New Plants!

I have some new "babies" that I'll be planting on Thursday provided the weather is good.  Yesterday we picked up 12 cabbages, 6 broccoli  and 6 sprouts.  I also picked up more onions to grow, some to be just "spring onions" some crosses fingers to be stored onions.  I checked the strawberry plants and they seem to be doing well and have new growth and almost all of them. 

Today we picked up a few more plants... We almost picked up chicks, but they didn't have any that I wanted in the shop we were in.  I still would prefer to get my new chicks from the hatchery, but if I can get the ones I want cheaper at a store then I will.  I did get a very nice looking green grape, that has what appears to be some bunches already starting on it.  I am planning on putting it next to where my outdoor kitchen is going to go.  This way I can have it grow to cover one "wall" in it.  I found a red current and I am hoping it does better than the black currents that I kept buying.. and died. 

We found some small rosemary plants and as it seems that ours may not have survived the winter we got two of them.  We picked up some  garlic and some horseradish as well.  Now my big surprise was find pecan seedlings there.  I like pecans, and I was very happy to see them in the farm store as it will probably take a few years for this one to produce.  It's about 9 inches tall not counting the root system.  I can't wait till the next no stormy day so I can get all these out and in the ground.. Thursday is the most likely of days for that it appears based on the weather pattern we have coming through. 

I am planning on getting pictures of all of them once I can, the light isn't what I'd like for it right now.  ...and it's COLD outside today.

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

Happy First day of Spring!

Well it's a lovely cold morning, so nice to have to light a fire on the first day of spring... yeah ...  Anyway. not much going on with the weather not co-operating.  WE have a winter storm warning which starts tomorrow...fun.  I did manage to get something done yesterday, besides laundry.

I went out and first I fluffed up the potato patch and then I planted my seed potatoes (we didn't manage to get the sun chokes again).  The one red potato I planted last fall is starting to  grow as well.  I did have a surprise when I got out the seed potatoes, they had all sprouted and had roots on them already.  So on the few I had to cut down to be smaller I cut them so that they would all have some actual roots on them.

Had some good news from the weather people the other day, due to all the precipitation we have gotten ourselves out of the "severe drought", and are now just listed as "dry"; I am hoping pretty soon we'll be past that too.

A friend of our's Mark Cheneil writer of the "Missouri Journal"  over on homestead.org is in the hospital, we all wish him good health; and to get well.

That's it for now...

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

Snow Day

..well not really, but the kids thought that it would be. It was so funny when the news people even said on the news after the kids got up, “Alright everyone time to get up and get ready for school”. The kids just groaned about that.
We had a bit of good news at about noon today...
  Our delivery of rebar was going to show up today! It was nice to see the work on it didn't take too long to get done with. Oddly, we were the only delivery, so I'm guessing we had the only one that required the flat bed today.      

     I think this loading, unloading device is really cool it's a forklift that latches into the truck.
                           
 Here's Silver setting some wood down for the rebar to set on until we can use it.      

           After the truck left Silver rushed to get out a cutting tool to start cutting some of the rebar for the “stakes” he needs to start the framework of the dome.
                 
 He even pointed them to make them easier to go into the ground.              
 30 minutes later this is what is left of the 4, 20fter's he was cutting up.
  Now he's disappointed as we have to wait till after the track hoe is here and done, so he's practically crawling the walls wanting to get the work done. It only took 2 days for the delivery to get here from 25 miles away. It was the truck's fault.. granted I imagine a horse drawn wagon would have gotten them here faster.    

           Hope everyone has had a good day, and is staying warm!

 Be Well, BE Safe, and Blessed Be...

Great Day TODAY!

 We have had a great weekend so far folks! We got some of our building money, and we have a load of rebar coming tomorrow. We have decided to go down to a 34ft diameter dome. When we staked it (40 ft dome) out we noticed that we mis-staked it and the 34ft is not that much smaller than what we had staked out..

