at the wrong time. The highway department was working on the main road just off of ours and it seems it was just after they added the stone/dirt, but before they smoothed it out. A large stone tore out the whole bottom of the engine and our car is no longer driveable. We are looking for -something- we can buy and get inspected that won't cost much, but there doesn't seem to be any around us. We are getting rides to the store when we need it from some wonderful friends of ours. THANKS GUYS!

We fully butchered a doe a couple weeks ago from field dressed. Again, a nice person from the girls' church had gone hunting on the first day of deer season and when she got one that day she offered it to us. I have tot ell you chili made with venison is wonderful! We also still have some nice bones hidden away in the freezer for making some nice stocks.

I want to tank anyone who has been keeping an eye out for updates and I'm sorry that it probably will be a while before I will be putting up another one. We are hoping this winter to get the internet bill caught up so we can get it back on... maybe. We actually are not sure if we want it back on, it's something we are thinking about.

I did have a surprise for one of my fellow bloggers (and I do hope one day to catch up on my reading), I did finally find the book that talked about making your own stock feed.

The Manual of Practical Homesteading

written by: John Vivian

ISBN# 0-87857-092-6 (hardbound)

0-87857-154-X (paperback)

Here is the passage about making your own feed: (pg 244)

“We don't shell the corn or strip off the sun flower seeds. It's a waste of time, and I figure that there are some nutrients and a while lot of good roughage in the cobs, husks, and flower heads. So, once we get a truckload of corn back to the barn, we crank up the shredder/grinder and run a few ears of corn through. If it is dry enough the ears will literally explode into chicken-nibblums. Then we take a break and go through the dried-out sweet corn for culls and to pick up the drying gourds, pumpkins, and squash, which usually amount to five or more bushels. Then the grinding begins. The big shredder has powered wheels and I just run it up onto the truck bed, hang a feed sack over the discharge chute, and the kids begin feeding in grain, steady sprinklings of dolomitic limestone, plus heads of whatever small grain we may have grown that year. Also added are the gourds, pumpkins, and squash if they are dry enough.”

Now they do talk through out the book about other things that are saved at odd times to be fed over the winter or fresh out of the garden when picked for family eating. Also they also tell you how to do silage, as he had to when his grain crop would not ripen fully. He lived in eastern US so had a short growing season, so if you check out the book keep that in mind.

This is our newest aquisition:

Clawfoot tub given to us by a member of Little Creek Baptist church! Thank you very much!

Now I need to say good bye for a bit again I hope everyone has a Happy Yule, Merry Christmas and a good holiday no matter which one(s) you have in the coming months. So...

BE Well, Be safe, and Blessed Be...