More on the Trademark controversy

Well I was looking around on facebook and found some more info on the "D Family" issue going on in case anyone who isn't a friend on facebook wants to check it all out. one of which is the "D Family" now has a website to sell things online under the brand name "urban homestead supply". *shakes head* Yep they are all for helping people that's why they got the TM... looks like money grubbing to me, but for proof here is a couple links:

http://brandgeek.net/2011/04/21/urban-homsteading-tm/

http://www.facebook.com/notes/fae-queen/all-urban-homesteaders-please-read-this-re-dervaes/110325475720105

The second is a facebook note with a link to the "D Family" online "Store"t hat they now have. Take a peek and see for yourselves. I am seriously disappointed in this family and what they have done, I hope others are as well.

*Disclaimer*

Now remember this is my personal opinion here folks please disagree with me if you so choose too.

Guilty!

Yes I'm guilty! Guilty of not always following through with something. Oddly it was one of my kids that caught me too.

We had decided to try to cut all high fructose corn syrup out of our diets, which includes drinking soda pop; which has many other reasons for not drinking it. Especially with Silver being a diabetic and us not wanting "artificial sweeteners" that are made for diabetics due to the veiled pasts they have.

Anyway, my kids last time we were getting ready to go to the store asked if we could buy some soda pop, of course I told them no because we're not doing soda anymore. Well, my youngest who always likes to point out errors on other people; yells. "But mom, you two had some the bottles are in the car!"

Well... she was right, we had been buying some Sasperilla (I know that's gotta be spelled wrong) from the farm store when we stop in it. I conceded to her that yes we drank it and thanked her for pointing it out. then I said, "well that's it no more soda of any kind including that stuff." It didn't go over well with my darling little girl, but at least I did remember I'm not suppose to be drinking it.

As for the rest of the "corn syrup" items, I have gone so far as to make sure catsup we buy has none in it. I am also hoping this year to make my own, I have found numerous recipes on it. Here is something I hope everyone knows about if they are trying to avoid the "corn syrup".

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/a-new-name-for-high-fructose-corn-syrup/

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/the-fda-may-change-high-fructose-corn-syrup-name-to-corn-sugar.html

Seems they want to change the name to corn sugar to make people like it more... well in my opinion as long as i know what it's called I can avoid it. i am also avoiding sugar beets just in case they are permitted to grow the GMO variety of them.. I have been buying pure cane sugar and will keep doing so unless they make that GMO as well. I am planning to switch to honey as a sweetener once we can get our own bee hive. We have found instructions on how to build our own supers for it, so that might be this winter's project.

As for current "work"... well as we are suppose to get rain for the next 7 days I guess I am going to be doing to work ups on who I'm going to divide up my growing space this year as we want to use container gardening until we can make our raised beds. Which of course can't be done till after house building is done so we can place them properly. i hope everyone stays safe if they are in the weather that is coming along.

Be Well and Blessed Be...

Those ain't no small potatoes..

Got pics of my "potato experiment", experiment to me as this really is my first time ever growing them. Now I started with just a lay of composted goat manure and planted them right into the manure, a couple are "Sprouters" from my potato bin the rest are seed taters.

This is the view now:

Now I admit... I need to do a tad bit of weeding, and my youngest promised me she would do it... well.. she did kind of. She weeded around all the big potato plants, when I spread that straw this morning I stepped on one because I couldn't see it under the weeds! So later after we have our bath I'm going to go out and clear weeds... I hate weeding... Also there are about 2 that are on their second layer of straw already.. and those are 2 of my sprouters.

This is one that's on it's first layer:

Lovely isn't it? and soooo lush looking! Pity you can't eat the leaves as they look so bright green!

This morning we finished (kind of) a project for the dogs, a stack wood dog house. We were stacking logs on and off for one and the youngest dog kept knocking them over, and with what appears to be a typical week in Ozarks Spring.. (stormy) I suggested we finish it the best we could today. So we finished up the walls and used some of the paneling we are going to build the chicken coop walls with for it's "temporary" roof. I am hoping to get something better for the roof later.