I got my apple trees ordered, I ordered ultra mac's for Silver and double delicious for me. I love the golden and red delicious. The company I ordered from a local nursery for this state Stark Bros nursery, they offered free shipping on orders over $85. So as I ordered 2 of each the order with the free shipping was just over $100. So I saved at least $20.

We had gotten a “pay later” flower catalog, that had Dahlias (edible root) and a few herb and bee friendly plants, We have been approved on their credit plan and I have a order of quite a few flowers coming that will be planted in a few various places one being our outdoor kitchen that will make it nice there and I will have lots of butterflies, bees, and humming birds stopping by.

We have also prepaid on the track hoe for next weekend as we had rain yesterday evening and this morning it would have been a waste of time and money getting it for this weekend. My son is crossing his fingers and behaving overly well in the hopes of getting to learn how to use it. Well, a 16yr old boy should have that opportunity to learn it. He's not doing all the work however. Especially since we need to dig a ditch from the power pole out to the clearing. I'm NOT having a child no matter how old digging near the power pole.

The next pay day we are going to get the chicks ordered, I wanted to do it Friday; but we didn't get a chance to. I did get the chick food and the new light for them. We will still need some pine bedding and a cover for the brooder before they get here though.

Now for the next week we have to clear area for the track hoe to run in. Yesterday my son and Silver started on it before the rain showed up. They'll go back out today after the rain lets up and it drys up a bit. Tomorrow it'll be just me and Silver working out there.

On another note, I was thinking about the weather and I believe we are already in our “Spring pattern” for here as we are getting tons of rain. Which is normal Spring weather here. Oh, my plant starts have started sprouting. Cabbages, grains, and tomatoes; also a couple of herbs! I am very happy about that.

I hope everyone is having a good weekend!

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

Weird Weather for all!

So here I am with another update for everyone, with a minor bit of good(?) news. Due to the fact that we do receive food stamps, the state requires me look for work that will get us off food stamps. While I don't have an issue with this I must actively 3X's a week put in applications. I have to be able to prove it. So I will be online about once a week now, and I should be able to update this every week. I will also be able to update my pintrest photo's too.

 As for our wood stove, how many of you remember this picture of our cat Stormy from last year?  
 Well after we put the wood stove in the house and during the time it's been too warm to use it, (60's in December...yuck) Stormy -AND- Merlin have both tried sleeping on the wood stove. This lead to a minor problem for both cats the night we lit it back up again. Both boys wound up lightly burning their paws when they landed on the stove. Funny how they jump right back off.

 We have been clearing the ground down to bare dirt for the house on these warm days. The dome is going to be 40ft in diameter, and we have set out some strings so that I could see the future room sizes. It does look like we may have to remove our largest dogwood tree as we are working on the house.  

 We have also cleared out a few other spaces. One is for an eventual pig “pen”; in that case we cleared out trash, downed trees, and branches. We also cleared out for a new compost pile by the current chicken coop. We have started it with some sticks and leaf litter from where the house is going. The third place we have cleared is where we are hoping to plant sun chokes next year, it's in a low spot so I hope it works well.   We have gotten a trailer hitch for the van, and Silver has put it on; it looks really good on the van.

 Well, that's it for now folks!

 Catch you in about a week.  

 Be Well Be Safe and Blessed Be...

Our First Egg!

Yes I would first like to point out that our internet is momentarily on, but as the phone company said 8th at end of business day; we are guessing it will go at any time.



Now on to today's BIG news:

This is our very first egg! I found it this morning when I decided on a whim to go check out the yard, thinking that the girls aren't looking very closely and found it in the yard not the coop. Under the outdoor roost. It is a medium sized egg so we are figuring it came from the Polish Crested hen or maybe the Barred rock hens we have. So I am setting up a schedule with the kiddo's on a "chicken check" a couple times a day just to ensure that we will get all the eggs that the hens produce. ...also because I don't want them eating them, they didn't seem to notice this one when I went in to get it.



