Homestead Roots

My little blessings

2012-02-11T09:27:00.000-08:00

These three little ones sure keep me busy and I am grateful for every moment I get to spend with them!! There are many days that I get overwhelmed with the busy chaos of the "work at home mom" life, but I cant imagine missing the precious moments that these three blessings bring to my life!

by the way...I will forewarn you that i got a new camera and I'm having SO much fun with it!!! This year, the garden will be very well documented!!

Sprouting

2012-02-09T09:20:00.000-08:00

Winter time is the best time of year for sprouting! Fresh green mini veggies easily made in your very own kitchen!

Addie's Avocado Almond "dip it" recipe (grain free, dairy free)

2012-01-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

What's more fun than decorating your dip!! This is Addie's new favorite "dip it" and it is actually a recipe that she made up! She just kept saying "ok mommy, lets put some of this in there"...and so I did and then we blended it up and decorated it!

1/2 cup almonds (soaked overnight in water)
1 avocado
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 tomato (quickly eat the other half so it doesnt go bad - at least that is what Addie says!)
1 garlic clove
salt to taste

Easy directions: Toss it all in a bowl and puree it with a hand blender. And of course you must make a fun face on your dip...this is Henry and Addies favorite part!

This dip is great with sliced bell peppers, carrots and celery! Addie also likes it on her lettuce wraps with a little bit of turkey!

Enjoy!! Let me know what creative ways you find to use this dip!

Custom Jewelry

2012-01-23T14:09:00.000-08:00

Marleyjanedotcom

Silver Necklaces. Silver Rings. Custom Jewelry

I just had to share with you all this gorgeous necklace I had made for my mom for Christmas! A delightful lady on Etsy custom handmade it for my mom. It has such superb quality and was just packaged so beautifully!

I highly recommend her and all of her gorgeous work! If you have been considering any custom jewelry, you should definitely swing on over to her Etsy shop!

Marleyjanedotcom

Silver Necklaces. Silver Rings. Custom Jewelry

Nest Box Adventures!

2012-01-21T12:27:00.000-08:00

Its a race to the nest box to see which girls laid us some presents! The excitement of these 2 kids would make you think that they were golden eggs in there! Ummm, let me clear that up right now that there are in fact no golden eggs here. Bummer!

If you are considering raising backyard hens I highly recommend adding nest boxes to your coop. The hens love to curl up in the boxes where it is warm and dark and lay their eggs. The kids also love knowing exactly where to find treasures! We had to put a log stump at the foot of the nest box so the kids can reach up and collect the eggs without us...besides, its really cold outside and its alot easier to watch from the backdoor with a nice hot cup of tea while the kids run out in the cold to bring in the eggs!

Soaking Almonds

2012-01-20T06:04:00.000-08:00

If you like Almonds you will LOVE soaking raw almonds!!

SO Simple! Just toss your almonds in a jar,

cover with water, put a lid on it and let them soak overnight!

In the morning they will be puffy and oh so easy to chew!

These are also great to blend up into dips or sauces and will add a nice creamy taste and texture.

Give it a try and let me know what you think and what creative ways you find to use your soaked almonds :)

Wood Stove Cookin

2012-01-19T12:18:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things about winter is the crackling fire in the wood stove! I love to layer the top of the stove with bubbling soups and stock along with the busy whistle of the tea kettle. I use to boil down stock in my standard stock pot until a few months ago when Bryan bought me my new 24 Quart stock pot!! Yes ladies and gentlemen... that's 6 gallons!! I always save chicken and turkey bones in a large freezer bag to make one large batch of stock. Then on a good cold day when the wood stove is roaring, I fill my new stock pot with those dinner remnants along with a few onions, carrots and celery sticks and let the fire do the rest! I usually let the stock rumble all day and into the night then strain out the liquids and let it condense down even more. But hold your britches and don't toss out those bones just yet...there's definitely still meat on them to pull off and save! Perfect for barbecue chicken sandwiches or chicken lettuce wraps!

Not only do we benefit from the ridiculously good chicken stock for our soups and stews, but wow does the house smell good that day!!!

Colorful Array of Backyard Eggs

2012-01-16T12:08:00.000-08:00

Addie saw (what would have seemed to be) her first dozen store bought eggs. As she opened the carton of the 12 white glistening eggs she started to scream and laugh hysterically. I was quickly looking around trying to figure out what was so hilarious to her...she kept laughing and finally exclaimed (while pointing at the white eggs) "Mommy they look so funny!!!"" Yes, then I realized that she is so used to her brown, cream, blue and green eggs that the appearance of 12 white eggs, all perfectly the same size, probably did indeed look quite hilarious to her!

Our egg layin beauties!

2012-01-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

These girls have proved to be quite the productive group of hens!

The chickens, who were baby chicks just a few months ago, are now full grown and proving to be excellent egg layers!! Addie has taken such good care of them from the time they first joined our little farm back in March. At the end of the summer I realized how hard Addie was working to take care of them and that she basically did all the feeding and egg collecting...so, we told her that if she wanted she could have all the chicken responsibilities...she gladly accepted! Along with the irresponsibility, we told her that if she sold any extra eggs she collected that she could keep the money in her jar. She quickly decided she wanted to sell them for $10 per dozen (decided upon due to only have 10 finger...otherwise Im sure she would have thought of a higher number!). I told her that she would never get $10 for 1 dozen eggs...quickly she exclaimed "Oh, Grandpa will buy them!". "Oh, yes Im sure you are right...but we are not charging grandpa $10 for eggs!"

We are down to 9 hens (several were roosters and a few were lost to the harsh summer we had) but they are layin very consistently! Addie was bringing in 7-8 eggs a day until just about a month ago as the daylight began to dwindle (chickens egg production is based dramatically off of hours of sunlight...as well as a healthy diet). With the slight temperature rise we have seen as well as a new organic chicken layer feed we have them enjoying, their production has taken off again and Addie is bringing in at least 5 eggs a day...some days we have 8. I'm sure the production will lower slightly as we enter the cold winter months, but these girls are definitely strong heritage breeds and I really look forward to seeing them in the years to come!

I think hens are a fabulous and easy way to start having your back yard produce something for you!

Brussel Sprouts in garlic butter with soy sauce

2012-01-02T20:15:00.001-08:00

This is my families new favorite side dish thanks to my dear friend Julie.

Brussel sprouts, cut, sauteed in butter and garlic with a little soy sauce right at the end! Delicious, easy and super healthy!

I can not get enough of these little yummy nuggets! Hope you all give them a try too...i mean really, when you start with butter and garlic how can you possibly go wrong!?!

Diced Ham ready for meals

2011-12-14T16:55:00.000-08:00

A well stocked pantry and freezer is a must! Also, you can get things much cheaper when you buy in bulk!! The question I hear the most: "But what do you do with it all?" Well, this is one of my new favorite bulk purchases! Ham freezes very well and makes for quick and easy lunches and dinners.

At sams you can get a boneless ham for around $3 per lb. Pick out your ham and walk on over to the deli area and ask them to slice it for you (I prefer thin sliced). Then you have deli sliced ham for half the price as you will spend at your local grocery store.

When I get home I keep half as the thin sliced large pieces and then I cut up little squares of the other half. These are perfect to put in large glass canning jars to freeze.

I try to always have one in the fridge defrosted and ready for sandwiches and wraps. This is a crazy easy lunch idea for the kiddos or for anyone who stops by your house for a visit with an empty tummy (with my family, this happens quite frequently...but I love it!). Henry loves to make lunches around here and this is a great way for him to easily do that.

This is also perfect to toss a few squares into your morning eggs, or into any dinner entree that needs some extra flavor :) Potato soup is perfect with a handful of ham! If you don't have the freezer space for this much extra meat...team up with a friend or two and share a 10 lb ham...much cheaper for sure!!

Letters in Flour for Preschoolers

2011-12-12T20:09:00.000-08:00

Fitting everything into one day can be quite a challenge sometimes! I love to have "formal school time" where we sit down at the table for a few hours and really focus on various assignments, but in all actuality that is not the way it happens every day! Since the kids are still in the pre-school age, I try to come up with fun activities to accomplish our work. This is by far one of Addies favorite ways to work on her letters and numbers! While Im doing some baking, I will just spread some flour on the counter and let Addie draw with her finger for an hour or so! She absolutely loves it and it is an easy way to get through some school work while baking bread or other goodies!!

Beef & Barley Stew Recipe

2011-12-10T09:49:00.000-08:00

Its cold outside and time to bust out the soups and stews recipes!! I LOVE soups and stews and this is by far one of my favorites. My mother-in-law introduced me to this recipe and I absolutely recommend it and want to pass it on to all of you as well :) It does take some time to prep and cook, but well worth the time!

Beef & BarleyStew:

Ingredients:

1 ½ Lb Boneless Beef Chuck Cubed (or Venecine, Chicken, Pork...anymeat!)

1 Tbl Vegetable Oil

2 Cups Chopped Onions

1 C up Diced Carrots

½ Cup Sliced Celery

1 LB Fresh Sliced Mushrooms

2 cloves Garlic

½ tsp Dried Thyme

1-14.5oz Can Beef Broth

1-14.5oz Can Chicken Broth

2 Cups Water

½ Cup Pearled Barley

1 tsp Salt (optional)

½ tsp Pepper

3 Tbl Chopped fresh Parsley forGarnish

Instructions:

1: Brown the meat in oil and remove from the pot

2: Saute the onions, carrots and celery in the meat juices

3: Add mushrooms, garlic and thyme to the sauteed veggies and cook for 3 minutes

4: Add the broth, water, barley, salt and pepper to the pot and bring to a boil

5: Reduce heat, cover and simmer 1½-2 hrs

Basil Rooting

2011-12-09T20:23:00.000-08:00

I love to make Herb Bouquets ... they are very easy and convenient to have on hand to throw basil into any dish! This past summer, I started letting my basil bouquet clippings take root in the water and once they are nice and strong then I transplant them out into the garden! It has worked fabulously and now we have a large amount of basil!! I cant wait to make basil pesto to freeze and eat all winter!

Oh my little George!

2011-12-07T20:05:00.000-08:00

I have hardly talked about George here! He is just such a delightful little fellow :) Keeping mommy busy with all of his cuteness!

Addie is such a good helper! George loves her so much and pretty much gets anything he wants if he can get Addies attention to bring it to him!

George sure loves the outdoors! I pretty much carried him around during all of my outdoor chores this summer and he would coo and giggle at everything!

I have several slings and sure have loved carrying this cute little fellow everywhere. He loves to look out of the front like a baby kangaroo in a pouch!

This was from Georges first trip to the zoo...yes, he loved it!

Oh and cooking with mommy in the kitchen always brings out the laughing and talking in this little bundle of joy!

Ah, my buddy and me :)

First snow

2011-12-06T07:26:00.001-08:00

A thin sheet of white covered the ground last night. The chickens are loving it, but the goats are not as thrilled. Henry and Addie could hardly contain themselves long enough to get their snow suits on. Henry was the first one down the snow covered slide, while Addie cheered for him at the bottom (wishing she had a snowball to throw at him when he reached the bottom).

The garden has finally slowed down for the winter and although the harvest was much less than we had anticipated (due to the harsh summer weather we received), we are still very blessed from the abundance of food and knowledge we did harvest from the rough season! Now those harsh hot temperatures have past and we are preparing for the cold season that is upon us. A big stack of firewood and a stocked pantry are delightful to see as the first snow settles on the ground. The bees are busy working in their hives eating from their honey stores. The chickens are loving this cool weather! Hot weather is hard on the chickens bodies, but when the temperature starts to drop the girls will puff out their feathers and prance around the yard. The goats also puff up! They look like they have gained a bunch of weight, but its just from their extra thick furr that's all puffy and snugly. At night they curl up together in the back of their barn in a big pile of hay and hunker down for the night. The girls look so cute first thing in the morning as they peek their fluffy heads out of their little barn door to examine the outdoor conditions.

This is such a beautiful time of year! Warm food, hot tea, lots of baking to help heat the house, and plenty of family nights hanging out by the fire...what more could we ask for :)

My Newest Hobby ... Knitting!!

2011-09-27T18:54:00.001-07:00

Just a few weeks ago I entered the wonderful world of knitting!! Since then I have met SO many extremely friendly and helpful people! It seems like every knitter I have met is so excited for me, very encouraging and always willing to offer advice.
I love learning new things and feeling the challenge of a new art as well as the satisfaction it brings to succeed at a project. So, after watching a few YouTube videos I was ready to take on knitting!
I made a little scarf for Addie and had such fun doing it that I was ready for project #2. I could not decide what to make next, but I had heard a lot of people talk about the "purl stitch" so I thought I better practice that! So I started by casting on 30 stitches and then knit stitch 2 rows and purl stitch 2 rows. It has been fabulous practice and I am loving the pattern it makes so I plan on makin this into some type of neck warmer with a fun button...which means I will get to learn to knit a button whole! I'm definitely not the fastest knitter, but I just hope I finish this before the cold snap gets here!

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Explore the World from your Home with Little Passports

2011-09-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

I am very excited about this 3 month subscription! I have a couple subscriptions for my kids that thoroughly excite them when they arrive! Little Passports is another fabulous subscription to add to our homeschooling.

