It was a Dark and Stormy Night

..it really was too...

It overfilled my pond a wee bit, the young willow on the right of the picture has wet feet.  However it's not the only one with wet feet...

That would be my Macintosh tree.  It's kinda swimming, so as soon as it dries up a little bit (yeah Spring and dry prob not anytime soon) I need to get more dirt around it to keep it from happening again.  I just need it dry enough to move the dirt without it being clumped.

The other side wasn't so wet thankfully:

Not sure how well you can see it, but the Redhaven peach is in water that isn't in water now.  It soaked up in a few hours where as the Mac is still in all that water.  See the tires?  I thought I'd try the grow potatoes in tires since I have 7 tires right now.

Also I have  another picture of the cinder block stove.

The back will get raised up like the sides, then we'll fill up the holes of the  cinder blocks then they'll be capped and some rebar will be put across to cook over.  Also the center will get a solid block for the burn surface.   I can't wait for it to get done so we can cook in the mornings on it.

Hope you're safe with the severe weather moving about.

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

Quiet Days

We have been have a few quiet days here, between the rain and the cold.  My mom has flooding up near her in the Chicago area, though where she lives it would take a great deal of water to flood them out.  All of the seeds and plants I have put in seem to be doing well so far.  The one exception is my mini pak choi and edible chrysanthemums, something seems to like eating them;maybe I just need to give up on them.

Our next set of plans on building things is to get either the well house redo, the outdoor kitchen, or the pipe and wire for the new house.  As we sat down and figured we cannot really do any work on the house itself till the kids are fully out of school so they can help as we have at least one spot that needs three people to do the work.  ...and with how the weather has been I can't guarantee we'll have a clear day on the weekends.  So we wait on house construction till they get out and we have them around all the time.  Silly thing is we only need the "extra man" to put up the rebar for the frame the rest we can do two person.

My strawberries are starting to bloom, I'm taking that as a good sign that they like their new home.  We are going to order some huge jalapeno peppers and some sunchokes around the first and a lemon grass plant.  Seems I cannot get lemon grass to sprout at all shrugs oh well we'll just have to do with a started plant.  We are going to have to buy a pot and keep it inside in the cold weather, but I believe it'll be worth it.  I am considering when we get the dome built to get a laurel tree in a big pot.

I hope you are all about to work and get around in all the rain we've had and I alps hope you won't be in the path of any nasty snow melt when it starts up.

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

Rain,Rain... we need it...

We do, just hopefully not the severe stuff that is moving around.  My new day lilies are coming up and I have seen that the cattails are all sprouting nicely.  I was worried about the cattails, but seems that I did ok on the moving of the plants, a big THANK YOU to Rich and Daina who own the property kitty cornered to us for the cattails.

I got a plant/seed catalog the other day that has pond plants in it and I'm considering some of the irises.  I would not mind a few flowers there in addition to the other plants there.  My lettuce is coming up, and I believe my mini Pak Choi came up as evidenced by the "mowed down" look they have this morning.

I have found a variety of Jalapeno that is almost the size of my hand that we are considering planting this year so we can make our own "poppers".  I had gotten some a year or two ago and we stuffed them with cheese and a beef/rice mix before breading and deep frying and they came out wonderful. I'd like to try it again.

My grape has flowers on it and the red current while it lost it's top leaves, the lower buds are growing.  Also the Pecan tree seems to be holding it's own.  My mother sent me an early (one week early) birthday gift off my Amazon.com wish list, it's a large Ball brand water bath canner.  To see the wish list here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/L8YKMO2HVVP9/ref=cm_wl_act_vv?_encoding=UTF8&reveal=&visitor-view=1

It's so pretty I can't wait to get a chance to use it!  However it'll probably be a few weeks as I need more lids to do more canning.  I am planning to make a "stew mix" to dry can as the year goes on, this will be a simple pour into pot add water and heat meal.  It'll contain:

Jerky

bouillon

dried berries (probably blue and black though if the currents produce them too)

dried potatoes

dried garlic

dried onion

dried day lily buds

dried peppers

dried potato flakes (home made hopefully)

Now why two kinds of potato?  Simple mashed potato flakes make a good thickener.  So it'll make it into a nice thick stew.  I'm going to tinker with it as I make them, and I'll probably not "assemble" them till later in the year when I have everything setup.  So we'll see how it goes.