As for the root cellar... it looks like we will be waiting a bit to dig in it as it is 1/4 full of water from the rain we got and we are due more rain today... Yep, we need it... but this morning on the way to the hen house I commented to Silver that with the fog and light it looked like early spring outside. Being that it is still the "dog days" of summer that's an odd occurrance to me.

That's it for now as I want to get this in before our net does go down.

Be Well, Be Safe and Blessed Be...

Final Word?

For now anyway right? AS it sands according to our phone company the internet will be off by end of business day today. So the plan is to get our building supplies with the money we save from turning off the internet. the hope is to get it put back on later on when we get the building projects done.

Now I would like to talk a moment about the weather, and I know weather is the -MOST- complained about thing out there, and right now I have a complaint. It has rained so much in the last couple of days it's like spring rains here...we're still in summer... Now do we need rain? Yep, we do; but not this much. We are suppose to get it all week too... yippie... Well considering all you can do about the weather is complain ... lets just say.... I AIN'T HAPPY...

Ok, got that out.. one mention before I go (for months?) yes I have a donate button I also on my profile have a amazon wishlist.. if anyone wants to lend a hand to us please go to the wish list till we get back online. If we can't catch a donation we won't get it. While we are effectively offline unless we can afford the gas to hit the library it's just not possible to check paypal.

So thanks to everyone who reads and I will be back at some point in time with probably a major update!

Be Well, Be Safe and Blessed Be...

...and we have RAIN!

Yep you heard it RAIN! The Big "R" word! It's been raining for over forty minutes and we sat at the open door and watched it pouring down.. This is a definite "gullywasher", I wish I could send some up to Kansas for the fields and farm there, but we also needed it here.

I caught 2 pictures of the rain when it first started falling:

Yes, those are the actual rain drops as they fall. I thought it looked so cool that I got the drops as they fell. I guess *winks* I don't need a late afternoon watering on the garden(s).

Here is the other shot, it's in the same spot though:

Wonderful to see isn't it? Right now at 2:35 pm it is 75 degrees outside with a lovely breeze, and it's still raining. Not as heavy though. The rain started at about 1:40 pm and it's been so dark in the sky too. We had some close lightning, so close out power did go off briefly.

We have some standing puddles right now, the water was "running" downhill when we were at the heaviest just like in the spring. i am glad I already got the compost pile moved to the old potato plot so it's been wet-ed down by the rain.

I hope this rain helps the wild plants here are some of the prairie plants here were starting to die due to the heat and dry. MY herbs have also been suffering in this heat we have been having here and I hope this storm will help them perk up. ...I haven't been able to use any basil as it's been so droopy.

Be Well, Be Safe and Blessed Be...

Another comment on the Weather

The weather for the last week has sucked.. big time. I know we need the rain here, but for the last week we have gotten rain every overnight. With the heat during the day, and humidity we can't do any digging in the root cellar.

Which is annoying me greatly. We did manage to have one day I think a week ago when we managed to dig in it twice in one day. In the morning then again in the evening. Maybe we need to tarp the current hole and then we could work on and off all day. Something to think on here I guess.

While I'm annoyed with the rain my plants love it, I'll have to tie up the tomatoes on that trellis very soon as they are really getting tall. I imagine these ones will be taller than anything I have ever grown tomato wise.

I'm still waiting to see if the riot of flowers on my squashes will produce anything. As last year was my first year growing any kind of squash.. I am a tad inexperienced in it. I am use to watching cucumbers grow. Seeing many, many squash flowers form then just wither with no "fruiting body" makes me wonder the mechanics behind how they grow?

I know last year on the zucchini I grew, once in a while I could go out and look at a flower just starting and see a mini zucchini forming before it open and say yep that's one. Is that normal? Do I need those other flowers that don't form anything? If not I want to know so I can fry them up!

Any help?

Be Well and Blessed BE...

No rain and heat?

Well I guess my title for today isn't100% true, we got a cold front move through yesterday and we might get some rain today as I took a gander at the radar this morning and there was a lovely green spot heading for us. So we might get some rain out of this after over a week with nothing.