"Introduce your little explorer to the wonders of world travel—without leaving home—with a three-month subscription to Little Passports. Your child will receive monthly packages from fictional characters as they explore Japan, and Brazil. Each shipment includes an adventure letter from Sofia and Sam, fascinating trivia, activities, and souvenirs related to the locale. Little Passports brings the world to your door, encouraging your child to embrace other cultures while taking textbook learning to a whole new level."

Click here to read more on this great deal!

There are always great deals to find on magazine and activity subscriptions for kids...Ill update you whenever I find these deals! I've never had to buy a subscription at full price...just wait and save!

"I LOVE Metamorphosis!"

2011-09-15T04:11:00.000-07:00

Every year my mom pulls a few caterpillars off her parsley plants and puts them in a jar for the kids. The kids loved it last year, but this year has been so much more exciting and educational. All week last week we watched the little cocoon clung to the side of the glass jar waiting in anticipation for "his" arrival. We talked about metamorphosis and all the bugs that go through metamorphosis. Bryan opened up his been hives and we were able to find all the stages of metamorphosis in the bees as well.

The day finally arrived and we saw the butterfly in the jar! Henry had noticed the cocoon as he ran by to go outside to play and less than an hour later I heard screaming about the butterfly...we just missed seeing it emerge, but the excitement would have probably been too overwhelming for that poor butterfly! We watched it for about 15 minutes in the jar as it had a chance to fully expand its wings (they are curled up at first and take a little while to open all up). Then we opened the jar outside so "he could go find his family" (as Addie kept saying). The butterfly crawled out and hung around for about 15 minutes, crawling up and down Henry and Addie. They were overjoyed!! Henry kept yelling "I LOVE Metamorphosis!!"

Melrose Peppers

2011-09-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

Melrose Peppers may perhaps be my FAVORITE pepper! I have had the hardest time growing bell peppers, but for some reason these Melrose peppers will grow great here! They have an incredible sweet flavor! I love to dice these up and put them into sauces, pizzas, eggs...just about anything these days! I also LOVE to cut them in half, fill with cream cheese, wrap in bacon and bake!! Yum! These peppers are very versatile, easy to grow, and quite beautiful in the garden!

Delicate Purple Bean Blossoms

2011-09-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

What a joyful sight to see a delicate purple blossom coming up out of a lush row of green leaves! The bean blossoms are my favorite little visual treat. I really look forward to each and every one. As I plant a bean row I anticipate the weeks ahead that will bring 1...then 2...then 20...then hundreds of these delicate blossoms. The bees sure have loved all the new pollen they are able to dip into to store up. Soon...very soon, we will have buckets of green beans coming in from the garden!

Sun Dried Italian Pepperoncini's

2011-09-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

Sun Dried Italian Pepperoncini's

I couldn't be happier with the way these beauties turned out!! I have had a pretty tough time growing peppers in the past (besides Jalapenos and Melrose) but these Italian Pepperoncini's are doing great!!

I set out 2 drying screens in full sun on the back deck and every time we pick a red pepper I just cut it in half and toss it in-between the two screens. Drying time varies, but it is SO easy!! I LOVE sun-drying!! Just be careful not to leave them outside if it is going to rain ;) I woke up one morning to all my peppers re-hydrated from the evening rain...oops!

I have 6 thriving Pepperoncini plants with alot more little "sweet with heat" drops of goodness! I cant wait to have a huge pile of dried Pepperoncini's!! Im going to leave some whole and then powder most of them up for a little extra hidden spice in my winter cookin :)

Cant wait!!!

Double Egg

2011-09-10T10:14:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while one of our hens tries to be an overachiever and we find a "double egg". This egg actually had 2 yolks in it!! We have at least 4 of our new hens laying eggs now...here in a few weeks all of them should be in full production! Bring on the omelets!!

Knitting my first Scarf

2011-09-09T13:00:00.000-07:00

Oh I sure do love to learn new things :) Seeing as I have never learned to knit I thought it would be fun to give it a try!! It SURE IS FUN! I made this little scarf for Addie and she LOVES it! I messed up quite a few times ;) Several of my mess ups I was able to "fix" but there are a few that are probably fixable...but I'm just clueless as to how to do it! The "strategically places" pom poms hide most of my errors ... I sure do love those little pom poms! I want to make her a matching hat JUST so I can put a HUGE cute Pom Pom on top ;)

Root Beer Floats from homemade rootbeer

2011-08-31T09:33:00.000-07:00

It hot outside!! We are about to break a record here for most 100 degree days in a summer and that has been disastrous for our backyard! But on a happier note...when its hot what is more fun than icecream...and even more fun than that is ROOTBEER FLOATS!!! We have had a bottle of root beer extract for about a year and have yet to use it. So, in celebration of... well, everything ... we are making Rootbeer! And what is more fun than a "pre-dinner activity" with friends!

Bryan found this recipe on the Backwoods Home website (backwoodshome.com). We wanted to brew the rootbeer so we could bottle it...but this recipe with the dry ice just looked like WAY too much fun to pass up!

Super-kwik super-cooled root beer:
6 cups sugar
3¼ gallons cold water
2 ounces root beer extract
4 pounds dry ice

In a large cooler or tub, mix sugar and water together until sugar dissolves. Stir in the extract. Gently put dry ice into the liquid and cover with a lid, loosely. Don't tighten it down or pressure may build up. Let the mixture "brew" for about an hour, then serve. Store the remainder in gallon jugs or bottles.

So, here we go!!

First, I would like to add a note...read your recipe! I thought I had read the recipe very carefully and when it say "2 oz of extract" that does not necessarily mean it will be the entire bottle...I put in the entire bottle which was 4 oz (oops). So we had to make some quick adjustments of quantities!

Now that we have our water, sugar and extract all stirred together...its time for the fun part!!! DRY ICE!!

Henry, the girls won this one!

This method of root beer does not produce a carbonated beverage...but it was very cold and delicious over ice cream! The dry ice was a delight for the kids to watch as it bubbled and produced the overly exciting fog! Definitely the recipe I recommend if you are making root beer for a group...not the recipe I would recommend if you are wanting to bottle it though.

All these wonderful pictures were taken by my dear friend Nicole! Check out more of her pictures on her blog!

MamaSource Coupons

2011-08-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

LUCKY VITAMIN!!!
$30 of Health Products & Back-to-School Essentials (40% off) from Lucky Vitamin via MamaSource! Click here to get your deal!

SLIMY BOOKWORM!!
Another Great Deal: $20 Worth of Quality Kids' Books (50% off) with Slimy Bookworm!! Click here to get your deal!

Zucchini Bread

2011-08-23T10:07:00.000-07:00

Zucchini is in abundance this time of year and there is always a dilemma as to what to do with it all!! Grill it, fry it, make cookies and breads, pastas and raviolis...the list goes on and on.

I love Zucchini bread and have to recommend this recipe from AllRecipes . This is by far the best Zucchini bread I have had...moist and delicious! I did a double batch and made 3 regular loaves and 4 mini loaves. I like to do 2 different sizes so I can wrap them with parchment paper, stack them and tie a fun card to them as gifts.

What is everyone doing with all the extra squash and zucchini you are getting right now?

Tea Pot Cozy by Katie

2011-08-22T19:14:00.000-07:00

I love tea! As fall starts to creep up on us and the evenings get a bit brisk, I love to curl up by the fire with a pot of hot tea! What better way to dress up a plain white tea pot than with an adorable tea pot cozy!

Katie has a fabulous shop on Etsy and I highly recommend her work! She made me this adorable Tea Pot Cozy and I just love it!

All of her pieces are high quality with exceptional attention to detail! Check out her shop and support this new up and coming Etsy store!

Katie made a pair of these adorable booties and a matching hat for George right after he was born and he loved them! I'm pretty sure I loved them more though! They are absolutely adorable and incredibly soft! Katie's high quality work was obvious as the booties and hat withstood many many trips through the wash.

Visit her Etsy Shop and fall in love with her one of a kind designs...and while you're at it purchase a few gifts or something special for yourself!

Kenyan Top Bar Hive Construction

2011-08-20T15:48:00.000-07:00

New YouTube Video Post on Kenyan Top Bar Hive Construction

My First Week as a Home school Mom

2011-08-18T13:02:00.001-07:00

We have been talking about homeschooling for several years and low and behold the time has finally arrived for me to gear up and go for it! I have my degree in Education (as well Theater and Music) so I thought for sure this would be a breeze...I mean, after all, its just kindergarten!! HAHAHA "just". Well, I have gained a tremendous amount of respect for ANY home-school mom just from a week of this!

Teaching Henry to read: First off, I promise you that I KNOW how to READ! But why oh why is it SO hard to teach him to read!! Patience...Patience...Patience...along with Phonics!

Teaching Addie her letter and numbers: She could care less! I'll point at an A on a chart and ask her what letter it is and she will say "TWO!!!" and be VERY proud of herself. I will say "No, thats an A"...she keeps a big smile on her face while saying "Ok mommy" not even a moment of care crosses her face that she missed that by a long shot! ... now we have backtracked to 1 letter and 1 number of the week!! Patience...Patience...Patience...and more Patience!

Our First day of School!! Last Monday was our "official first day". The kids went to bed Sunday night SO intensely excited for school the next morning. You would have thought it was Christmas eve or something! We woke up the next morning and went outside to get all the goat milking, gardening and egg collecting done for the day and then we were going to jump right in to schooling! I walked outside and the crisp cool breeze almost took my breath away (very lovely since it has been in the 100's here lately). We were outside for a good hour, all the while Henry and Addie were bugging me to get in and "start school" (oh how differently they will feel someday!!). I feel like we haven't been outside in MONTHS because of the atrocious heat we have been having...so our first "official school activity" was RECESS!! Henry and Addie cheered!! We stayed outside for a few more hours enjoying the delightful weather and then we were blessed with a good rain (which of course we stayed and played out in for a while!). Finally we hussled inside soaked, cooled off and SO excited, quickly changed clothes and sat down for school. Ok...so here we are...the kids are looking at me with such great anticipation and I had a blank stare looking back at them. "Ok, here we go!" We had a good hour of work and it went quite well...they were both asking for more. Then my sister called me and thought it would be fun to go to the zoo since the weather was so nice (it had stopped raining by this point)...To the ZOO we go!!! After spending a few hours at the zoo I thought it was time to get home and maybe fit in another hour of school. Then my sister reminded me that it was ice cream day at my grandpas nursing home. Yes, ice cream and grandpa won!! We loaded up the kids to go see great grandpa Al and have some ice cream. By the time we got home it was getting close to dinner time and the window of opportunity for another hour of school was gone. So we ate, milked goats, got ready for bed and went to bed early to have a big day of work tomorrow :) This was very far from what I always pictured my first day of homeschooling looking like and definitely outside of my lesson plan. Regardless, I couldn't have planned a better day!

Much more to come in our new adventures of homeschooling!!

Kitchen Remodel 2009

2011-08-15T12:41:00.000-07:00

These pictures are long overdue! I have a whole section on renovation and yet I had not posted any "after" pictures! To be perfectly honest, I have not even taken all the "after" pictures because this little place is constantly in remodel or one more project is always on the horizon.

I thought I better start updating as many projects current status and then even more picture updates to come as we finish various projects.

Welcome to our Kitchen!

from the "before" picture on the left, you can tell that we had to start over! We tore everything out...even the walls and designed the kitchen into a U shape with a large open bar on one side. We had to move around all the wiring and plumbing to make room for the appliances we wanted.

This wall was the step down entrance into the "den", but a portion of the den became the laundry room so that is where we put a cut out wall for the pantry and refrigerator to set.

The entrance into the kitchen was a small door which we eliminated as well and made a large archway over the bar to give the room a good open floor plan. This was crucial for the layout of the house, since the house is only 1000 sq feet we wanted to make sure to make it as open as possible to make it "feel" larger :)

*notice Peaches standing on our back deck railing ;)

We installed the cabinets, appliances and plumbing ourselves, but had the counter tops installed by a granite company. We were able to take our time and find several sales on cabinets and counter tops and got a custom kitchen for a fraction of the cost!!

This was a tremendous amount of work, but well worth it in the end!!

If I had to do it again, would I do anything different? Nope :)

Hive Inspection

2011-08-15T12:32:00.000-07:00

Taking a look at the busy busy bees! The bees are doing great and are pretty much the only thing still thriving throughout the terrible heat we just experienced!

I love seeing the new wax they are forming in an impressive amount of time, as well as the fresh capped honey!!

Welcome to the back 40...feet

2011-07-08T10:56:00.000-07:00

Welcome to "the back 40" (as we call it)...I wish it were the back 40 acres, but its just the back 40 feet! Bryan built a cute picket fence and walkway in front of the garden to help section off the garden and bees from the rest of the yard.

We have planted 1 bed of beans that is doing fabulous and are getting ready to plant several more beds of beans as a fall crop. I love the various beans we have coming up. We planted a variety of colors so when the kids go exploring for beans they get to find yellow, purple and striped beans instead of just regular green beans...although they are tremendously fun to find as well!