Here it is:

It looks huge, but it's not really; the logs give it the impression of being big. Now we just have to hope the little guy uses it. the two females are using one huge dog house together, and probably consider themselves lucky as it has an old mattress inside it. It only has that as Paris prefers soft things.. I can't blame her really who wants to lay on the ground? They all spent the winter sleeping on our beds so now they are going to get tons of fresh air. Whether they want it or not.

Seedling Update:

4/20/2011 2 Scotch Bonnet (hot pepper)

4/20/2011 1 Golden Marconi Pepper (sweet frying pepper)

I do hope the other peppers I planted start coming up, we also have Dill coming up, Chives, and some random herbs as silly me; I forgot to mark the pots...*sighs* I'll figure it out when they get their first true leaves I guess.

I do hope everyone stays safe in this nasty weather that's been floating around.

Be Well and Blessed Be...

.. And Now the Real Post...

I took some pics from around the homestead this morning as we are going to get rain.. (tornado watch till 9pm here). I also have to say that cake bribery works wonders, the kids stacked 1/2 a cord of wood on Sunday. ...Guess maybe I should do that more... oh well, the work got done.

Kelle this is the official word from the "take back" Facebook page and a link to the EFF:

" Process Media and Denver Urban Homesteading have both petitioned to cancel the trademarks. We're in the beginnings of the legal process, which could go through July of 2012. So now we hurry up and wait!"

https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2011/04/04-0

(I do hope that link works.. if not copy/paste it)

Now for pictures:

Here of course is my favorite cat Crookie, I couldn't believe it when I saw him hugging the stuffed dog while he was sleeping!

Now for 2 pics of my Rhubarb coming up:

There were three planted and only 2 so far have come up at all.

I can't wait to try making things with these next year. I read that you need to just let them grow the first year so I am. I swear I saw one of the Dahlia's I planted coming up, now I've read that the tubers on Dahlia's are edible like a potato... can anyone confirm that for me?

Elderberry:

We have 2 of these and this appears to be the better one, but that might not be true as the second one has more "sprouts" (the areas where the leaves are), this one only has them in the crown.

Chicken Yard right before fencing.. we will be finishing this the weekend at the end of the month as we have more chicks coming on the 3rd, my Jersey Giants.

I put some bean seeds under that straw as I know how much chickens love garden plants, and the straw has some seed still in it so I am hoping it'll seed itself; there is also a Mandrake growing in there.

This one is one of my pots of Amish Paste Tomato seedlings:

The oddest thing about this one is, that this pot had the least amount of starting mix in it and it grew first and the best so far... go figure...

Now I have a seedling update.. and it's Pepper's!!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!!!:

4/24/2011 - 1 Golden Marconi Pepper (sweet frying pepper)

4/26/2011- 1 Chocolate Habenaro (sp?)

Now if the rest of the peppers would follow suit I'd be one happy person! Well at least it is one sweet and one hot growing, it could have been 2 hot varieties.

Be Well and Blessed Be...

The Fight over the Trademark

Ok... I wasn't going to comment on this but after looking at it for the last 2 day I need to say something.

Seems there is now on FaceBook a page about the "controversy" over the "homesteading" trademark. It supports the Dervaes Family and jumps down the throats of those who belong to the "take back" page....

One of the biggest comments the "person" (whom ever it is won't show there name) who owns the page is, is that the "take back" page is against the Dervaes Family...

Well... it is!!! The problem is by making those trademarks, and then "taking out" a few people over the right to use the term they made themselves targets. They painted a big red target on them and are now going to have to deal with that for as long as they push the issue.

The next "big" comment this "person" had was that the Dervaes has a "online book" free and available for all to look at to learn... YEP IT'S CALLED A BLOG FOLKS! Funny thing though is they went after a few Bloggers over their "online books" too... can't have it both ways, the world just doesn't work that way.