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

Happy Friday!

Well I'm sitting here waiting for my chicken bones to de-pressure so I figured I'd write something today.  Not as much as yesterday mind you... btw in case you were wondering it came out to about 4 pages on my word prossesor when I converted it over.  Looks back a few words.  I love those spelling mistakes that the "suggestions" have no correction for even when you know you spelled it wrong; but cannot spell it right.

I have watered all of my plants that I put in yesterday and they do seem to be doing rather well except for 1 of the red cabbages.  That poor thing is drooping.  I think I know why too, it got only about 1/2 of the roots available when I had to cut them apart.  So it probably does not have enough roots to make it.

We discovered this morning that the 2 hoses we are using can reach everything but... The pecan tree and the current.  No biggie, we need at least one new hose as one of the 2 like I said has a leaky connector.

I have discovered this morning that we have 1 small frog living near our pond.  I hope there is more but 1 is a start.  My blue berry is looking very promising so far and I hope it produces well this year.  It has buds everywhere, it looks as healthy as the Elderberries do.

Once I get my soup going I get to go out and do some clearing near all of my plantings from yesterday.  Just to ensure no over crowding and plenty of sun for my new plants.  I did notice the Kale seems to have sprouted finally, just when I was ready to give up on them.  I also may have one carrot sprout, we'll see as it grows.

Time to go work on the soup,

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

Planting Day!