Once the busy time of goat milking is done in the morning our backyard quickly becomes a very peaceful place to relax! The bee hives are tucked into the corner of the garden bringing thousands of pollinators quickly into our garden as well as a growth of fresh honey :) You can sit back and hear the peaceful hummmm of the workers comes from their hives. Then glance to the other side of the yard and see Peaches and Poppy relaxing after their morning milking. They love spending the cool breezy morning relaxing beside their bin of alfalfa while the chickens peck around the yard finding little "protein treats" (bugs)! Its quite a peaceful time of day! I fully enjoy the relaxation of watching my "backyard work for me". The garden is growing, the bees are buzzing around pollinating and storing up honey, the goats are "replenishing their milk supply", the chickens are laying eggs and being a fabulous bug pest control, and the chickens and goats are turning the compost pile as well as "producing compost" to enrich the soil!

It has been a tremendous amount of work to get our backyard to this level of productivity...but we have no intention of stopping here!! We are continually trying to find new ideas to put our little plot of land to work!

The front 3 beds are now empty after harvesting the leafy greens (arugula, lettuce, and spinach) and peas. We prepped those beds to plant more bush beans and here soon we will plant our fall crop of beans in those beds.

Then we have 1 row of tomatoes, 1 bed of beans, and 2 beds of tomatoes.

Last year we planted a very wide variety of vegetables, all for the purpose of finding out what we like to grow and like to eat. Then after realizing there are some things we are terrible at growing we decided to limit our variety and use the "barter system". We can grow beans and tomatoes well and it is easy to trade those veggies with people who grow other vegetables well. Then of course we had to plant a few herbs for fresh garden herbs. We also have 1 row of quite a few different varieties of peppers and I am anxious to experiment with new recipes!

Taste the Rainbow!! Our tomatoes are taking off!! We planted a variety of colors and sizes and have already harvested a dozen pounds of tomatoes...that doesn't even count what Addie and Henry have eaten while standing out in the garden "harvesting".

We have 2 beds of tomatoes...its our "wall of tomatoes". I can not wait for these fresh balls of delightful flavor to flow out of the garden!! I have alot of canning I want to do as well as sun drying! We sundried several dozen pounds of tomatoes last year (which only ends up being a few pounds of dried tomatoes) and they were extremely fun to savor during the winter months! Sundried tomatoes are fabulous to toss into a winter pasta or salad...I plan to make much more this year!!

I used t-posts and cotton string to make my wall of tomatoes and so far it has done quite well. Now that the tomatoes are growing and branching out I can see that the weight of the tomatoes might be a little heavy for the thin cotton string I selected. I tied up some extra rounds of string to make sure the wall wont collapse under the weight and pressure from the plants. Last year I used some vinyl twine that held up really well but I Wanted to go with a string that would be compostable and I sure hope the walls don't collapse with the stretching of this cotton string! This method easily contains the tomatoes and helps these 8 foot tall plants have somewhere to go as they grow taller and taller. Last year we had tomato plants well over 10 foot tall by the end of the season.

I hope everyone's gardening adventures are going well!! I would love to hear about your garden, animals and harvest!

First Taste of our Capped Honey

2011-07-04T09:22:00.000-07:00

While Bryan was inspecting his bee hives, he pulled out a few honey bars and let us all have a taste. Freshly capped nectar does not taste like honey that you will find in the store. It has the same texture as the honey we all know, it slightly tart but very fresh and smooth. The bees cap the cell and over time it will become sweet honey. Putting the tip of your finger into the capped cells will bring out this delightful little treat!

Extremely fresh and local honey!

Preparing Top Bars for Bee hive

2011-07-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

First you need to collect all your boards. They can be anywhere from 1 3/8" to 1 3/4" depending on the bees. We purchased 8 foot 1x2 boards to cut down (which are 1 1/2"). Cut the boards to the top size of your bee box.

Pull your cotton string tight across the center of your board and clamp each end so the string stays in place while you apply the wax line.

At this point you are ready to melt the wax onto your cotton string line. We have tried several methods to get a good even wax line and the best and quickest method is to use a blow torch on low.

Clip off the end of the string, toss the board into the pile, and start the next one!

The top bars will all lay side by side on top of your bee box (wax side down).

Within a matter of days your bees will start building their own comb and storing up honey!

Easy Pasta

2011-07-03T19:12:00.001-07:00

Pasta with crumbly herb goat cheese and red zebra tomatoes! This is by far one of my favourite meals to make and to eat. It is extremely easy and explosive in flavor and freshness.

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Kenyan Top Bar Hives... Why we chose this style of hive

2011-07-02T09:30:00.000-07:00

Kenyan Top Bar Bee Hive

As we started researching the top bar hive and the long term benefits, we realized that the long term benefits of the top bar hive was congruent with our view of backyard farming.

Inexpensive: The number one motivation was cost! You can build these completely out of scrap wood. They are designed and developed for third world countries where materials are scarce. You could easily drop close to $1,000 in equipment alone for a Langstroth or Warre type hive. So the Kenyan Top Bar appealed to us in that way. All of the materials to build these 3 hives cost us a mere $20...and we have plenty of spare wood to build more as well!!
Little Treatment: You have a reduced dependence on chemicals to treat various mites and hive beetles.
Health: The bees build their own comb and cells which allows them to be healthier and resist mites. The bees know better than we do and they sure do know how to build their own comb...so why not let them!
Versatility in Design & Size: There is not one set design so you can design and be creative with the construction. There are hundreds of designs out there for how each person prefers their top bar hive to look. Bryan designed and built our hives out of scrap wood which he bought at an estate sale. For $20 he purchased enough old scrap wood to make at least 10 hives (which we don't need 10 hives, but for $20 he decided to buy all the wood!). You can truly personalize these boxes! Bryan designed all of our hives to the same interior dimensions so that comb is transferable in case you want to split a colony.

There are many benefits and desirable features to the Kenyan Top Bar hive and this is just the surface! Join us on our journey as we discover and research more about this method of bee keeping.

Hot Hens!! Temperatures are rising Keep those animals cooled off in the summer heat!

2011-07-01T13:29:00.000-07:00

Record high temperatures are not a good thing for you backyard herd! Your chickens will be particularly affected by the heat. Be prepared with a few tricks to beat the heat and keep your hens laying you beautiful homegrown eggs. You definitely do not have to do ALL these thing to ensure you do not loose your whole flock, but rotate it up and see what you and your animals prefer.

Fresh Water!!! First and foremost is WATER!! You will be surprised how much water your animals will consume on those hot days! Keep their water fresh and cool. I even toss in ice cubes and it will have my animals complete attention! Curiosity will bring them to the water bucket and everyone will get a fresh cool drink! Freeze ice blocks to help keep the water cooler longer.
Chilled fruit and veggies! Cut up veggies and fruit, toss them in the freezer and have a lovely afternoon treat for your animals. Focus on fruit and veggies that are high in water content. My girls love frozen or chilled tomatoes and watermelon. On the crazy hot summer days I collect any damaged or dropped tomatoes from the garden first thing in the morning and instead of tossing them to the compost pile, I take them inside to chill for a few hours.
Water frozen in pop bottles and milk jugs. Lay the bottles outside in your animals favorite afternoon shade tree spot and you will find their popular location will become even more popular as the bottles will help cool the area! Clean off your bottles at night and refreeze them...keep a good rotation of clean bottles!
Shade! Make sure they have plenty of shade access!! If you are concerned about them having enough shade, try covering an area with a tarp to provide more shade...just don't make it a blanket that cuts off their air circulation!
Misters. We do not have misters for our girls (yet) but this is one way to cool the air by several degrees. Our hens do not run for cover when it rains so I think they would enjoy the misters. We want to set up some misters on a timer so we don't end up with a mud pit. Also we need to rotate the mist so our goats can still enjoy the yard...goats hate rain and hate being sprayed with water!!
Fans. Place a fan right outside their fence and help get air circulation!
Ice packs! Those little nest boxes can get extremely hot...especially if your coop is in the sun part of the day. Chickens LOVE to dust bath and this will help cool them as well. If your flock are big fans of this, try tucking a few ice packs in the sand where they dust bath...just keep an eye on them and make sure they don't try to peck away and tear open the ice packs. Clean off your ice packs at night and refreeze them...keep a good rotation of clean packs!
Flat bucket of water for them to walk through to cool their feet and legs...some chickens may walk, some may lay down, and other might just think its for drinking.

These are just a few ideas of what you can try. Let me know what works for you and your animals!

Henry and Addie milking away!

2011-06-27T12:26:00.000-07:00

Life is truly different now that our goats are in milk. Twice a day, no matter what, we have to be out milking the goats! The sun rises and the girls start getting eager for their milk pressure to be relieved. If we are running late they will be beside our bedroom window with a little wake up call! Thankfully Henry and Addie are extremely eager to milk the goats and so they are our morning wake up call! 7:00am rolls around and we hear little feet running up and down the hallway, they are quickly getting dressed and waking us up. After Im finally up and around, the kids grab the milking supplies and we head out to our very anxious goats. The evening routine is pretty much the same and we try to milk about 6:00pm at the latest, mainly because we figure all of our neighbors are eating dinner about that time and we do not want the girls "screaming" while the neighbors are trying to enjoy their meal! About 5pm Henry and Addie start getting excited to milk and it is a good reminder for me to get all the milking supplies cleaned and ready. Then we head out for the evening routine!

We have been milking these girls for several months now and we are all adjusting quite well. As soon as the goats gate opens they are running for the garage quickly followed by Henry and Addie who are eager to do all the work! (Yes, they are eager to work...and Yes, I have heard many many times that their eagerness to work will fade with age...but Hey, let me enjoy this small window in time and hope that maybe just maybe they will always be this eager to wake up early and milk goats, collect eggs, and weed the garden!!). They get the first goat all set up on the milking stand and off they go! Since we first started milking the girls, Henry and Addie have been eager to learn. And honestly their little hands are perfect for the milking of the small goats! We would occasionally let the kids try to learn (mostly on Peaches because Poppy used to get a little temperamental when the kids would try to milk). Then about a week ago, we were out milking and George suddenly needed a serious diaper change...no waiting around on that one! So I asked Henry if he could milk all by himself (something he has constantly told me he could do) and he said "Yep!"...I figured that the worst thing that could happen would be all the milk would get dumped. Well, I ran inside and changed George (diaper and clothes...yes moms, it was one of those diaper changes!) and by the time I came back out Henry was almost done! I couldn't believe it!! He really could do it all by himself. I thought we were at least a year away from the kids milking alone. From that point on we have let the kids do most of the milking. They are surprisingly quick! Peaches is great with the kids, but Poppy is still a little hesitant to let them milk her...but before long Im sure she will be fine too!

Here is a little video of the kids in action!

New Homestead Roots YouTube Channel

2011-06-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

Homestead Roots on YouTube
I have so many videos that I want to share with you all and so I thought it was about time I took the plunge and started a YouTube channel. I only have a few videos uploaded right now, but hopefully our channel will grow and I will be able to show you a whole new side of our little homestead!
Enjoy!!

"Whey" too much fun!!! Uses for Whey

2011-06-26T18:25:00.000-07:00

I have been making so much goat cheese and it has been a thrill!! However, when you make cheese you are left with Whey! The whey is the yellowish liquids left after the cheese has all been stripped out of the milk. When I first started making cheese a couple years ago I would throw the whey away because I didn't know the tremendous amount of uses for it!! So next time you make cheese make sure to keep the whey and have fun!! Whey is packed full of protein and is a very nutritious liquid!!

My favorite Uses for Whey:

Use it in your baking (anything that calls for milk or water) it will make your pancakes, biscuits, and breads extremely light and fluffy not to mention all the extra nutrients you get in your food without the added fat
Cook your rice with it! Substitute whey for the water and your rice will taste so creamy and buttery..without all the fat of butter!
Marinate your meat with whey! This was an experiment at first. I had a lot of whey that was on the verge of going bad and I didnt have any baking to do, so I poured the whey into my pork chop marinade. I couldn't believe how juicy it made the pork chops! Since then I haven't marinated my meats without it!! I am really bad at keeping pork chops and chicken juicy...no matter how I cook them I end up drying them out :( This has saved me... no more dry dinner!!
Feed it to your animals (be careful if they are indoor pets because they will get rather gassy)
Water your plants with it (it is packed full of nutrients and if you get to the point that it is going to go bad and you don't have time to use it any other way, don't throw it down the drain, throw it in the garden!)
SO many other uses!!! This is just the tip of the iceberg :)

Let me know what uses you have found or find :)

Clipping Chicken Wings...so they don't fly away!

2011-06-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

Our baby chicks are not really babies anymore, they are 14 weeks old! They are getting so big and extremely adventurous! They have been able to squeeze through the fence and get into the garden and rummage around. That really hasnt been too big of a deal, actually quite beneficial because they have been gently scratching for bugs and weeds without being able to upset the garden beds too much...unlike the large hens who would quickly destroy the beds as well as the tomato plants! Well they quickly grew out of the size to fit through the fences, but now they are big enough to fly right over the 4 foot fence. We have only had 1 other hen who has ever bothered to try and fly out of their area, but now we have 8 little hens who are quite mobile! Its time for a little snip snip of the wings! This process doesn't harm the birds...in fact they don't feel it, except if they fight to get away and have to be held down.