We have spent the last couple of days without working on the root cellar as Silver has not been feeling well, he seems to have a bit of a cold with congestion. The first day of it he had an awful sore throat and felt yucky. So I made him this wonderful tea... (just ask my kids about how wonderful tea is when you get sick around me), it had some black tea, red pepper, and candied ginger in it. His complaints were mainly sore throat and that his lungs hurt from coughing. So I gave him the pepper for his lungs and the ginger for an all around antibiotic affect, and also to take care of the throat. Now while it helped, he has not asked me for any more.

I have finally perused the homeschool info Penny sent along to me and I love this particular site:

http://www.kidspast.com/index.php

It is a really cool site that has some fun learning games that even my 14yr old likes. also through it I found an "online learning game world" for them to join. Heh, I never thought I'd see the day that my kids would fight over a learning game. As yet they were arguing over how much time one of the others got in it. even better I saw my son working on the Anatomy section on it and I don't think half the questions they asked he knew anything about. So over time I do think the kids will gain some info from this that is good.

OK, back to the weather a minute. I have been watering my plants every morning and after seeing the lovely grey skies I decided this morning to not and hope that it pours here, if it doesn't it probably won't hurt my plants to go one day without water as I have been watering them well every day. I am so happy about my tomato plants, no flowers yet; but they are about the size of the plants I bought last year at this time. However, these plants are in much better shape. Funny thing is, and I know I'm going to keep say this. The tomatoes in my box planted have thicker stems, than the ones in the ground. One of my Steviea plants might not make it, but as long as one of them does I will learn about caring for them and maybe next year I can get more of them.

We did have a minor incident yesterday morning. When I was out feeding the dogs one of the kittens from the second litter followed her mom (who has no worries over dogs) and walked right up to our spaniel's food bowl. Spaniel+small animal= hurt kitten

She is alive, but we think she has nerve damage, Lucky just did what most untrained hunting type dogs do... he caught the animal that came near him that he did not recognize as "family". We have kept the dogs away from the momma cats since bandit the first momma decided that anything not human was not coming near her babies. Also last year when Pagie had her kittens we mysteriously lost one of them when we were out one day and everyone was inside due to weather. We knew it was not Paris as we know what Paris does around any baby, she tries to be momma. So right now we are trying to get the hurt kitten recovered from her shock and see how well she will walk, if she stays Ok we will be keeping her and she will be called Dottie. We are also deciding if Lucky's actions are something we need to worry about. I don't think it was done in malice as there was no growl, it was just like he was trying to catch her. *shrugs* I don't know...

I am hoping Silver will feel well enough to get outside and inflate our flat tire and see if it is just a "over worked" air loss (I'm crossing my fingers on that one). We will need the car running by Wedsnday(SP?), so we can go grocery shopping. We are hoping to show our newest neighbor's on the 17th the one discount grocer.

Well I guess I better wrap this up as the sky outside is getting darker (yeah for open windows and doors!), I turned the AC off this morning and opened the house up, I've been getting the obligatory sore throat from dry air from the AC unit. So maybe we can get some humidity in here.

Be Well and Blessed Be...

Rainy days and Frozen pipes

Well things get interesting sometimes when you live with limited means (seriously considering the book I'm planning to be called "Homesteading on a Shoe String"). Well lets see, the long distance on our phone is off but the internet is on. We had rain yesterday when we still need to dry out as the mud here is terrible, considering it's all clay mud. Then because we forgot to put on the heater in our well house last night our water remained frozen until about, 11:45am.

The other downside to the temperature is now not ideal to go out and me and Silver haul the chopped wood. As in the wood from the trees we cut last year that are in the way of building the house, the kids moved some over the weekend. Boy was that fun (notice the sarcasm), my youngest spent 20 minutes whining about how she didn't want to. Only asked each child to move 10 pieces of wood and they had to be bigger than their arms. So then she complained her sister wouldn't let her use the hand truck as oh my the pieces of wood were too heavy. I said OK, had the older girl come inside and sit while her sister did her work. Ten minutes later, she comes in and said she was done. So of course I had to point out that if she had done that in the first place she could have been done an hour or 2 before hand.