Yes today was my planting day.  It opened with showers that we just barely south of us, and a little cool.  So I started off with getting the laundry out, which kept me busy till about 10 am.  Which is when I figured it would be best to get started as I did not want to work the soil before it warmed some.  Yesterday when we picked up another straw bale for the chickens I "mucked out" the coop to use in the soil mixing I was going to do today.
  So This is the "mix" I used for my plantings today.  What it contains is:
 Peat Moss
 chicken manure (straw included)
 wood ash
 homemade charcoal
 oyster shell
 leftover compost from last year
 local "soil" which is mostly clay
 The manure and the soil needed some breaking up to be usable and mixed in.  The manure still had some straw that wasn't composted as yet.  The layer closest to the top was this way. This is my new Pecan seedling, it's a Stuart Pecan.  From what I have looked up it says that it is a Moderate producer.  Which isn't all that bad for me.  I like Pecans, but I think one tree will suffice for us.  They also  seem to grow to 100ft tall if they do well.
 I planted this one in the end of one of the trenches we dug for the apple trees that aren't coming.  We had to back fill a little bit just so that it would be at ground level.  This little "guy" was a surprise when we went to the farm store the other day.   I had not seen them selling Pecan trees before so when I saw it and noticed the price I felt it was worth the cost to get it.
 When we planted this I put some of the nearby branches and brier into the hole before we back filled.  I know that they will eventually decompose down adding more nutrients to the soil there so it'll help.  When I finally got him out of his wrapper I noticed quite happily that this little one was not root bound at all.  It also told me just how young this seedling is too.
 We wound up putting 2 gallons of water around it.  The peat moss really soaked it up.  I also added some of the fresh straw to the ground at ground level around it.  Just to help protect it.  We had to berm up some of the straight soil next to it as we didn't want the soil or water washing away.
 Here it is fully into the ground:
  Isn't it cute?  I know it's tiny, but my thought on that is; it'll grow up with our home.  It came with a tiny bamboo stake to tie it too until it gets stronger.  Probably a good idea around here as I have seen trees here that are growing tilted or sideways.  I image it's due to the wind we get here.
 Also this was the first thing I planted, I figured due to the size best get it in the ground first so that it'll have the most time to acclimate before night.  That tie on it?  It came with the plant.  I also discovered that there was a second one inside the "bedding" it had.
 Funny story about the ties these kinds of plants have on them.  Like most this had one of those pieces of metal tieing it shut.  On time many years ago I cut it off... instead of untwisting it.  I learned my lesson there... The next plant we put into the ground was a Red Current:
  We did get this one from the same store as the Pecan.  Now I am a little concerned that this one won't due much as last time I bought a "boxed" plant it didn't do hardly anything.  Those were the grapes I bought from SAMs club before moving here that we planted when we moved here.  Thing is they never grew, and from what a local grape grower told me.  The ones SAMs sold didn't do anything for her either.  This woman grows them for sale to the public so she knows how to treat grapes.  ... but those ones didn't grow either.  That tells me a great deal.
 This lovely little lady has been planted near my up and coming berry patch near my pond.  Actually if you were looking right at the pond from the driveway it would be on the back side of it.  Partially obstructed by a tree stump that we left to use for growing things over.
 I am growing my berries near the pond as the blackberries along the road were the biggest near the stream running across our road.  So my thought is why not try to duplicate this by growing the berries near the pond?  Worst thing that happens is that the plants don't grow huge berries.  Ok, technically the -worst- would be that they don't grow, so far my blue berry does though.  So that gives me hope that the other berries will too.  I know the wild black berries do.
 This one and all the other "non-garden" plantings are getting stakes around them to prevent kids and people from crushing them...
  Seeing as how most of the plantings I have done that I recall where the plants are... no one else can.  Even when they have helped me plant them.  See the little leaves?  I also noticed when I unwrapped her that there are some "sucker" plants starting.  If it becomes a massive bush I have no issues.  I want to have as many plants as I can as fruits I can dry or can.  Canning as jams and just syruped fruit.
 Before anyone asked, no I have not had currents as of yet.  However I have not tried a berry that I didn't like as of yet.  Besides if they are dried and mixed with other fruits, I doubt that if I don't like them that I would notice the flavor much.  Especially if I mix them with strawberries.
 Speaking of which, they are doing very well I  am hoping to take a few pics for my next posting.
 Now here is something interesting to note.. while the Pecan is on one side of where the house will be and the current is by the pond, the next plant is going near the pecan.  However I planted it 3rd.  The reason is, we needed to gather a bit more compost so as we had to go close to where the current was going to be planted we just did it while there.
 The next plant?  Why that's my White Niagara Grape:
  I had to take a picture of this one on the table as  with all that growth I didn't dare put it in the wheel barrow to do so.  Yes, another "boxed" plant.  My thoughts however in this case is that with that much growth (including the starts of 3 bunches) It may do very well.
 This one is being planted right next to where my outdoor kitchen is going, it is going to be trained up the side with a goat panel.  We still need to get said goat panel.  This way we'll have a nice green screen on one wall of the outdoor kitchen.  It'll also benefit the grape as that spot gets a great deal of sun.
 Tomorrow I need to go back and do some trimming around it, as I didn't have time to as yet.  I'm sure the bramble won't choke it just yet.  It has a "hook" on the stem that we pointed so that it is growing in the right direction from the start.
 Lets just hope if it grows well in the next month I won't have to do much prying to get it where I want it.  As from what I hear it's not easy getting a wayward grape to go in the right direction if it gets too big.  These first three plants were all bought at the same store, the grape is what decided me to get any plants.  As I could not pass up how healthy this one was.
 So we had the hole for this one dug well before planting as Silver dug it while I was prepping for the current. The funny thing is the rest of my plantings were harder in some ways than planting these three plants.  We moved on to the garden next.
 What we did first however was to make a barrow full of the soil mix and dumped it on the spot that I had planted the Rhubarb that hasn't shown signs of life.  We planted some horseradish in this. After which we both figured out we might want to get the hose out and set it up to use.  AS it would be a big pain to water in the garden with jugs and buckets.
 We have 2 good hoses and 2 bad ones, or more like 2 "useable" ones and 2 bad ones.  I say "useable" as one of them leaks like a sieve at the connection point.  Other than that it may last the year.
 We moved onto my "middle" bed in the garden, and while Silver wrestled with the hoses I loosened the top soil.  I had to use my pickax for it.
  The track hoe tore up half the soil in the bed so I had to loosen it all up and respread it.  I also added a little bit of the soil mix to help add more to the soil.  These are my 12 cabbages.  They are on the outside of the bed.
 I am planning on putting 2 squash plants in the center when they can be planted.  My thoughts are that the cabbages will help keep the soil cool if we have another bad heat year.  The squash will also help the cabbages in the same manner.
 What I did with the plantings is I went one green one red all around the edge of the planting bed.  I then planted onions between each one, and a line of "spring onions  inside the bed from the cabbages.
 These were plants that were grown locally by a nearby nursery, the only thing I didn't like was that they were grown in a carton that all the roots grow together.  So I had to cut the plants out. This is what the bed looked like when I finished with it.  I took the picture when I was watering the bed.  I also watered the potatoes when I was out there as they looked a little dry.
 When I was setting up the bed I had to remove a bunch of clover, which my ladies were very happy.  I'd say about 3 pounds of clover to them to inhale.  Which is what they did.
 I know my soil is getting very good now as when I had to dig it up some I found tons of worms in it.  SO I must be doing something right. After finishing all of this I went up front and after making lunch I cleared another of the tires and planted my garlic in it.  We have yet to grow it, so I am hoping it does well.
 We moved onto the sprouts and broccoli next.
  I reused the buckets from last year's tomatoes with the sprouts and the broccoli as well as the remainder of the ONION and the rosemary.  I capitalized the onions as again I bought way to many so I have onions growing every where right now.
 I have 5 of these "supplement" buckets, these are buckets where the farm stores sell a feed supplement to farmers.  They sometimes bring them back to the farm stores and then they in turn resell them for people to use to plant in.
 I have noticed if you need to cut up your plants it's best to let them get a little dry first as I don't recommend cutting them when they are wet.  It's like cutting paper when they are a little dry.
 Our Rosemary is 2 pots of three plants in each pot so we are hoping they grow big, and together. I had one more thing to plant.
  Tulips!
 I like Tulips, I have as yet to plant some before now.  These I bought "spent" for $1 at Walmart before they would be tossed out.  The cashier was happy to see someone buy them.  As you can just plant them in your yard after they stop blooming.
 Each pot had 6-8 bulbs in them, also a few of them had baby bulbs growing.  I had 5 pots worth of them.  I planted 2 pots up by our house sign, 2 pots by my rose, and one pot by the pond.
 So I finished at about 2:30pm so I spent hours planting.  My feet hurt as does my back.. but it's a HAPPY hurt.  I accomplished something today, getting my plants in.  Silver also set out the boards we bought yesterday to plan out our bigger well house and where the floor of the outdoor kitchen will be.  We had to buy pressure treated as they were cheaper than landscape timbers.
 Yesterday if you didn't figure it out Silver got out Wheel barrow fixed.  We had to buy an inner tube that was bigger than the one that was on it.  However it worked and now we have a wheel barrow again.
 That's my fun and busy day, I have to post my pics on pintrest then I will be making dinner!
 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...