All you have to do is spread the birds wing and clip off the ends of the feathers on 1 wing. This will throw off their balance when they try to fly and they will be unable to get very far off the ground. Do NOT clip the actually wing itself, just the end feathers. It is also important to remember to only clip the feathers on 1 wing...remember the purpose is to throw off their balance and by evening out both sides you would be defeating the purpose ;) A basic pair of scissors will work just fine.

This is also a very important thing to do for your birds to protect them. If they are able to fly over your fence and get out of the yard they may be in danger. This will not affect your birds behavior at all, it will just keep them from roaming :)

Our Top Bar Bee Hives

2011-06-21T09:52:00.000-07:00

I have so much to tell you all about our bee hives!! Ive been terrible at keeping you updated as to the "buzz" in the backyard. We planned on having 2 bee hives and Bryan made these wonderful hives for them. He decided to go with the Kenyan Top Bar Hive and then designed some adorable roofs for them!

These first 2 pictures are from a couple months ago...before the garden was taking off. We started off with 2 hives and ordered 2 colonies of bees. The first hive we put in are New World Carniolan (purchased from Knights Family Honey in Utah) and the second hive are Italian bees.

A couple weeks into our beekeeping experience, a friend called and had trapped a swarm of bees and didn't have space for them...so we now have 3 hives!

Bees are very impressive creatures!! I am not very fond of things that can sting me (seriously, who is?!?)and I have to admit I was really not looking forward to housing thousands of bees in my backyard!! However, I am really surprised at the temperament of bees. They have such a bad reputation for stinging...which they can and will sting! BUT, if you don't mess with them then they will not mess with you! I was afraid that I would not be able to work out in the garden because I would have bees crawling all over me all day but it is quite the opposite! The bees really just mind their own business and stay quite busy pollinating...busy, busy bees!! It is very relaxing to sit out near their hives and watch the workers swoop in and out while hearing the gentle and soothing hummmm of the bees who are working inside the hives.

They have a very distinct flight pattern that they have set up. About 5 feet outside their hives is the "bee express on and off ramps". They move so fast and yet so organized! Quickly buzzing out of their hive and straight up in the air, across our yard and right over the garage. While at the same time there are dozens of other bees buzzing in and out as well. First thing in the morning and last thing in the evening there is quite a sight to see as the "bee express" is in full force and all the bees are starting off or finishing rounds for the day. It is surprisingly very soothing to watch! I love to be out milking the goats in the garage with the door open and look across the plush garden and watch the bees busy at work! It is one of my favorite times of day and night!

Goats Milk...What to do with it all!!??

2011-06-03T15:11:00.000-07:00

Life has really changed around here and I couldn't be happier! George is 3 weeks old now and finally getting himself on a good little schedule. He is sleeping and eating great and hanging out with mommy as much as possible :)

In other baby news: The baby goats are sold! Its been about a week now since we sold all 3 of the baby goats. We posted them on Craigslist and had them sold within a few hours. I was very excited because I thought it was going to be several months before we would get rid of them all. Now bring on the MILK!!

We only have 2 miniature dairy goats and are getting almost 1 gallon of milk per day total from both girls. At first I didn't think a gallon of milk a day would be too awfully much...but wow am I sure looking for goat milk recipes now! Ive made yogurt, keifer, mozzarella, cream cheese, herb cheeses, honey pecan cheese, and fried mozzarella (yum!)...all in a few days. I cant wait to see the experiments I will get to have as we get overflowed with milk! We just switched them from eating brome to eating alfalfa to boost their milk supply and butterfat...we will see if it works or not!

Yogurt and Keifer: I tried the Yogourmet Freeze Dried Starter Packets from Iherb.com (don't forget to use coupon code NAF075 for $5 off your first order). Im pretty happy with the turnout!

Mozzarella: I used the same method Ive been using with cow milk Mozzerella Cheese Ball and it turned out just as great! I'm always hesitant to add too much salt (because you sure cant take it out once you put it in) so usually I end up with slightly bland cheese...someday I hope to find the exact balance of how much salt to add...but it varies each and every time!

Cream Cheese: Super Easy!! Using the whey from the mozzarella you will get at least 1/2 cup of delicious cream cheese! (I'll post more details with pictures later)

So many blessings

2011-05-22T20:39:00.000-07:00

Its been quite a busy few weeks around here! We had our precious little baby boy punctually on his due date. His name is George and he was born Thursday May 12th.

Both of Bryan's bee hives are doing fabulously and we are excited to see their daily progress. I have so much to post about Bees, but for now here are some fun photos of their progress.

And of course the baby goats!! They love to sit up on top of the picnic table and snuggle. They are growing up so fast!

The garden is in full swing with daily harvests of lettuce, arugula, and spinach for delightful salads. This first picture is of the tomatoes. We still have yet to put up the T-posts and twine to hold up our wall of tomatoes.

Bed of sweet sugar snap peas :) YUM!!

Bush beans are creeping up and will soon be in full swing!

I dont have any new photo updates of the baby chicks...which really are not babies anymore! Ill get some good photos and post those later.

Covering Plants for Frost

2011-05-11T07:05:00.000-07:00

Last week we had a frost warning for 2 nights in a row. FROST...IN MAY!!! But sure enough it got down into the 30s for 2 nights in a row. We had 90+ tomato plants in the ground that were at risk.

I didnt want to go out and buy a ton of special row covers for frost risk...but I heard that just covering them with any pot, milk jug, bucket, etc would protect them just fine. So we dug out as many containers as we could find. Thankfully last year someone had given me about 100 large potting buckets last year!! I had no idea at the time what I was going to do with them so they just got tucked into the back of the garage. They sure did save the day!!!

Addie LOVED covering all the plants, which was a major bonus for me because I was about 38 weeks pregnant and really didn't want to squat down on the ground to bend and cover that many plants :) Addie covered all the plants and then in the morning we uncovered them all once the sun was out. We did this for 2 days and all the tomatoes survived without any problems.

All our peppers, eggplant, basil, and legumes were not in the ground yet so I just took all the pots inside for those nights. I left the lettuce, spearmint, garlic, onions and chives to fend for themselves with the frost...and they did just fine without being covered.

A few days later, with the risk of frost gone, I planted a bed of bush beans and a bed of bush peas. I also got all the peppers, eggplant and basil in the ground. The only thing left is more onions and a few flowers...which at this point will probably not get planted until after I have the baby!

Meet the baby goats!!!

2011-05-10T12:58:00.000-07:00

Poppy had 3 babies - 2 bucks and 1 doe. They all 3 are polled, meaning that they were born hornless and will not ever grow horns. We are very happy with this because we did not want to have to mess with disbudding (burning off the horn buds). They also all 3 have blue eyes which is a sought after feature in Nigerian Dwarfs! All these pictures are from their first week of life. They have already grown so much!! I wish we could keep all of them, but they are all for sale. They can be sold as early as 4 days old as bottle babies...needing to be fed milk from a bottle (which some people say is the best way to get a good friendly goat). Or they can be fully weaned by 8 weeks old and ready to leave their mom without any bottle feeding necessary.

Poppy had this adorable white buckling first. He is the smallest, but definitely not the typical "runt" behavior. He will push his way through his brother and sister and always be the first to eat! Henry and Addie love him the most because they say his is the softest. They are all 3 extremely soft and fluffy, but for some reason Henry and Addie are convinced he is the softest :)

Born second was this rowdy little buckling!!! Extremely energetic but also very snuggly! He is the first one to go try out a new toy and definitely the bravest of the three babies. Bryan set up a little "play area" for them to run up ramps and jump off platforms...they sure do love it and this little guy is by far the most hilarious to watch! He isn't scared to run full steam off the top ramp and do a kick in the air!

Here are a few pictures of our precious little doe! Seriously just one of the cutest balls of fluff Ive ever held!!! Very stylish with her black boots as well :) She has one of the most gentle and laid back personalities.

The Highs and Lows

2011-04-27T23:28:00.000-07:00

Last week Peaches and Poppy were quickly approaching their due dates and their obvious discomfort made hopeful that we would be seeing some cute goat babies running around soon. Peaches due date was Sunday April 17th and Poppy's due date was Thursday April 21st (both based on a 145 day gestation for Nigerian Dwarfs). The entire week last week was spent in complete anticipation for the first signs of labor. Each day came and went with no goat babies until Friday morning I woke up and went out first thing to check on the girls. I saw Peaches tucked in the back of the goat barn and she didn't run out to greet me like she usually does in the morning so I was anxious to see if she had her baby. However, when I climbed into the barn with her I realized that she had 1 precious little baby goat that didn't make it :( I was so sad for her and so confused. I came in and got Bryan and we sat out with Peaches in confusion then we did our best to explain to Henry and Addie what happened as their two little faces stared at us in confusion as well. We called our vet and he was tremendously helpful! He explained a lot of situations that we were completely unaware could have been possible (now we know). His thoughts are that the baby was probably still born due to being in the birth canal too long. With first time "fresheners" (first labor) a goat may respond to the contractions by trying to avoid them and therefore not pushing (because the pushing makes it hurt worse). If the baby is stuck in the birth canal too long then there is the strong possibility of a still birth. We were so grieved to hear this, but we learned a very priceless lesson. On top of the sadness of Peaches loss we were also very concerned because she was not delivering the placenta. The vet explained that since she didn't have the baby to nurse on her it wasn't stimulating her uterus to do the proper contracting and her body just stopped laboring. That morning we immediately began milking her to help her expel the placenta and to relieve an extreme amount of pressure she had built up! The first milking she gave us almost 4 cups of milk and has consistently given 3-4 cups per milking ever since. We are milking her every morning and every night and like our vet recommended we are also milking her a little bit many times throughout the day to help keep her uterus contracting until the placenta is expelled. She is also on some medication to avoid infection and get her past this. Our plan was for the goats to nurse their babies until a few weeks after I had my baby and then we would start the daily milking later in May. Well, this obviously has not gone according to "the plan" but its really working out quite nicely. And milking is much easier and faster than I expected it to be...more on milking in another post :)

Bryan and I were determined to be with Poppy for her birth to help her so this same thing wouldn't happen again! We talked over various signs that could have told us that Peaches was in labor and the major signs showed up in Poppy that night - She refused to eat her dinner (which is completely out of character for her), doing alot of pacing, would not lay down for bed, and her udder sack had significantly filled up and hardened throughout that day. I went to bed early assuming that I would be up at some point! Bryan stayed up and monitored the situation and told me he would wake me up if anything happened. I was sound asleep and suddenly heard the back door fly open and Bryan yelling "Its Happening!!" then the door slammed. I flew out of bed (as fast as I could "fly" being 37 weeks pregnant), threw on my boots, grabbed my gloves, and ran out the door...glancing at the clock on the way by seeing that it was 1:30am. As I was scrambling to get myself out the door I kept hearing Poppy's extremely loud cries of labor and this made me all the more anxious to be by her side!

In a matter of moments I was out the door and Bryan and I were standing there in utter confusion looking at each other saying "Now what?"! With every contraction Poppy would have she would cripple down to the ground or try and get away from the pain. It was very obvious in those moments that our vet was probably completely right about Peaches labor. We were seeing Poppy cry out in pain and back up or try and walk forward. She was doing everything against the contractions except PUSH! Time was passing and she wasn't progressing. All the research we had done said that her animal instinct would kick in and she would birth the babies...but in the back of our minds we knew what happened to Peaches baby. Finally I couldn't take it anymore and I got down on the ground to hold Poppy. The next contraction came and she cried out and fell into me with her head over my shoulder. Bryan came behind her to brace her body and she had a great push! The whole time she was laboring, Peaches was standing behind me quietly "talking" to her, it was very precious and sad all at the same time. Then with the next contraction and a hard push she had her first little baby!! Bryan and I were SO excited but still nervous if the baby was alright and what we should do. It felt like an eternity and the baby wasn't breathing. Bryan kept trying to put Poppy's nose down to the baby to get her to clean him up as well as forming the bond...then moments later the baby sneezed and let out the cutest little cry. We all took a huge sigh of relief!! Then we sat there wondering..."well, is there another one? Ummm, how do we know? Ummm how long do we wait?". A few minutes passed and I ran inside to get our "goat book", I flew to the chapter on birth and there was nothing about how long it might take for the next one to come out. I tried to Google it and found nothing...then I heard Poppy scream...YEP, here it comes!! I ran back out and sat right down with Poppy and she pushed hard and out came #2. At this point we thought for sure she was done since we were told that a first time freshener usually only has 1 baby...we thought 2 babies was great! Then without hesitation Poppy let out another cry and pushed out baby #3. Three Babies!! She immediately began cleaning them up and we hear 2 more little sneezes and 2 more little cries. All 3 babies were ok. This whole process only lasted about 20 minutes. Poppy did great forming a bond immediately with each of them and accepted all 3 babies wonderfully. We were told there could be a serious risk of abandonment with a first time mommy having more than 1 baby. They were all nursing within moments and not even 15 minutes after birth they were standing up and stumbling around. Bryan and I were slightly in shock at this point :) What an amazing experience! We sat in awe for almost 2 hours just watching the babies and Poppy. Bryan had been up all night so he decided to turn in for the night and I said I would stay up for a little bit longer to wait for the placenta to be delivered. About 5am Poppy delivered the placenta and she was already well on her way to being a good mommy!