Now about this idea of a book called "Homesteading on a shoestring", I guess my best feat in life is my ability to stretch a meal. Take for instance last night, we had a lovely boneless ham I found at sheatlers (sp?). We had that with some scalloped potatoes last night, this morning we had loaded scrambled eggs using the ham, and for lunch and dinner tonight a pasta salad made from the ham too. In a few days it'll be a roast chicken that might make it through 4 dinners!

Be Well and Blessed Be...

Warm Weather

Well, the last few days have been warm and like I posted before we are enjoying our bathtub again, today is no exception. There was one slight problem though, -MUD- lots of it; and it's everywhere.

This is a good solid oak board we have put out by our bathing area as the mud is so bad on that side of the shed Silver's boots got caked. It was serving a good purpose under our clothes line and we have a few sheets of paneling that will substitute it as they got wet during the winter.

This lovely patch is what is left of the goat manure I dug up in our neighbor's barn last year. It has been sitting since I last used some mid summer last year. I have plans for this pretty stuff, tomorrow I plan on stirring it up and then moving it to near where I want to try to grow potatoes this year. I have a few store bought (yes I know that they shouldn't grow) that have been sprouting. I have located a place that has heirloom seed potatoes thanks to a friend of mine!

http://www.southernexposure.com/seed-potatoes-c-217.html

That is the web page you can find them on, I am hoping when I get my taxes done and it comes back and before to much longer I will order some from them. Otherwise i will keep my eyes open for them locally.

On another note, again there is a good possibility our internet will be off when we get up tomorrow morning, if it is i will not be posting for at least 2 weeks. Also if people want to give us a hand somehow and don't feel comfortable with that "donate" button hanging up there. I have set up (even though I do not like some of their policies) a amazon.com wishlist, a mailing address is included so if you want to order us one of the books on it please feel free too. It is listed under my gmail which is:

rivenfae@gmail.com

Thanks in advance if you choose to do so, I will post thank you's on here when I can to all who do.

That's all for now folks,

Be Well and Blessed Be...

Cold Weather

Well, it dropped down to 2 degrees before dawn today, with a negative wind chill. Before we went to bed last night it was 11 degrees, with all three heaters we now have running we kept the temp inside at about 50 degrees. Though because we didn't know how much it would cool down everyone slept in a full set of clothes under their blankets. Even the dogs didn't want to get up this morning :), but they did go outside without to much fuss. The kids did have to walk to the bus in that nasty wind chill this morning... after I had them so bundled they look like that younger brother on "Christmas Story" you know the one so bundled he can barely walk. They told me they were warm enough when they came home today... though my youngest complained that I had so much on her she almost choked.

Funny thing... our water was ok last night... was running this morning... but about 2 hours after the kids left and I was ready to make a pot of tea we discovered that our water was frozen. I guess it got so cold this morning that it froze quickly. As of 6 pm central our water is -STILL- frozen but we have a 5+ gallon jug of water for emergencies. It should last a couple days if necessary, just means I have to wash dishes verrry carefully.

We did have to go out today, though we waited until after noon so we knew the car would start; we aren't sure how good it will be in very low temps as it is not in good shape. anyway we had to go out and do some kid laundry, as it seems when I tell the kids i need their clothes to wash they don't always listen. So instead of washing clothes this Friday we had to was them today, we did have some fun on the way home. Highway 5 going out of Hartville towards Grovespring had an accident on it and the police turned everyone around. So we had to take the long way home and added about 10 minutes to our drive time. We did get to find the pay fishing ponds that are near here by taking this 'alternate route'. So once we get our fishing rods fixed up and get some licenses we plan on fishing there with the kids.

I do hope everyone who had to deal with the snow storm and cold is doing well and didn't get buried too deep!

Be Well and Blessed Be...