Early Weekend News

Yes, I have some minor news for all who are keeping up with what is going on here.  Yesterday evening me and Silver went out to peek at the pond and discovered that it is about an 1/8 of the way full.  So we seem, so far to have a good possibility of having a full pond.  I am certainly hoping it'll be full enough by the time the local farm store has their fish ordering days.  As they will send for catfish, I do not know if they do tilipia or not though.

I will be once the pond is full enough and it's warm enough.  Be going across the street to get some cat tails and one bucket of pond water.   Why the pond water?  Well I have in one of my homesteading books that the best way to make sure you have the right microbial life in your home made pond is to go to a living one and get a bucketful of it's water and dump it into your own.  There by adding the "pond life" that is surviving in one pond to your own.  Also this way you know the microbial life is acclimatized to your area as well.

I already have permission from the people who own the property across the way to go over and gather some cat tails.  They had, had a hard time finding a place that sold them when they put them in, so they were very willing to let me go and get some once we had a pond set up.  Now that said I know of one nursery that has cat tails at it also Lowes has them in the middle of summer in their "water garden" area.  So I do have them available if necessary, but I'd prefer to get some that have grown "wild"

That's  it for now, have a good Saturday!

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

Anniversary Day!

Well today is the anniversary of the day we have moved to our home This starts our 3^rd year living here and there has been so many changes. In more ways than one. One big change is with the life I am living and the people I am with I finally have a stable home for my kids. This is the biggest deal for us.

We are growing at least part of our food in our own garden. We are on a first name basis with the local MFA employees. We have been to Baker Creek Heirloom seeds a couple of times. We have our own producing flock of chickens.

The soil in our garden is getting better than it was when we moved here. I couldn't believe it when the soil was easy to dig down into. Silver has been in the best health in years, as he's getting plenty of exercise.

We have gone from having no water and living out of a tent, to having a small building and a claw-foot bathtub in a real bathroom. We now have a “real” kitchen … and a acquisition over the last weekend was new (to us) side-by-side refrigerator that we bought for $75; that is maybe a year old.

These are just a few of the things that have been changing in our lives since coming here, and living the life we have wanted to live. My only regret? That we had not done it sooner. Live the life you truly want to live, not the one you think you need. Remember we are living off a very small income, and we take care of all important things. All of our bills get paid, we have a home to live in, we have food on the table. ...and We live where we want to be living, could life be any better?

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

Honey! or is that Hunny...?

Ok I'd like to say that; growing up I did not like honey, in fact I really did not like the flavor. In the last few years I have come to prefer it over refined sugar, which is good but also bad as the price is not the same as refined sugar. We are planning to keep bees eventually and like to switch over to just using honey versus sugar, which again will be good as Silver is diabetic. Granted with the diet we have been on since moving his blood sugar has not been an issue. So for now I am looking for some recipes that are honey instead of sugar, as well as conversion charts. I have found a couple they were listed in some old Organic Gardening and Farming magazines from the '60's, '70's,and '80's. Here are the ones I found:

Raspberry Leather

4 quarts raspberries

¼ cup water

½ to 1 cup honey

Wash raspberries. Place the fruit and water in a large heavy pot. Cover and cook over low heat until fruit comes to a boil. Remove from heat. Pour the raspberries into a colander, allowing the juice to drain into a pot.

The more juice that is drained out, the quicker the fruit leather will dry. The juice can be used as a drink or saved in the freezer for later.

To increase the yield of this recipe, 6 cubed apples can be added for every quart of raspberries used. Each quart of raspberries and 6 apples will yield 8 oz of fruit leather or 2 full cookie sheets.

Press fruit through a food mill. The puree should be the consistency of apple butter. Add honey to taste.

Spread the pulp 1/4-inch thick on 4 lightly oiled, stainless steel cookie sheets. Place in a warm dry place. You can use your oven or a food dryer.

When using an oven, turn down to the lowest temperature and leave the door open to allow moisture to escape. The fruit leather should dry in a bout 12 hours. When it has dried, peel the leather from the cookie sheet and lay it on wire racks to dry completely. Cornstarch or arrowroot can be used to powder the leather if it remains sticky to the touch. Roll the raspberry leather between two sheets of wax paper and store it in a cool dry place. The red color will keep one month at room temperature, four months in the fridge, and a year in the freezer.