...And here is the really dumb thing in my honest opinion...

Until this page showed up on FaceBook, the "jumping" on the Dervaes family had quieted down. Now it has re-sparked the uproar, Thanks to whomever started the FaceBook page!

See you did it to yourself....

Home Invasion (again?)

Well seems my house will be invaded by plants again as I needed to get my "youngsters" inside before the low temps hit later:

As you can see I have "just a few" pots to deal with. The little black pots are herbs, and the other's aside from the rosemary and the fern are my tomato and pepper plants.

Now I had cleared space in the house to place "everybody" and was just about to start bringing them in 2 at a time when silver says. "How about we just bring the whole rack in?" Duh, yes that'd be great but seeing as how until he pointed out he cleared space for it I had no where to set it. I could have screamed! It's not easy clearing room in a 12X24 building... oh well they are inside now and safe till the cold passes.

We had another storm "blow" through last night while we didn't have any "severe" weather it seems we did get a tad bit of water:

This as you can see is a small "puddle" (by the way it's only half of it), that bit of wood is from the kids playing out near here the day before last. We have named this little puddle "Wolf Lake" and it only appears when we get a good amount of rain. Now I took this pic at about noon central time, it had time to drain some. Also if you can see the little green flag... part of it is in the "zone" for our house, we are going to have to fill part of it in. However after the house is done I am planning on digging the pond out some and making it permanent. Maybe put some fish in and fix it to grow some water cress, as well as cat tails.

Here is the other side of it:

Lovely huh? Seems it gets run off all the way from the road fills into the "pond" then travels out towards the forest.

We did our grocery shopping today and are going to have a nice salad for dinner tonight.. odd thing since moving here staying in budget for food has been a semi head ache... well this week we stuffed the freezer AND bought some fun foods without going over budget. For us "fun" foods means I was able to afford some fresh fruit, lunch meat, and extra tea.. and the king of goodness(in my opinion anyway) ICE CREAM!

We haven't had some in a little while and we managed to get some, the kids are going to be shocked to say the least. It took a bit of wrangling to get it all in the freezer but I did it! I even bought a -bribe- for the kids (little chocolate cakes), and the non-whiney kid tomorrow even gets whipped cream on it! I figure if it gets them to work hard without a headache from me it's worth it!

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Be Well and Blessed Be...

A (Lazy) Working day

Well lets first show off the "work" we did do today.. at least what I got pics of. Here is where the chicken coop is going at the beginning of the month we just finished clearing it all out:

I am planning to spread grass seed (it's cheaper than field mix who knew?) and probably some of my extra bean seeds that I have coming out of my ears. we have to put in three more of those posts, we didn't buy a "post driver" as ... well... we didn't see any point in buying something for $20 that we would only use a couple of times and then it would sit and rust. Seems a sledge hammer works just as good!

As for why today is lazy...

To be honest this whole week has been.. just utterly no motivation for us here this last week, but today it was due to all the inactivity since that storm hit. Silver didn't even use up a full tank of fuel in the chain saw before his back started bothering him. Then due to the fact I can carry them easier I did wind up pulling a muscle in my lower arm due to lifting cut logs wrong.. *sighs* We've all got to be more careful.

My tomato seedlings are doing well, but still no peppers coming up and this weekend the pots need to come back inside due to near freezing temps due to hit on a couple of overnights. this may be a problem seeing as how I have a few more pots out there... like 20...
I started my herbs almost a week ago now and they';ll have to come in too.

On another note...

This ( I know it's hard to tell) is a Persimmon Tree, we have 2 of them and I am guessing someone planted them on purpose. This one is the stronger one, and i was worried it would not get any leaves on it.. they seem to be slow trees. Well it now has them starting! I am so glad to see that!

Now the tough question... does -ANYONE- know recipes for them???????? I have been looking but it seems not many people cook with them any more.

That's all for now!

Be well and Blessed Be...