Summer 15' Updates

I'm not a big picture taker, but I didn't quit taking pictures so much as I quit uploading them onto the computer. When the pictures do go up they're several months behind whatever news has happened. That among many other things contribute to the lack of personal posts on this blog. We're also trying to be more aware of OPSEC around here. The internet doesn't need to know when so & so is coming & what the time frame is & our planned activities. Having a public blog just kind of throws that out of the window, but I'm not ready to wholly throw in the towel yet.

My garden is the prettiest, biggest & looks to be the most productive one yet. There are swarms of Japanese beetles everywhere & not everything has come up but it's the most cheerful place to be despite that. It always makes me smile. I got a lot more garlic than I thought I would & my late planting is still growing well, though I don't think it will come up in time except to go back in as seed.
I've been canning all week, it's much more gratifying to see home canned goods arrive in a glut on our pantry rather than grocery cans. The children have been working w/ me pretty steadily as well. They sincerely enjoy working w/ me as opposed to merely completing an assigned task. I can't work on everything though, delegation is a must.
Unhappily our AC went out last week towards the end of my first canning session so I've been trying to get it done before 10:00. The actual canning part is done outside on a propane burner but cooking the fruit/blanching, etc. take place on the stove. The stove is shut off after 10:00 & supper is either salad, grilled or crockpotted w/ a lemonade break midafternoon.

We took the whole month of June off & just finished the required standardized testing for homeschoolers. I tend to do it before we start the new school year. I'd like to dip my toe into the school schedule next week & see how it goes. School in the heat is a drag, & outside jobs are better accomplished in the morning, we might set up shop under a tree for it instead.

 I've got melons trellised, onions, resting strawberries & a plot at rest awaiting winter greens.

2 stands of popcorn, another kind of strawberry & the herbs are creeping everywhere. I'll handle them this fall.

 I've never had a row of tomatoes before! 3 kinds, sweet potatoes, beans & pie pumpkins. 2 more rows waiting for greens.

View from above.

More of Spring

This video was the very first day of spring & it just keeps getting busier out here. Happily, God has providentially granted us rain almost every other day so we don't have to spend too much time watering the gardens. Victor has a little "guerrila garden" up the hill w/ his special low-acid Mr. Stripey tomatoes & cukes he wants for pickles. It's up on the mountain somewhere secret. I found some potatoes sprouting up from last year & he asked for one. I handed it over & he tucked it in his black Tonka truck w/ shovel & disappeared.



Mike& I are having a "potato-off". I'm trying them in a tire tower & he's built a potato tower out of old shipping crates. We've used these crates for everything.



Who will grow the most? I found spouts coming up in the garden that I missed last harvest & he bought some from Lowes. Stay tuned...



We have at least one rat in the hayloft. I've actually seen it while up there & occasionally we find dead babies in the goat run that V & C like to feed to the chickens. Sometimes it feels like Lord of the Flies around here. In preparation for the goatlings birth Mike gave the goat shed a thorough mucking & found it! He blocked it in w/ cinderblocks & shot I won't say how many times. His trophy that the chickens wouldn't touch:



There's another one at least, I can hear it squeaking in the mornings when I'm doing chicken chores. Mike was getting water & saw a tail disappear over the roof. I saw a ratty whiskery pink nose peeking from the side of the slab in the chicken shed. These rats put me in mind of Garth Williams drawings of Templeton after he'd gorged himself. Salt & Pepper mindlessly leads her 10 babies (1 died) in there & I just know 1 will get taken out by the rat.



Here is Annie, still not having babies. I've just about decided she isn't pregnant. But wait!



Victor & Charlotte have taken them!



No, I found them this morning. Annie looked gaunt & there was a big spread of birth slime on the floor which I tossed w/ the rake & strawed over. It was quiet though so just thought she had lost a freaky mucous plug but there were the 2 little bucklings, one stuck under a pallet. They were shivering & it was fairly cool & overcast so I brought them in for an hour or so until the sun came out. Annie was starving so I took her to the front & fed her a goodly chunk of grain, alfalfa & a box of raisens. Unhappily through my negligence the white goat got a bath.



I had been running back & forth all morning misplacing things trying to figure out how to promote bonding while not dying of chill & running off of 2 cups of coffee w/out breakfast. Mike was at school. Victor was so good about holding the brown goat until his legs & the goat fell asleep so I said he might lay him on the towel in the tub & leave him. I was finishing up clothes & Miranda came out & proudly announced that she had "I shompoo baby doat!" Mike (who was back from school & making us breakfast) exchanged a look & went to see little white goat was covered w/ pink conditioner. I gave it a very warm rinse off in the laundry sink which as a detachable nozzle w/ shower option. He seemed to like it. But whatever special bonding smell that was on him got washed off. Annie shows fairly strong signs of rejecting him. She milks great & I'm getting enough to put in a bottle to feed him so we'll see if he makes it or not. We think it's funny how they're ears are half Nubian half La Mancha.