Blueberry Pie:

Pie for a 2-crust pie

4 cups blueberries

4 tablespoons tapioca

¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon honey

2 teaspoons melted butter

Line a 9-inch pie pan with bottom crust of pie. Combine remaining ingredients and pour into crust. Top with crust. Wrap tightly in foil and freeze. When ready to use, thaw the pie, then bake 450 degrees for 15 minutes and 350 degrees for 45 minutes to one hour. Cool before cutting.

Peach upside down cake:

¼ cup butter

¼ cup honey

1 teaspoon cinnamon

dash nutmeg

2 cups sliced peaches

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon soda

1/3 cup honey

¼ cup oil

½ cup buttermilk

1 tablespoon grated lemon rind

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

Melt butter in 8-by-8 pan. Add honey, cinnamon and nutmeg and mix. Make sure mixture coats bottom of pan. Arrange peaches over butter mixture. Mix flour and soda. Set aside. Mix 1/3 cup honey, oil, buttermilk, lemon rind, and vanilla. Add to flour mixture. Mix well and add egg. When completely blended, pour over peaches in pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Remove from pan immediately by inverting onto serving plate. Cool to room temperature.

Fruit Puree Pancakes:

¾ cup whole wheat flour

3 tablespoons milk powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup fruit puree (your favorite)

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons melted butter

1 egg

Combine dry ingredients in a small bowl. Add fruit puree, honey, melted butter, and egg and mix thoroughly. Drop batter onto hot buttered griddle. Turn pancakes when bubbles form on top and brown on both sides.

Amaranth-Strawberry Spread

2 cups water

1 cup raw amaranth seeds

2 cups fresh strawberries, washed, hulled and chopped

2 tablespoons honey (optional)

1/3 lemon, chopped very fine with rind included

In a small sauce pan, bring water to a boil. Add amaranth, strawberries, honey and lemon. Stir until the mixture comes to the boiling point again, then lower heat and cook slowly for about 45 minutes, until mixture is thick and the amaranth grains are tender.

Makes 2 cups

Concord grape pie:

Plain short pastry- enough to line a 9- to 10- inch pie pan plus one-half that amount for lattice top

5 ½ cups ripe concord grapes (the other varieties may have skins that are too tough)

2/3 cup light honey

4 tablespoons cornstarch

3 tablespoons water

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon grated orange rind

1 ½ tablespoons unsalted butter

1 egg, beaten

Line pan with 2/3 of the dough and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Pinch grape pulp out of skins and set skins aside. Put pulp in saucepan (with no water) and bring to rolling boil. While pulp is still hot, rub it through a fine food mill to remove seeds. Combine strained pulp, skins and honey and stir well. In a small bowl, combine cornstarch, water, and lemon juice, stirring until smooth. Add cornstarch mixture and orange rind to grape mixture. Spoon into pastry shell. Dot with butter. Roll out renaming dough into a long strip. Brush lightly with beaten egg and cut into strips ½ inch wide, long enough to stretch over pan. Arrange in lattice pattern on top of pie. Place pie on baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees 40-45 minutes. Let cool, serve with ice cream if desired.

Now I also found a recipe in those same magazines for homemade pectin:

Pectin:

First you need the small early apples for this for the best thought it won't be clear using it.

1 Wash the apples carefully, trim, and cut pieces into thin slices. Place in a large pot.

2 add one pint of water for every pound of apples inside pot

3 Cover and boil for 15 minutes.

4 strain off the free running juices through one thickness of cheese cloth, DO NOT SQUEEZE

5 return the pulp to the pot and add the same amount of water, simmer for 15 minutes

6 let stand for 10 minutes, strain through one thickness of cheese cloth DO NOT SQUEEZE

7 Allow to cool enough for you to handle

8 squeeze out remaining juice and combine the three juices

There should be a quart for every pound of apples, you can use it immediately or store for future use. To can, heat to boiling point and pour immediately into hot , sterilized canning jars. Seal and invert the jars to cool.