Here is a picture of Poppy and her 3 babies about 10 minutes after their birth. You can see Peaches is in the background very much involved...shes going to be a great "Aunty Peach"

We gave Poppy time to get her babies all cleaned up and each of them had their first nursing. Then we moved them over to the goat barn shelter. With all the excitement of the evening we didn't think to check the weather forecast and within 5 minutes of moving them it started to rain! We were very grateful we moved them to the shelter before the rain started.

This all just goes to show that we have little to no control over life and our plans! We have been tremendously blessed this past weekend to learn the highs and lows as well as the risks and rewards. As much as it grieves me that Peaches lost a baby and is now going through a lot of changes and discomforts, I am grateful that we were able to learn from her situation and help Poppy get through her first labor with 3 healthy babies.

I have so many stories and pictures to share from these few days of goat babies! I look forward to sharing them with you all...assuming I can get myself inside to type them all instead of sitting outside holding those precious little balls of fluff!!

Henry and Addie cant get enough of these precious babies!!

Sarge is extremely intrigued by them as are they curious about him. He is very good with them! It is funny to watch Sarge sit in the backyard and have 16 little baby chicks running all over him as well as 3 tiny baby goats jumping around him. Sometimes he looks annoyed and other times he just looks like a proud grandpa :)

First Planting

2011-04-19T08:38:00.000-07:00

My seedlings tables are overflowing with plants and I love it!! However, it is time for those seedlings to be planted. We started on Saturday by doing the final preparations on the beds and aerating (digging up to loosen) the soil one last time. On Saturday, We were able to plant 1 bed of tomatoes and planted 46 tomato plants. Then last night (Monday) we were able to plant our second bed of tomatoes and planted another 45 tomato plants! We still have a lot to plant, but I am moving quite slow...seeing as I'm over 8 months pregnant now.

I plant my tomatoes 2 feet apart on the drip of the dripper line...so they get water placed right at the roots. Some people say that this is too close to plant heirloom tomatoes, but this is the way I did it last year and they were extremely productive all the way to the last frost of the season!

We are also going to do the "wall of tomatoes" like we did last year instead of using tomato cages. (more info and pictures once we get our "wall" up).

I have a tendency to obsess over the layout of the garden and waste a lot of time trying to decide exactly how and where to plant everything so it will be "perfect"...but the fact of the matter is that it always changes and it will never be "perfect". I was focused on the tomatoes on Saturday and wanted to get as many in the ground as I could. I have 13 tomato varieties and well over 100 seedlings. I wasn't planning on using all these tomato plants but will sell the extras that we don't have space for in the garden. The varieties I planted are: Orange Kentucky Beefsteak, Red Beefsteak, Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge, Red Zebra, Big Zebra, Gold Medal, Mini Orange, Black Cherry, Violet Jasper, Red Fig, Egg Yolk, Besser, and Porter. All these will present a wide variety of colors and sizes!

I couldn't decide which order to plant them in or which bed to put each variety. After Bryan and I sat laughing at how ridiculously obsessive I was being (I wasted well over an hour just staring at the plants)...we decided to have a "random wall of tomatoes". So we rotated the entire bed and didn't plant any varieties together! It will still be easy to identify which plant is which (based on the size and color of the fruit and it will be fun to pick from all the random color and variety along the wall! This will help with disease prevention as well.

Having drip irrigation really saves on time as well as water consumption. It places a drip of water at an exact root system for a designated amount of time. Bryan even installed shut off valves on each dripper line so we can only use water on the beds that are planted as well as regulate the amount of water that each bed receives.

Chicks first run in the yard...5 weeks old!

2011-04-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

Addie loves these baby chicks! She has taken such good care of them. It is quite funny how much they trust her and seem to really like her too. The chicks are still in their own area and separated from the grown hens, but on Saturday we gave a few chicks a run around the yard to see how they would do. They really did quite well!

Addie picked out 5 chicks to have the first run in the yard and she kept a good eye on them to make sure the grown hens didn't hurt them. She introduced them to their "home to be" (the coop) and then mostly carried them around and showed them the yard one at a time. She likes to carry the chicks under her arm like a little football...the chicks seem to feel pretty safe and don't try to get away. I was afraid Addie would hold them too tight or hold them in a way that would hurt them, but she seems to know just how to hold them.

The chicks are getting big and starting to have quite a few feathers. We can already tell a few of the chicks that will be roosters because their combs are getting big and red!

Every once in a while Addie would take a break from carrying around a little chick to go sing to one of the goats. Poppy is getting quite large and I can tell she is so uncomfortable...she is due to kid any day now! Addie went and sat in the goat barn with her to pet, sing and feed her. It was very adorable!

Misery Loves Company

2011-04-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

Peaches and Poppy are SO close to kidding!!! I am absolutely ecstatic to meet these tiny baby goats! Peaches is due in 9 days (April 17th) and Poppy is due in 14 days (April 22nd)... yes and I am due in 34 days (May 12th). I can tell Peaches and Poppy are uncomfortable as I look out at them just sprawled out laying down while they eat. I love to go sit out with them and we can all be uncomfortable together, grunting and groaning and moving quite slow!

Peaches is becoming SO affectionate. I go and sit out on their table and she will jump up and walk around behind me, tuck her head under my arm then lay her head on my chest while making little noises until I start petting her. If I try to get up or stop petting her (which is obviously a preposterous idea!), she will let out a little
"Nay" and put her hoof on my leg as if to say "No, don't even think about leaving". This has been great for following her babies progress. I can put my hand on the right side of her belly and feel that tiny little goat move around inside...SO precious!

We have been wondering for a couple months if Peaches was even pregnant because she is so much smaller than Poppy, but being able to feel Peaches baby move this past week or so has changed our minds on that! Poppy is obviously carrying at least 1 baby in there...we are thinking she just probably has more babies. However, she also eats ALOT more! Poppy's personality is more "all business" and when it is time to eat she doesn't look up for anything, but Peaches is more social and when we feed them she will still want to hang out and "talk". She is learning and is getting a little more aggressive when it comes to food...any pregnant lady can totally understand that!! Both of their udder sacks are dropping (have been for about a month now) and starting to fill up and get ready for milking! This was also another reason we thought Peaches wasn't pregnant because her udder sack didn't drop nearly as early as Poppy's...but shes all caught up now!
The clock is ticking and we are going to get to see those babies soon!! They are going to be tiny and precious and I absolutely can not wait!!

Baby Chick update! 3 1/2 weeks old :)

2011-04-08T11:18:00.000-07:00

These little chicks are hilarious! Their feathers are growing in nicely and the baby fluff is disappearing from view. They are getting little personalities and making ALOT of noise!

Addie loves to sit out in the garage with them and talk to them. Occasionally, Sarge will come by for a sniff and to see what all the commotion is about...did I mention they make alot of noise. Its a cute noise...just constant little chirping, but I can tell Sarge isn't too fond of the constant tweets! We do have 1 daredevil chick that keeps figuring out how to get out of their 4 foot tall area. I have no idea how it is getting out, but Addie just goes over and scoops up the baby chick and takes it back to be with the others. It was very amusing yesterday when we were all sitting out in the backyard and all of the sudden this little chick comes waltzing out of the garage slightly curious but slightly confused. Addie jumped right up and said "Bad chicky! Bad chicky!".

Im excited to see the relationship Addie will have with these chicks as they get older. She absolutely loves them and LOVES to find worms and bugs to toss in their for "Her baby chicks". They, of course, LOVE that! Addie has also discovered that she can stick her finger in through the chicken wire and all "her babies" come running...I keep trying to tell her that they come running because they think her finger is food she is bringing to them! Right now their little beaks don't hurt, just tickle.

So far we still have all 16 chicks and they are eating and drinking like crazy and flapping, fluffing, and chirping constantly. We are very excited to see them grow up!

Hardening off the seedlings...getting ready for planting!

2011-04-08T09:53:00.000-07:00

Its time to start hardening off the plants and getting them ready for the garden!!
The night before last Bryan built me a counter top out on our back deck. He used 2-12 foot treated planks (2"x12") and secured them to the railing, then braced it all up and trimmed it out! It has been nice to have a little extra counter space...especially nice for the kids to eat outside! This counter has been perfect for bringing the plants outside! Yesterday was their first day outside and we had a slightly overcast day with nice misty rain coming down...and mild wind. All those factors made it perfect for their first day outside! They were only out for about 4 hours and then the hot sun came out and the winds picked up, so I brought them back inside.

The tomatoes are doing fantastic and will be ready to go in the ground in just a week or so!

We have several varieties of lettuce and they are looking good as well, along with arugula, bok choy, spinach, celery, and a colorful array of peppers and flowers!

Im still trying to get my garden planned exactly how I want it to lay out...I keep changing my mind! The hardest part is the rotation! I dont want to plant my tomatoes all in the same place as last year (for soil reasons), but they worked SO good there last year so I am having a hard time seeing them be as fabulous anywhere else. We are also trying to utilize our beds better! Since our garden is on drip irrigation (which is awesome!!) I have to be careful not to have empty places in the garden that are being watered just because the rest of the bed is being watered. Planning and preparation is crucial. There are also a few plants that I am not planting again (broccoli, carrots, potatoes) and am going to try and focus on larger quantities of the tomatoes, beans, peas, leafy greens, peppers, and onions. This way I can utilize my beds and rotations better and barter my produce with someone who is actually good at growing the stuff that totally fails here :)
I am really excited for this gardening season and can not wait to see my little seedlings in the ground...and on my dinner plate!!!

Craft time Volcano

2011-04-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

Paper Mache Volcano is super easy and crazy inexpensive! All you need is some creativity!

What you need:
- A Bucket of flour and water well mixed. I used 5 cups of flour to 3 cups of water.
- Jar/Bottle for the inside of your volcano
- Paper (junk mail, paper grocery sacks, old bills, etc)
- Platform (I used a plastic storage tote lid)
- Paint
- Baking Soda and Vinegar (and red food coloring if you have some!)

Start by building up a base around your volcano center with some crinkled up paper. Dip your paper in the flour/water mixture and slide off any excess then start building your volcano as large or small as you would like! This can get quite messy...but the kids will love it and its super easy to clean up!

Once your volcano is formed, let it dry. This could take a few hours or overnight depending on how wet you made your mixture. I recommend letting it set overnight anyway, this will help extend the craft time over the course of several days!

Then its time to COLOR!! Henry and Addie wanted to use markers and finger paints so they spent some time scribbling all over their volcano. Addie even used a tape measure to see how far the lava would have to fall. Then the painting began.

This is definitely the messiest part and the most fun!

Henry and Addie had a blast and they got real creative making different aspects to their volcano even a pond. We use refillable finger paints from Crayola.

Let the dry overnight and then when you have a nice warm sunny day, take your volcano outside and let the fun begin! Henry set up some trees and a castle while Addie set rocks "throughout the land". They had a good time creating an entire story around the volcano! Don't let that creativity stop, encourage them to build the story and it will make it more fun for you and them! Its seriously hilarious to hear the things kids come up with!!

Fill your inside with baking soda and when you are ready just pour in the vinegar!! I forgot to add the red food coloring, but the kids loved it just the same :)

Chicks first run outside

2011-04-01T13:39:00.001-07:00

It's such a beautiful day out so I thought I'd let the chicks have some outside time while I clean out their box. We propped up a little run area for them with a large screen on top so its covered on all sides and no one can escape...and nothing can get in either! The chicks are almost 3 weeks old so not nearly old enough to be let loose in the yard with the other chickens, but a couple hours in an enclosed area will be good for them. They are flapping and running, digging and chirping.16 little balls of fluffy feathers all exploring and discovering new things...heart warming and precious to watch!
Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be even nicer so hopefully we can give them more outside time than just a few hours.

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45 Bottles of Marechel Foch

2011-03-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

Last August we started our first batch of wine from grapes... Marechel Foch! We have bottled quite a bit of wine from concentrate, but this is our first experiment with grapes and it is finally bottled. We started with 3 - 5 gallon carboys of wine that we let set for a couple months and then racked the wine off the sediment and into 2 - 5 gallon carboys. We were quite nervous this past 6 months and wondered how it would turn out, but so far we are very pleased with the quality. Last weekend we racked the wine again to help get all the sediment out of the carboys and let it set. Then the next day we bottled 45 bottles! We followed the same bottling steps that we did for our Phase 2 of Pinot Noir. We will let this wine set for at least a month or two before cracking into them...which is perfect timing because I'm 33 weeks along in my pregnancy and have only 7 more weeks to go! This will be a fun celebratory wine for the arrival of our 3rd child!

Cute as Buttons!! 2 weeks old

2011-03-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

This is our first time raising hens from chicks and I am so glad we chose to go this route! It is absolutely the most peaceful and adorable thing to sit and watch these little chicks run around their box. They will be running and flapping their wings one moment and then just seconds later they will be wiped out asleep in a big pile of baby chicks...adorable! They are also extremely curious. Any new noises that they hear will instantly have them all with their necks extended peering around trying to learn what brought on this sound.