Well, it's a long day & I'm beat. It looks like we've got unexpected midnight feedings to do. We're thankful for all of the new life, & wisdom we've been given in the first short weeks of the season. Oh yeah, I also made my first batch of saurkraut. I followed Joannes directions implicitly so go check out her blog & pictures on how to make it if you'd like to. I used the rubber handle of a hammer to pound w/.

Sprung has Springed! (Reverse that)

Spring pictures. This is the start of what we hope DV will be a good size orchard. We cut down alot of trees w/ help from the brethren over at Zion Road & put in 5 apple trees, (4 Red Delicious, 1 Granny Smith)

From the othe angle, w/ Bullet , our RIR/Orpington in the foreground. He is personable.

Annie & maybe Abigail too are close to kidding, though Abby doesn't look near as big as Annie.

We will shampoo her before the milking commences. She has her mother's lopsided teat, we're hoping she doesn't have the mastitis tendency. You can almost taste the milk!

Pear blossom from Asian pear trees planted last year

Salt & Pepper sitting on her clutch. She brooded us 11 chicks, praise God. We're thankful. Another clutch of 12 or 13 seems to be taken over in shiftwork between an experienced hen & a first year. They take turns sitting on it while the other goes to eat, drink, dust, roost, scratch, whatever. I hope they settle it by next week.

Root Cellar Progress

I have a difficult time updating projects as they go on. There is nothing inherently wrong w/ that, but the point of this blog is to keep friends & family posted as to what is going on & when. I just tend to wait until it's all put together & look pretty. So I apologize for not being current. Here is my new desktop picture of Mike looking super manly after COMPLETING THE ROOT CELLAR DIGOUT! He's holding the actual tools used to perform this feat.

He's about 5'10". BDU's are the best work clothes.

My uncle Cecil & our neighbor putting up forms in preparation of pouring the footer.

Our neighbor has a cement mixer & helped w/ a lot of the magic.

He's also the only one we know who knows how to lay block. I think Mike has it figured out now. You can never know too many things.

We're actually much further but that's all that's uploaded. Thanks to good neighbors, visiting family & church family for all of the help in this project.

Gifts Galore

This fall has been so much fun & very busy. We had lots of family visit us throughout the week & as usual we got to go out & see new stuff in our area. We're not usually proactive in our sightseeing & almost never knowledgeable in where we take our guests. We go & explore along w/ them, which it probably oughtn't to be like that, but it is. Here's from a walk we took my mother in law dragged us on. It was beautiful! But Miranda is officially too heavy for me to climb mountains w/ her on my back, this was her last long trip in her carrier.It's another reason I'm grateful that we can homeschhool. On our mountain walk Victor kept running ahead & I threatened to put him in a kindergarten classroom on a Tuesday morning instead.

"Ahhhh! You'll never do it, I won't let you!" he screamed diving up a side trail that I couldn't climb w/ Miranda on my back. We all laughed & Mike followed him up.



This is from my father in law from the local brewery. He gave me a "growler" (Half gallon) of pumpkin ale. It was SO GOOD! I drank 3 pints after a heavy meal which in hindsight is gluttony & 1 pint too many for a sitting for me. So I drank & blogged. I'm a much freer talker w/ a drink in me. You take the jug back & they'll refill it for $10.00.
This is from my aunt though she mightn't have known it. She gave us some money to fix or get a new washer as ours just completely flooded the house twice for 2 different reasons. Mike matched her & I got my wringer. English people call it a mangle, which I like better. It puts a wonderful crease in diapers, cloths & towels & is a wrist saver.

This was from Mike. He got tired of seeing me carry buckets of stuff everywhere & waited until he could afford steel handles (he accidently snapped the wooded ones off of our last one) & a run flat tire. The goat shed got a very thorough mucking, the gardens have been amended & it's also served as a cement hod for the root cellar.

Apple sauce from deer apples. It's a little more work but much cheaper & maybe you can't tell but Mike got me some Tattlers. They work great!

My kitchen is prettier thanks to mom & her friend Bill. They brought me her old buffet & I'm using it as a sideboard. Or a credenza. What is the difference? I don't know, but now I've a proper place for table linens, aprons, napkins & miscellaney. The only bad part was when I cut off a head of garlic & dirt would fall into the tea cups. The garlic is mostly in the ground now.