I am looking for more honey recipes to add to my "cookbook" for later use if you can pass any along I would be verrrrrrry happy. I did find out about a new book that has honey recipes it is :

Honey, I'm Homemade: Sweet Treats from the Beehive across the Centuries and around the World edited by May Berenbaum

I found it listed in many online book sellers, for under $25 so once I get the spare cash I am buying a copy of it. Those of you out there looking for alternatives might want to look into it. Also, to some of my readers who have seen these recipes "elsewhere" yes I know you've seen them; but I want everyone to see them. Again I found them in some old Organic Gardening and Farming and yes it is listed as "farming" Organic Gardening use to include "farming" in it... I do not know why they dropped the "Farming" line but they did. Also, I'd like to point out I have found in a grocery store "raw" honey; granted how "raw" it is I do not know. I would like to say it has a better flavor over the standard honey does. I almost can't wait to try real "raw" honey, does anyone know if you honestly cannot give raw honey to children? If so how old do they need to be? My youngest loves drinking tea and wants to try the "raw" honey we bought but I am not sure about letting her.

On another note, If you listen to podcasts please listen to my friend's one... yes you might not agree with her religious beliefs, I share the beliefs she has if you have not figured it out yet with my "goodbye" on here. http://www.thepaganhomesteader.podbean.com/ She has a lot of information in her podcasts and I think those of you who listen might find it interesting to hear.

Also... Hey our WATER is back on after over a week of being frozen, our neighbor had given us some heat tape, and well when Silver went to go put it on the pipe we discovered a small problem. The pipe.. both in fact (one going in and one going out) had been covered by almost 3 inches of ice, and we had to wait for that to melt first. Then the heat tape was able to heat the pipe, but still it took until yesterday to have it heat fully. The good news about it is though, it did not freeze until the temperature dropped to 4 degrees with a negative windchill. Silver also thinks that one of the kids had turned off the water by accident, we had been leaving it running just to make sure it didn't freeze; so we aren't quite sure why it froze as it did not until early morning. Not like 4 am but rather sometime after we got the kids up for school, so we aren't sure why.

Thats all for now and if you can pass us some honey recipes along please do!

Be Well and Blessed Be...

Water, Water, Water

Yes from that picture if you cannot tell we have our well running now! Seems the pump and control box are fine and the only problem we had was a bit of mud and stone getting caught in a valve when we first fired it up. So we washed dishes in OUR water yesterday, took a bath in OUR water last night. It was strange , but it seemed we must have been more stressed over the well than we thought. As soon as we got it running Silver and I felt great relief fall over us, like a great weight was lifted from our shoulders. Did notice something interesting about the waster, the first person on our road when we'd get water from his well; the water was very hard and had a slight unusual taste to it. When we'd get water from the people nearer to us (the ones with the animals), it was very soft water with no additional taste to it; AND they don't use a water softener. Our water is coming out soft and... it might just be that it's our water, but it tasted very sweet. Silver and I plan on celebrating by taking a bath tomorrow during the DAY... shocking as when you have to carry water that's a luxury. I guess we also loose some of our aerobic workouts now with no water carrying on the menu anymore (awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww), though it will save us on car gas for when we'd get the washing water we'd have to drive half a mile. It was funny about the wire Mark Chenail picked up for us, he said he “hoped” it was 60ft, it was about 140ft; which means being $8 for the roll about $.05 a foot. Good thing it was so long too as being “well wire” the wire that goes -into- the well Silver needed to double it to make up for the slightly smaller gauge wire. So lets see... well works(we didn't dig it)... we have wire for it($8 for the roll)... we have a tank for it (we got it for free)... we spent $30 of our money on parts to go from the well to the tank. I think we came out OK on this one. Now Silver says we should buy the proper wire eventually, but this will work.

Dug Well... free

Pump for Well... free

Control Box for Well... free

Wire for control box... $8 (worked off)

Pressure tank... free

Assorted fittings... $30

A WORKING WELL... Priceless!!!!!!!!!

Be Well and Blessed Be...