One afternoon Henry and Addie came running to me screaming with pride for themselves saying "They loved the worm! They loved the worm!" I had no idea what they were talking about until they explained that they found a worm and threw it in with the baby chicks. Henry and Addie drug me in to see them and they were all 16 frantically fighting over 1 worm...it was quite interesting! It took them all about 5 minutes to "disassemble" the worm and finally calm down. They were 16 of the most frantic little fluffy things I have ever seen! I told Henry and Addie that we better not do this too regularly, but I'm sure the chicks sure appreciated the treat :)

I think these little critters are absolutely hilarious!!

Addie loves to sing to them and they are finally getting used to Addie's songs as well as loud outbursts of laughter. I keep trying to explain to her that she is scaring them...but she doesn't get it yet.

So far we still have all 16 chicks and there haven't been any casualties. I walked into the room one day and one of the chicks was perched up on top of the lid...she/he looked traumatized and couldn't figure out how to get back in with the other babies. I scooped her up and placed her back into the sleeping pile of fluff to get all warm and safe. That is the closest we got to loosing a chick...but thankfully she/he "stayed close to the coop" and everyone was fine!

Spring Chicks

2011-03-21T16:53:00.000-07:00

Here are the newest members to the backyard homestead! We have been wanting to get more laying hens, but they can be awfully expensive especially since we want to stick with the heritage rare breeds. We found a lady on craigslist that was selling the breeds we wanted for $1 per bird. They are straight-run (which means we might get hens or roosters) but we figure they are still a lot cheaper at $1 per bird even if we have quite a few roosters...which we won't be able to keep anyway. We got 16 assuming half might be roosters and ... well lets be honest...a few might not survive:(

No one is as excited as Addie! She talked to them the whole way home in the box saying "We are going to take such good care of you!"

We got them all set up with water, feed and a warm light in their new little home and Addie sang them a little night night song before we left. She is in love! I sure hope she doesn't "love them to death"!

83 Bottles of Wine on the Counter

2011-03-20T20:20:00.001-07:00

We have a lot of empty bottles that we have been collecting for bottling and it was about time we cleaned them and removed the labels!!! Besides it is something I can do while sitting down ;)
Removing labels can be extremely easy or so frustrating that you just want to break the bottle so you don't have to deal with it anymore! Most labels will peel right off with just hot water and a good scrapper (I've found that Pampered Chef stoneware cleaners work fabulously). However, there are other labels that have a nasty residue that make them nearly impossible to remove. That is when you want some good "super grunge remover"! It's a powder that you add to your hot water and it penetrates just about any label. Of 87 bottles, we only had 4 that we gave up on cleaning the labels...those 4 went to the recycling bucket never to be seen here again ;)
Now we have clean labeless bottles and a lot of wine to fill!

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Strawberry Jelly

2011-03-14T18:02:00.001-07:00

Last year I bought 80 lbs of strawberries and have been meaning to make jelly with some of them and now I finally got around to it! I followed the recipe that came with the pectin box for berries and honey. I've been wanting to try a honey jelly for a long time so this was exciting. I made a large batch and came out with 8 pint jars. We go through a lot of jams and jellys around here, so we will see how long this batch lasts.

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Compost Sifter Turny Thingy

2011-03-09T16:37:00.001-08:00

We have a whole lot more compost to sift than we did last year and seeing as I'm pregnant, I knew I needed a easier sifting method! I thought about it for a few says and figured it would be easy to build a sifter that rotated. I had no idea what it would be called but it sure made sense in my mind. I kept calling it "a compost sifter turny thingy"...yes, I know that isn't the best technical term.
So my research began and I got together a few supplies that I had in the back yard and just started building the thing that I had in my mind. It took me 2 afternoons to build, but I was really happy with how it turned out! I was really nervous to see is it would work! Once Bryan got home and could help me lift it onto the stand, we bolted it into place and filled it up...it sifted beautifully! I sifted a whole wheelbarrow full in just a few minutes...and being 7 months pregnant I'm sure other people could move even faster than that. I have quite a bit more loads to do, but it is definitely going to be mich easier with my "compost Sifter turny thingy"!

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Starting Seeds in Egg Cartons

2011-03-07T09:56:00.000-08:00

I have read a lot about egg cartons being an excellent way to start seeds so I thought this year I might as well give it a try!! The small slots seem like they are going to be a little small to hold the roots of some of the seedlings, but I can always transplant them into larger pots if necessary. Last year we use large round pots for all of our seedlings and it took up quite a bit of space as well as needing 2 grow lights to accommodate all the pots. This year we are doing more seeds in less space and only requiring 1 grow light! I filled up all my egg cartons with dirt outside and carried them all inside to a warm, well lit room to start adding the seeds. Some of the seeds I did choose to put 2 seeds per slot just to make sure we have something growing in each compartment...in case there is a low germination rate!

Within a few days the arugula and lettuce were starting to sneak through the soil and make their appearance! This is one of my favorite things to see! Every time I come in to see the plants, there is so much new life that has grown! Henry and Addie loved waking up each morning and running in to count how many new plants were coming up.

It is so rewarding to start your own seeds. It is definitely more work than just buying them the day you want to plant them, but there is so much enjoyment from watching them grow!

(these pictures were all from last week, Ill post an updated picture of the growth!)

Garden Planning!! My favorite time of year

2011-02-25T07:56:00.000-08:00

Ive been working hard to get all my seeds organized and plan exactly what will be going into our garden this year! It has been so fun! I love sitting at my front window right beside my wood burning stove with a hot fire and looking out the window at snow on the ground while dreaming of a warm spring garden! But the planning is coming to an end because these plants are being started and we are getting a few nice days to get out and work the dirt!

For my planning I have #1 "The Vegetable Gardeners Bible" (MUST HAVE book for gardening!!), as well as a diagram of my garden layout, and last but not least...a spreadsheet of all my seeds and how many plants I am wanting to start! I try to put as much information on my 2 sheets as possible so I can refer to them for all my information instead of having to look up info online or fumble through tons of seed packets.

As the cold winter days come to an end, I will be spending the last few by my wood stove just dreaming of getting my hands dirty in the garden!

First Sign of Green

2011-02-23T09:44:00.001-08:00

Today I woke up and eventually made it in to water the seedlings, and there were a few arugula seedlings starting to make their appearance! This is one of my favorite parts of starting our own seeds! As the next few days roll by we will hopefully see a lot more of these cute little green leaves peeking out through the soil to greet us.

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My New Toy!!!

2011-02-21T15:58:00.000-08:00

Yes, mommies deserve new toys too!

I started all my seeds and got into watering them daily and I am realizing how sore my hand is going to get using a spray bottle to "mist" all these seedlings twice a day! I did it last year, but I sure don't remember it being this frustrating. Bryan came home from work today with this delightful pump sprayer!! It was $7 at Lowes. "GardenPlus Garden Sprayer". I am excited to water tomorrow!! It is so extremely easy to give these tiny seeds a good misting of water without disturbing the soil or making 10 trips to the sink to refill my water bottle while trying to avoid hand cramps!

I hate spending money, but this is $7 WELL spent!

Let it Snow!

2011-02-21T12:16:00.000-08:00

I found a few pictures from our past snow storm a few weeks ago! Addie's boots kept falling off and so she ended up carrying them most of the time. Other than that wardrobe malfunction, they had a blast playing in the yard! Then of course the snow melts away and now the grass is starting to perk up through the dirt and there is delightful signs of spring right around the corner!!!

Christmas for Farm Animals

2011-02-21T12:14:00.000-08:00

This post is a little late, but I wanted to share with everyone how excited I am about this past winters watering situation! For Christmas, we got the chickens and goats a heated waterer! They loved it...and so did I!! It is a 9 quart heated bucket that we picked up from Tractor Supply. Extremely easy, and well worth the $25!

I put this off because I didn't want to spend the money, but last year I was constantly chipping the ice away and bringing out warm water. If you have outdoor animals or are planning on getting outdoor animals, I definitely recommend spending the extra money and making sure you have a heated dish for winter!! Since the weather is warming back up we have replaced their heated blue dish with the standard black water pail and the heated dish is safely stored in the garage and wont be needed for quite some time!!

Getting Ready to Start Seeds!

2011-02-11T17:19:00.001-08:00

Its time for seed starting and I couldn't be more excited! We have done some planning based on what we learned from last year and now its time to watch that planning grow!
This year we decided to try the seed starting with cardboard egg cartons. I have heard and read a lot lately where people are saying how great it works...so in about 2 months we will know for ourselves! I have 270 open slots for seeds, so now I'm going to lay out exactly what seed will be started in each slot and see what we end up with!
Last year we also did all out seed starting in our loft...since I am 6 months pregnant and only getting bigger, I thought it wouldn't be the best idea for me to be scampering around a small loft 10 feet off the ground in tight, confined spaces...so the seeds are being started in the baby's room. I know, I know that sounds terrible...but the baby isn't here yet and the seeds will all be moved out into the garden long before the baby arrives :) We have been trying to scale down on our space requirements since the baby will need extra space and it is really paying off now that we have a whole room empty for seedlings!
Very excited to see our 2011 garden take off!!!

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It's Cold Outside!!!

2011-02-05T12:13:00.001-08:00

It has dropped to crazy low temperatures around here lately! Last week it got down to negative 22 wind chill :( Yes, we considered bringing in the animals...but the goats just snuggled up together real tight in their barn and it stayed plenty warm in there. During the day Sarge keeps watch over the back yard and snuggles the goats so they all stay warm! It is quite adorable! Thankfully the weather is warming up a bit, but there is still some chilly nights in the forecast!

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Warm things

2011-01-13T12:06:00.001-08:00

"Warm Things" is what we call them around here, but basically its just a bag sewed up and filled with grain. Easily warmed up in the microwave, or just set it right beside the wood stove and it is hot and ready when you need a warm snuggler! Hold it, or place it at the foot of your bed at night to add extra warmth in these chilly winter months! These 2 bags took me about 20 minutes to sew up and will last for a long time!
I haven't used corn yet, but I hear that corn is one of the best grains to fill in these warm bags! Give it a try and have a couple extra on hand! I just use scrap fabric and so we have all different sizes.
Cheap and Easy!

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Beeswax Candles

2011-01-10T11:17:00.000-08:00

Making Beeswax candles was pretty easy! I just bought a few molds and poured melted beeswax in on either side of a wick and then let it set! One of the candles was supposed to be taller, but it actually cracked in half when I was anxiously pulling it out of the mold...so I have 3 instead of 2 :)
These candles smell fantastic!! I added some essential oils to one of the candles (Pine Needle and Clove oil) but the other is just the sweet pleasant smell of the natural beeswax!

Meat for a year

2011-01-08T14:44:00.001-08:00

Bryan was able to tag 3 deer last week so we were able to process all the meat today!
From 3 does we were able to get right at 100 lbs of meat! We made 25 lbs ground sausage with Holly seasoning, 25 lb ground sausage with Maple seasoning, 17 lbs ground regular unseasoned, about 14 lbs loin steaks, and about 35 lbs cubed meat.
We shared some and brought home the rest to put in the freezer for this coming year!

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When the boys are away, the girls will play!!

2011-01-05T15:51:00.001-08:00

Bryan and Henry have been out hunting, so me and Addie got a few projects to work on too! I bought Addie some plain wood peg dolls for Christmas, so we decided to paint them! It was extremely fun! We got to create a lot of characters and have fun making them exactly how Addie wanted.

I definitely recommend this as a fun craft time :)

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Curious little goat!

2011-01-04T09:28:00.001-08:00

Peaches and Poppy are so curious! They love to stand up on our deck railing and look over the front fence at all the activities that happen out front. Our neighbours love looking over the fence and talking to them :)
When we first brought the girls home they would stand in the back yard and make noise to get attention...now they hardly make a peep! Bryan and i were even talking the other day and I said "I don't remember the last time I heard the goats make any noise at all!" They just observe everything...and of course eat as much as possible!
Some people say that goats are incredibly noisy creatures, but I guess we have been blessed with a silent couple! I also think they are very spoiled! They get plenty of attention from us...which also includes being sung to daily :) Seriously though I do sing to them, but I pretty much sing all the time and about everything, so its not to rare around here :)
I just love these goats and I'm so grateful to have them as pets! Its nothing like I expected...I never would have thought I could love a goat so much, but they are surprisingly precious animals :)

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Little Hunter

2011-01-01T20:34:00.001-08:00

Last night most people stayed up late and slept in this morning...but for us New Years eve means going to bed early because New Years day marks the opening of late doe hunting in this area! Today was the start of a great year ahead and we were all up at 5am to get Bryan and Henry out the door for some deer hunting.
It was a long day for them and no deer were spotted (partly because of an irrational man driving his very noisy truck into the field scaring off all of the deer). It was also extremely cold! When they took out the door this morning it was 6 degrees! Yes, I stayed inside by the fire! After the morning hunt they came home for lunch and a nap for Henry and headed back out for another round...much warmer this time, it was 20 degrees but I was still in by the fire!
By the end of the day they were both exhausted, but excited to have some dinner inside where I successfully brought the living room temperature to almost 90 degrees (thanks to the wood stove).
Win some and loose some...all in a days hunt!