Isn't it a pretty piece? I have been so blessed this season by neighbors & family. The visits were the most wonderful, especially since there were years between them. It's been a very whirlwind season & I'm afraid winter following will be dull.

Critter Gifts

I briefly mentioned chickens in an earlier post; here's the expansion. My brother in law was very kind & gave us 2 chickens. We didn't have a coop for them for quite awhile so they lived in our camper shell after their week long mountain adventure. I caught Miss Pretty Hen in the goat shed when she came down 2 days later scratching around & shut Mr. Rooster in 5 days later into the camper after watching him from the kitchen door. He finally followed her calls & just walked in, a very anti-climatic end to the daily search & chase.


Mr. Rooster:

And Miss Pretty Hen. That is her personal laying basket. An egg appears like magic every day! My egg purchases are down 50%.

Then Mike got busy (again) & built an aviary out of his fairly new tool shed.


I had slightly suspicioned that the toolshed would be turned into a chicken coop but I didn't want to dishearten him as he was so pleased to have a woodshed. You can't have too many sheds & we're kind of going into animal condo's here.
However, the wonderful lady who came over & showed us all of the wild edibles had just seeded her grass & wanted to get rid of her flock as they were eating the seed. Our flock increased nearly 10 fold.

There are Buffs, Banty's, Aracauna's, a Japanese something w/ pretty blackish green feathers, a Silky, others, we've nearly 20 in all. Mr. Rooster did the funniest courtship dance/ display w/ every new arrival, hopping on 1 leg w/ 1 wing spread at a time. The noise level increases by the week & we are glad to have it so, but the "peaceful country" is a misconception, especially at 4:30 in the morning.
These are Aracuana eggs over from my brother in law's.


We keep them in the pantry. There is no earthly good reason to keep fresh eggs in the refrigerator. They'll stay in the nest for over a week to collect a large enough clutch before the hen goes broody (if she does). They have a special coating to seal in the freshness (developing chick) that is lost if they are washed which is why the eggs ought not to be washed. That super large egg? A Buff/Aracuana mix that for some reason or other is named Lady Gaga. I need to ask about that; I heard it mentioned when a bunch of soldiers acted out one of her songs & google overwhelms you when you search the name; this is such a sweet older lady, surely she can't know who is behind that name.

Anyway, Lady Gaga the chicken is a beautiful light gold color, lighter than the other Buffs & they are the head hens. Miss Pretty Hen seems depressed w/ their arrival & I feel badly for her. Her & Mr. Rooster had been free ranging the whole time but we've been keeping them in to get used to the other chickens who've not free ranged & as their arrival was staggered in 3 separate trips, their release date keeps getting pushed back. We plan to let them all out on Mon. to scratch & do their chicken things & we'll see how well Mr. Rooster handles his charge. I've a suspicion he'll have them all roost in the laurel rather than the coop, but we'll see.
We are so thankful to God for moving the neighbors hearts towards us allowing this further step of independence away from Factory Food & to rely on Him & also to my brother & sister in law (again) for being in place w/ a head start to show us the ropes.

The Newest Addition...

...is not a baby.
Victor is asking for a new baby already, Mike told him that when he was able to take over all of my chores & Miranda was a bit bigger, he would pray a special prayer to make that come about, but really, we need physical labor done around here right now & he won't let me work if I'm carrying.

We were listening to Michael Bunkers new radio show & he was reading a chapter out of his new book, Modern Religious Idols. I think it was chapter 8, The Idol of Feminization. Mike had never heard a Bunker rant before & it got him pumped up & mannish feeling; he declared he was going to dig a hole tomorrow! And he did. So I present: our root cellar.

When I say "our root cellar" I mean the very beginnings, I'll update as allowed, DV. Here Mike & Victor are breaking ground on site. It's right above my summer kitchen & all of my fruit bushes are down to the left. Though it does face south there is a mountain directly in front of it to block all of the afternoon sun, besides a bunch of shady trees.
Now, I have not dug a hole since digging my hasty fighting position during basic training in Ft. Sill. I was 18 then & had only a small utility shovel. I think it was early October, & I'd been there since the beginning of Aug., long enough for me to decide to never live in Ok. (Sorry Okies.) I've mentioned our special dirt before & it is just clay all of the way down so far, which is fine except we've had a very wet spring. Man , it's a workout.

Mike & I were in a digging mood about a week before this, w/ a conversation that went something like this: "Hey, how deep did you want the ditch in the goat shed?" "6 inches."