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Get Started and have No Expectations!

2011-01-01T13:51:00.000-08:00

Its been a crazy year here on our little city farm. There has been an extreme amount of work put into our backyard but looking back on the year makes me feel very blessed to have had the opportunity to learn so much and even more blessed to have the opportunity to raise my children with this knowledge and experience! Our backyard looked tremendously different this time last year. We had just brought home a few chickens at the end of last year to start our journey to our little city homestead but there was no garden, no goats, no compost, and no canning...just a lot of grass (dead grass and mud pits actually). January 2010 took off and so did we! We started all of our seeds for our garden right in our little loft, built a little "goat barn", petitioned the city and brought home 2 baby goats, plotted and planted a garden, ran drip irrigation, started a compost rotation, canned, dried and froze an incredible amount of veggies from the garden, grew well over 1,000 pounds of veggies, bread both our goats (we hope), collected over 1,000 eggs from "the girls", brewed up a lot of beer and well over 100 bottles of wine, but most importantly we started our journey!

We sure had a tremendous amount of success from our backyard farm, but we sure did have a lot of fails too! All of those failures have brought knowledge and a plan for how to fix it next year! I am so excited for next year!! I know it is going to be very different, seeing as I am going to be having a little baby in May, but we are always up and ready for an adventure! There will be a whole new set of challenges to work through and we sure cant wait to see what 2011 brings! We have high hopes, but our goal is to just keep going and do as much as we can with our time, energy and resources.

We have had so many visitors to our homestead this past year and continually hear people saying how they would love to do what we are doing, but they just don't have any idea where to start...neither did we!! My encouragement to all you newcomers... Get Started and have No Expectations!! Its only been a year for us and we are so encouraged with the steps we have taken and the knowledge we have walked away with just from 1 year. Yes, most of those steps were blind and we rarely knew what was going to be the result, but if we had never taken that first step then we would have missed out on so much! No Expectations - yes, this may sound like a very odd goals, but the entire year we told ourselves "worst case scenario, we fail"...and it is true, that is the worst case scenario! Yes, it was frustrating when we planted all of our plants from seeds and some never even made it to the ground and even more frustrating when we raised a plant from seed and it died or just did plain terrible (6 tomato plants never produced a single tomato!), but through that frustration we gained knowledge and tools for the next attempt!

What to look for from us in 2011!! In April our goats are due to kid and we will have a few baby goats around (for a little while anyway), and in May I am due to have a baby...we are only keeping 1 of these new babies though (yes, my baby!), growing more than our 1,000 lbs of veggies from last year, new adventure of milking goats, worm composting (I hope!), starting our own backyard beehive, and a ton of little things that we could never even plan to learn! Join us in our adventure...we sure can use the advice and encouragement!

Happy New Year!!

Dehydrating Celery

2011-01-01T13:40:00.000-08:00

Dehydrating celery has been quite simple :) We had about 30+ heads of celery come from the garden this year and I cut them all down and it has been a several day slow process to get them ready for drying. I gave away quite a few heads of celery and canned up some into a vegetable mix, I also froze 2 gallons of cut pieces...but then the rest was saved for dehydrating! I sure wish I would have taken better pictures of the process, but I didn't.
This could easily be done in a day, but I'm starting to spread out my projects and not have high expectations for finishing them super fast!
Harvest, Clean and Cut your celery (into 1/2" pieces). Soak in water and baking soda for about 10 minutes or so (to preserve the color), I used a large travel cooler to wash and soak all of our celery pieces. Drain and pat everything dry and get ready to start drying them. At this point I put all my pieces of cleaned celery into the refrigerator because it was getting late at night and I didn't want to mess up because I was so exhausted and couldn't think straight! It actually ended up being a couple days later before I got around to dehydrating the pieces, but it didn't affected the outcome! Place all your pieces onto your dehydrating screens. Directions said: Dehydrate 18 hours at 100 degrees. I actually ended up using my oven for this dry set and had it on convection 170 degrees, I ran the oven for about 3 hours and then got a little too nervous to let it run through the night so I shut it off and started it up the next morning. I was glad I did because this seemed to work quite well and alot of the pieces were quite dry just from a partial drying and then resting overnight. I ran the convection for another 2 hours at 170 and then let it rest again and started it up for 1 last run of about 2 hours.
This sure wasn't the best organized method, nor did I follow directions too well, but 7 hours of electrical usage is better than 18.

I am shocked with how well they dried! I am always amazed at how much space is saved by dehydrating!! I am becoming more and more fond of dehydrating! I had 4 packed trays of celery and in the end it all easily fit in the middle of 1 tray and was all nicely tucked into 1 quart sized canning jar!

Warm wood stove on a cold day

2010-12-31T13:09:00.001-08:00

Sarge loves to snuggle up by the fire! I'm still surprised he gets so close to the fire, but he sure loves it!
I love to sit by the fire with a nice cup of hot tea. There is nothing like a warm fire on a cold day!

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Leaves, Leaves Everywhere!!!

2010-12-12T14:35:00.000-08:00

With Peaches and Poppy gone to the breeder for several weeks, we had a major leaf buildup!! Usually they just eat through those leaves extremely fast, but not now! However, the kids loved this! We made 1 big huge pile of leaves and it has been hours of fun!

Front Garden Shrubs - long lost post I thought I put up several months ago!

2010-12-09T11:32:00.000-08:00

(So this is a post from several months ago that I somehow forgot to put up!)

We did some work in the front garden and put in some shrubs and mulch. Hopefully they fill out and are beautiful next spring!

Henry and Bryan dug up all the grass and then worked in the soil to get it ready for plants!

Laying in the edging could have been very difficult, but Henry and Addie really held it in place quite well while Bryan went along and secured it in place!

Henry was a great helper and even rolled up and put away all the extra landscape edging as well as putting away all the tools! We also laid a layer of landscape fabric and several inches of cedar mulch. It looked fantastic and somehow I didn't get a good picture of it before everything froze and went dormant...at least I hope its just dormant and not dead :(

More pictures to come but not until next spring!

Busy Busy gettin things done!

2010-12-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

It has been delightfully busy around here and I'm doing everything I can just to keep up with it! Peaches and Poppy are home!! They stayed with the breeder for almost 3 weeks just to make sure both girls were "well taken care of" :) Note: If you are considering getting and breeding goats...wow, brace yourself for the smell!! We did not want a billy goat because of the horrific smell they produce but I never considered that my does would completely stink of billy goat smell when we brought them home. Wow, it is bad! The breeder said that the smell would just go away, but its been a week and they still stink. (Ill let you know how it goes and what we end up finding to get rid of the smell.) It has been sad because Henry and Addie are so excited to see the goats and all I keep saying is "AHH, don't touch the goats!". So, if you are thinking about getting and breeding goats, make sure you are prepared for the "after smell" as well as some remedies to eliminate the smell from your does immediately!

While the goats were gone for a couple weeks Henry picked up a few extra responsibilities around here - bringing in firewood, watering the animals and putting the chickens "to bed" at night. It has been extremely helpful because he loves being a "big helper" and those are a few extra things that I don't have to worry about being done anymore :) It does take quite a while for him to do each job, especially since he can only carry in 1 piece of firewood at a time, but he loves it and eventually he will get really fast at each job! He gets really excited to get his boots, jacket, gloves and hat on (all of which he does even if it isn't that cold outside) and runs outside while Addie monitors the back door for him and opens it when he comes back up with an armfull of firewood!

In other random news, we also had a hawk attack one of our chickens! I looked out in the backyard as it landed on the chicken and they both started a rolling flapping fight through the leaves...thankfully it only lasted about 3 seconds because Sarge saved the day! If that hawk would have hung around 1 second longer we would have seen a rolling flapping fight between Sarge and the hawk, but the hawk flew off. Im sure it will be back, but Sarge is definitely on high patrol these days!

In garden/canning related news:

I also canned up 7 jars of mixed vegetables (excellent for pot pie!). I really wish I could find the recipe I used for the mixed vegetables! I'm seriously loosing my mind because I just canned them up last night and I cant find that recipe anywhere!! I sure hope I used an actual recipe and didn't accidentally combine 2 different ones! I would love to share what I did with you all, but I have no idea what I did :) All I remember is that I used about 29 cups of vegetables (potatoes, carrots, celery, onions), covered them with water, boiled for 10 minutes and then filled sterilized jars with vegetables and water, added 1 tsp canning salt, and processed in a pressure canner for 85 minutes. Easy pot pie: 1 Pie Crust, 1 Can of mixed veggies (drained), 1 can of canned Turkey or chicken with stock...bake and dinners done!

Freezing Creamed Corn

2010-12-08T12:47:00.000-08:00

Some friends of ours have family with a small sweet corn farm and they brought us quite a few ears of corn. I wanted to try out my new Corn Cutter I got a while back, so I used 18 ears of corn and cut away! It was so easy!

It took about 20 minutes and I had 6 cans of creamed corn!

I was going to put these in the pressure canner, but I decided to freeze them instead.

Teas & Tapestries, my side hobby

2010-12-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

Its a busy time of year for my side hobby of Teas and Tapestries. I have had several craft shows and quite a few Christmas orders to get out, but I sure do love it!

I used to sew up handmade tea pouches with my tea blends, but it took so much time and I had way too many orders to fill and just not enough time to fill them. So, I started making loose leaf tea tins that have enough tea to make at least 20-30 cups of tea in each tin. I'm very grateful with how well they are flying off my shelves! This has also opened up more time for me to sew tapestries :) I have hundreds of tapestry panels and I am slowly but surely finishing them all and selling them.

I started a coupon code in my Etsy shop for all of my blog readers "homesteadroots15". This coupon code is good for 15% off your entire purchase in my online shop. Enjoy :) Visit http://www.teasandtapestries.etsy.com/ to browse my stuff and use your coupon code!

Peaches and Poppy are off to meet a boy

2010-11-10T15:51:00.000-08:00

Well its that time, Peaches and Poppy are all grown up and headed off to stay with a boy goat for a couple weeks. The breeder will keep the goats for at least 18 days and then we will go pick them up and hope everyone got along! Things sure are different around here. The back yard has slowed down! With the garden at an end for the season and the goats off for a few weeks, we have a lot less work to do in the backyard than we have had to do in the past year! Even though we have less urgent matters to tend to in the backyard we sure are going to try and get all caught up and ready for winter and next spring! Mainly we have a lot of planning to do!

The cold weather is about to be here and we will be hunkering down and getting inside work done. I have a lot of sewing projects planned that I always get excited about! I also have several craft fairs planned for selling Teas and Tapestries. I sure do love this time of year!

3 months down and 6 to go!

2010-10-27T08:19:00.000-07:00

Its been so long since my last post but we have fantastic news to explain the long departure from posting! It has been a rough past couple months here because I've been very sick and completely fatigued...but in about 6 more months we will have a new member to our family!! I am pregnant and due May 12th!! We are very excited but it sure has been a rough first trimester in pregnancy. But the animals and garden sure don't care if I have been sick or not, they still need what they need. Bryan has taken on pretty much all of the animal maintenance the past month or so and he has done a fantastic job keeping things rolling around here. The garden has suffered and it has been sad, but we have been able to make it out there every couple days to keep up on harvest. There hasn't been much canning, but I just do my best to clean everything thoroughly and then freeze it for later.

I have started feeling much better through out this week and am very encouraged that this second trimester will bring a healthier mommy! Which is not a moment too soon because the fall harvest is right around the corner!! We have a lot of sweet potatoes to dig up and can as well as prepping the garden for next year. We also have alot of wine to bottle and alot of canning to do (jams, jellies, peppers, salsa)! In a few weeks we will also be taking the goats off for breeding and will plan on having a few goat kids in early April. Yep, there is going to be alot of pregnancy going on here during this winter ;)

We have done some work on the front garden and have planted a few decorative shrubs that will (hopefully) grow strong roots through the winter and fill out next spring. Other than that we really havent made much progress on the "homestead" but we sure have a lot of work ahead of us to get all caught up and Im very excited to dig my hands back into some work! We will keep you posted along the way and hopefully the worst of the morning sickness and fatigue are behind me :)

Sweet Potato Update!

2010-10-02T19:11:00.000-07:00

We love sweet potatoes around here so we were very excited to plant some sweet potatoes! I can not believe how well these are growing!! We planted them as small "plugs" that we bought at our local feed and seed store and they sure have taken off!! They are absolutely beautiful! The sweet potatoes grow similar to regular potatoes and grow in the ground so we can not see the veggies, but we sure do get to enjoy the amazing ground cover. I think I will plant some of these in the front yard next year just because they are so easy and aesthetic. We are not sure how many sweet potatoes we are going to get out of this bed, but we are eager to go "exploring for buried treasure"...and definitely make some sweet potato pie!

Here is a picture of Addie "hiding" behind the sweet potatoes in the next walk way. They have grown to a nice tall "bush" of leaves. I have to keep on the vines or they will trail out of their area and all the way into another bed of veggies. This helps with the height of the "bush" because we keep piling more and more vines on top of each other.