I started digging around the concrete pad & he jumped up to help & then recruited Victor to start filling buckets of gravel from the drive. Something he did NOT want to do. So I offered to pay him as it was above & beyond his regular chores. He consented warily & then Mike told him that if he spent his earnings on tools then he would match him in price. We had a french drain in about 2 hours.

Mike & Victor went to Ace a few days later & returned w/ a real untility shovel; $7.00 for Victor & the root cellar commenced. I get to swing the pick ax; I do shovel but I prefer the pick ax for its more immediate result. Here is about 3 days worth of work. It is not 3 consecutive days, or even one 12 hour day, but here & there between storms w/ a day or 2 to dry out & lighten up. Neither of us want an injury & his back goes out for the seemingly smallest reasons.

I had some fun which I probably ought not to have had. To pass the digging time I told V & C that there was a monster egg down below ready to wreak havoc on our county & it was up to us to dig down fast enough & far enough to reach it & save the town. There was so much speculation & older B horror movies are a regular thing at our house; they got into it much more than I thought they would & Charlotte had a nightmare, so I gave them an ending.
Victor has conjectured that a baby dragon hatched out of its egg during a storm & was crushed by a river of dirt wherewith our present day hill formed over it. Charlotte finds it plausible & I'm hoping the whole thing will just die. Our other between semesters project is (are?) chickens.

Garden Update

This might be one of the least attractive parts of food production, but certainly it's one of the most necessary & money saving. May I present the humble yet noble compost heap! Back in Va. we had one of those cool & jazzy compost makers that cost a ton, but it was basically a black bottomless trashcan. Our current system is less polished, but it works as well as our previous neighborhood association friendly container while producing WAY more. You just can't beat manure.
Emptying the kitchen compost pail is Charlotte's daily task & is a beginner chore for our house at around 2.5 years. I turn the pile every 3 months or so because I'm lazy & the gardens get a blanket of it in the fall & immediately after I've harvested something.


This is some kind of volunteer that has sprung up around the compost pile. I haven't figure it out yet, but so far the goats are leaving it alone.


Here's the bulk of it. It's mostly just a little kitchen garden, we've got 1 square of beans, 4 of garlic, 2 potatoes, 2 strawberries, a seriously struggling square of spinach, a square in which I keep planting new things that never appear & the the entire southern end is for vining crops, also not yet out. I've also planted some carrots, peppers & echinacea, DV, they'll appear w/ all of the rain we're receiving. 4 tomatoes are in the earth boxes at the foot of the garden. We're really hoping to keep ahead of the horn worms this year.


A close-up of the strawberries. This is our second year w/ them, the goats got at them twice last year so our harvest was minimal. They've sent out some runners, new crowns & they're still not worth the space I've given them, we've gotten more than last year already. I hope to be able to clear some land by the stream & transplant them down there if I can prevent a raccoon buffet, which brings me to my next personal project:


Clearing land. There is just so much of it to be done, I kind of just have been shoving it on the back burner. I got this much done in 2-3 of Miranda's nap times; I worked until I needed the chainsaw, which Mike very obligingly did. They're so dangerous, I won't touch one. This plot I had intended for sweet potatoes. It's a race to see who will be done first, slipping sweet potatoes, or bearing strawberries? The soil is good, fluffy & acidic, so we'll see.


Here are my sweet potatoes waiting patiently. 2 didn't make it & grew moldy, the rest are holding on. I have since read that January is the time to start slips, but as they are a heat loving plant, I'm sure I would just kill them doing that, my winter sink area temperature is in the low 60's, unless I'm cooking in there. Their companion is a basil, that needs to be outside before I pluck him to death. The african violet is a full time resident.


Rootlets! Proof of life! I've read that you can get 50 slips from one sweet potato half, I'm hoping this is true. I've got 4 left & they're putting out purplish leaves as well. I have no idea what kind of sweet potatoes (or what the regular potatoes) are, #10 all purpose potato & whatever sweet potatoes Aldi's sells.


Here is a cool tree stump on the way to my next plot. It was cooler as a tree, but still neat how it holds on:



And here is the next land plot to clear. Either the sweet potatoes, strawberries, carrots or maybe a melon will go down here. It depends on whatever is ready first. I've gotten a good bit of it done, but I need to drag the whole pile I threw over the stream to the burn/ or split pile before Mike comes w/ the chain saw so we don't start a forest fire.

My project is on halt because Mike has needed some help building a chicken house & we've commenced on the root cellar. After digging for a couple of hours I don''t feel like clearing, especially in our present humidity. We woke up at 5:30 to escape the worst of it & have cooked out the last 2 days to keep the heat out of the house. It is 9:00 & I AM BEAT. Good night, all.