Carrot Harvest! Thinning for higher yields

2010-10-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

The carrots are doing quite well so we have been thinning them out every once in a while to make room for the others and to get higher yields! Basically we just reach in and find carrots that are growing too close together and we take the larger ones from each side. Its really simple...even Addie is getting good at it! She loves exploring for carrots! We pulled up about 10 lbs of carrots today! Im excitted to can up some carrots here soon!

The Adventures of Peaches & Poppy...finding 1 "Yes"

2010-10-01T06:46:00.000-07:00

I have talked about Peaches and Poppy alot on our blog, but I haven't ever told the full story of how they entered our family.

Peaches and Poppy are our one year old Nigerian Dwarf sisters who joined our family this past March. We had wanted goats for a long time but thought we would have to live in the country and own acreage for them to roam...then we started reading about the Dervaes and realized that we did not have to own a large farm to have our very own homestead. The journey began and we were so excited!! I started looking into the ordinances for my city that pertained to owning goats and kept getting No after No after No. Throughout the next couple months, I did a lot of research and sought out advice from “experts”. Then I wrote up a petition with quotes from documented professionals, a letter from my country vet, property diagrams, and a detailed essay explaining the benefits of a backyard dairy goat. At this point we had already picked out the two precious sisters we wanted to bring home with us and the breeder said she could hold them for a couple weeks...the clock was ticking!! Now we had a photo of the girls to take with us on our quest so people could see our precious girls and realize they weren't 200 lb horned billy goats that would be eating down fences! With my pictures and petition in hand, I went around to all my neighbors to explain our new adventure and asked if they were willing to sign my petition. To my joy, they were all on board and graciously signed! After taking a look at our petition, several city officials from the animal maintenance department came out to survey the property and sign us a permit!

We finished up some detail work on the back yard goat barn and went to pick up “the girls”!! We arrived at the breeders farm in the middle of a terrible thunderstorm and loaded up our new family members and headed home. We felt like new parents bringing home a baby as we all stared at each other for hours thinking “ok, now whats next?”. We even let the goats sleep in the house the first night due to the torrential rain falls and unsettling conditions outside. I felt like a new mommy the next few weeks...I could not sleep, I could not stop staring at them, and I was constantly worried and anxious they needed something or that they were “crying” too loud. Henry and Addie were ecstatic! They had 2 new little "friends" that would follow them absolutely anywhere they would go. The goats love to cuddle with the kids and were overly sweet as they would all play throughout the yard. Finally, we all got comfortable with each other and have settled in nicely!

Goats are amazing creatures, they can be very strong willed and stubborn, but with a gentle hand from their owner and consistent training they will prove to have some of the most adorable personalities and sweet temperaments. This is only a small piece of our story but I wanted to share with all of you how our adventures began with Peaches and Poppy and hope to inspire others to see that behind 100 “No's” there might be 1 “Yes”.

The girls are a year old now and we are taking them for breeding at the end of next month. Nigerian Dwarfs have a gestation period of 5 months so we will expect the little babies in March. We plan to keep the babies with there mothers for 4 days and then sell them as bottle babies to a lovely home. At that point, the milking will begin!

Harvesting Tobacco

2010-09-30T09:19:00.000-07:00

Bryan has been counting the days to his tobacco harvest! We were very impressed how well these plants turned out. One of the plants grew to almost 8 feet tall! Bryan started by picking all the leaves and placing them in a laundry basket to bring inside for rinsing. He organized them into 3 different groups based on the 3 levels of the tobacco plant: Ligero, Seco, Volado - All house blends are formed by mixing various combinations of these 3 leaves.

Ligero: (Top of the Plant) Dark and Flavorful leaves which power comes from the natural oils produced. This is a very slow burning leaf and is typically the smallest of the tobacco leaves. Ligero is found in the middle of a cigar as they can be compacted and rolled very tight to enhance the burn time.

Seco: (Middle of the Plant) These leaves are lighter in color and flavor and are excellent for rolling the Ligero leaves before they are compressed.

Volado: (Bottom of the Plant) These leaves impart little flavor to the cigar, but they are used primarily for their excellent burning qualities and cigar wrapping abilities. These are harvested from the bottom of the tobacco plant and typically are the largest leaves which make them best for wrapping.

After all the leaves were harvested and sorted, they are rinsed to remove any debris. Tobacco leaves are quite sticky which makes rinsing them quite necessary to remove any dirt or bugs that have been stuck to the plant.

Once all the leaves are rinsed and sorted they are ready to be hung and cured.

We used a large knitting needle with thick twine to string all the leaves together. The vein of the leaves are quite thick and will hold the weight of the leaves perfectly.

After the leaves are all strung together, they need to be hung in a temperature controlled location. We don't have a special temperature controlled location for our tobacco, so we just hung them in the garage where they could have a fan and constant air circulation.

This is our first attempt at home grown tobacco and home rolled cigars. We are just so excited that the plants actually lasted and grew so prolifically. There are several processes to reaching the final product and it could take up to a year... We are definitely not experts, but we will let you know how it turns out...in about a year!

UPDATE: The tobacco leaves have been drying for several weeks and are starting to look quite nice! We have a box fan near the leaves helping to circulate air and aid in the drying process.

Firewood Preparing for Winter and the Wood burning stove

2010-09-30T07:02:00.000-07:00

We have a wood burning stove that is our primary heat source for our little house. We used our heater once last year and it was because we were going to be gone for a couple days and did not want our water pipes to freeze. Other than that, the wood stove is slowly burning throughout the day and night. The kids love to play outside and come and warm up by the fire and I particularly like to just hangout by the fire! My favorite winter time activity is snuggling up by the fire with a hot cup of tea and watching the snow fall in the front yard...ahhh brings warmth to my heart just thinking about it :) I do not function well in a cold house and our furnace would hate me (as well as the bank account) if I expected the furnace to keep it to the desired temperature that this wood stove can bring! There are many benefits to a wood stove (radiant heat, cooking, warm even in a power outage, etc) and I highly recommend anyone to install one in your house!! (more about that later!)

So it is almost October and I am beginning to dread the monthly trips to pick up firewood when the weather gets cold. Its can get expensive and it is NOT fun to be loading firewood in and out of a truck when it is 10 degrees outside...you loose feeling in your fingers very fast!! Our plan was to stock up on firewood during the summer that was free firewood we could pick up, cut and split ourselves, but we had so many things going on this summer that we never got to the firewood. I thought there had to be a way to get firewood cheaper than paying $110 per rick (we used about 5 ricks last year). I posted an add on craigslist that "I am trying to prepare for winter early this year and need several cords of hardwood - seasoned, cut, split, delivered and stacked". I was so surprised how many people replied and how competitive they were for the business. I ended up getting 2 cords (4 ricks) for $240...which is $60 per rick (as compared to the regular $110 per rick). I am so excited for the savings as well as not having to go pick it up and stack it ourselves!! We also had an offer for 1 and a half ricks for free. I think $240 for an entire winter of heat is a good deal! That sure beats running the furnace :)

So the moral of the story, if you burn firewood during the winter...start buying now!

Look for local deals or post an add on craigslist.
Be very specific of what you want and what you expect!

Ask for a picture of the exact firewood you will be getting or ask if you can come see it prior to delivery (the last thing you want is a huge amount of the wrong stuff!!).
Also be specific if you want it delivered and stacked, you don't want them raising the price once they get to your house!!

Make sure they are a reputable business and not a random person who knows someone who might know something about trees and have some lumber - you will probably end up with a terrible quality product! Often times landscapers collect all the hardwood that they cut down during the season and are willing to make you a deal!
Look for FREE hardwoods. Most of the time you will have to pick up, cut and split this wood...but if you have the time and supplies then this is by FAR the best deal!! Most of the time this wood is not seasoned though (a tree was just cut down or fell down and the owner needs it off their property) and you will need seasoned firewood in order for it to burn. BUT if you stock up early in the year then the firewood will have plenty of time to season (loose some moisture so it will burn!)
Have a place ready for the firewood to go. Bryan set up posts 8 feet apart to help keep the wood neatly stacked throughout the season. (1 "Rick" is a single stack that is 8 feet wide by 4 feet high. And 1 "Cord" is 2 "Ricks"). Make sure the wood can be stacked somewhat conveniently located to the house...you don't want to be hauling firewood through the snow too far :) We have the majority of the wood stacked in the yard and then on a random nice day we will stock up the pile at the back door.
Kindling will also be important, you need a way to get your fire started! Try to find free scrap lumber you can cut and split as well as stock up on newspapers (only black and white pages, not the colored pages - they will increase build up in your chimney).
Last but not least, you will need a flame! Get matches, fire starters, lighters, or a hand held torch (which is my favorite!).

Tobacco Blossom

2010-09-18T15:47:00.001-07:00

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Canning Apple Pear Sauce

2010-09-13T07:12:00.000-07:00

After cooking and juicing all the apples and pears and straining all the juice from the pulp, I canned the pear juice and got ready for canning the apple pear sauce! The pears had a lot of excess juice, but the apples were fairly thick and didn't need to be strained.

I stirred together all the pear and apple pulp and added a few squirts of lemon juice and about 1 cup of sugar to the 3 gallons of apple pear sauce. I did my best to bring it to a boil, but the sauce was very thick and it was producing boiling hot bubbles that would fling apple pear sauce all over my kitchen...So I kept the lid on the pot and stirred with caution!!

I filled hot sterile jars with hot apple pear sauce and placed on sterilized lids and rings.

Canned the jars in a water bath canner for 20 minutes.

Then I left the jars to seal and cool overnight and they were ready to be cleaned, labeled and stored in the morning!

Canning Pear Juice

2010-09-13T07:02:00.000-07:00

I started off by cooking sliced pears in a little bit of water (a full pot of sliced pears with about 1-2 inches of water at the bottom). I cooked them with a lid on (stirring occasionally) until they were slightly mushy. At that point I set up my kitchen aid mixer with the juicer attachment and put all the fruit through there. This went alot faster than I thought! Addie loved watching all the juice and pulp fall into the gallon jar.

Then I used a fine strainer and strained out the juice from the pulp (so I could add the pulp to the Apple Pear Sauce!). I started with 2 gallons of Pear pulp and juice and ended up with 1 gallon of each after the juice was strained from the pulp.

I prepared my stove top with my water bath canner while also getting the lids sterilized in hot water. With my jars all sterilized I put them in the oven to keep hot and sterile.

The juice is placed in a large pot over medium high heat (stirring regularly) until boiling. Lemon Juice and Sugar is not completely necessary, but I added a couple squirts of lemon juice and about a cup of sugar to the pot to help with preservation and color.

Pour the boiling juice into sterilized jars and water bath for 20 minutes.

Let the jars set overnight to cool and seal and they are ready to clean, label and store!

Apples and Pears!

2010-09-13T06:52:00.000-07:00

My cousin brought over 35+ lbs of Apples and 45+ lbs of Pears that had fallen from their fruit trees and were in immediate need of canning. We worked all day and after she left I even worked into the night to get all this done and ready for storage! It was alot of work, but extremely fun!! I didn't get very many good step by step pictures because we were more focused on trying to figure out what we were doing and keeping the kids from taking a bite out of each and every apple and pear :)

When we first started we had extremely different plans for the apples and pears, but as the coarse of the day unfolded, so did our plans! We had plans to make mostly pear slices out of the pears, but they were very ripe and extremely hard to peal...as well as we were running out of time. So we made as many jars of pear slices as we could and then used the rest to add to the apple sauce and make apple pear sauce (DELIGHTFUL!). Also some pear juice that is "extremely delicious", at least that was Henry's assessment :)

Apple Pear Sauce - 9 Quarts

Pear Juice - 5 Quarts

Apple Slices - 8 Quarts

Pear Slices - 6 Pints, 1 Half Pints

Apple Butter - 1 Quart, 2 Pints, 2 Half Pints

Canning Herb Syrup - Mint, Spearmint, Chocolate Mint, Lavendar, Basil

2010-08-31T06:20:00.000-07:00

I have several varieties of mint growing like crazy in the garden so I decided it would be fun to make up some mint simple syrup to can for winter! I love to add mint simple syrup to my tea as well as with some club soda and ice for a "soda like" beverage. I'm also excited to try some lemonade sweetened with mint syrup :) I think I am going to do this syrup idea with some basil and lavender as well!!

Start by removing and cleaning all your mint leaves. Then place them in water (proportions per batch are found at the end of this post). Bring them to a boil then reduce heat to low and simmer for about 30 minutes...or longer if you get distracted! Stirring occasionally to help keep the leaves working and oils extracting! (during this time make sure your jars are getting sterilized and placed in a warm oven as well as getting your water bath canner boiling and ready for the full jars of syrup)

Once the leaves have simmered you will want to strain out all the leaves to only have the delicious juice. I like to use a small hand strainer over a 1 gallon glass jar. Then pour the juice back into the pot. You can see how dark and rich the liquid is from the essential oils in the leaves! Press out as much liquid as you can from the leaves...the last few drops are the best!!

Add the desired lemon or lime juice and then bring the liquid to a boil and add the sugar, stirring constantly once the sugar is added. You only need to heat the syrup until the sugar is dissolved, which could be as little as a minute, but may take a few minutes.

With your hot sterilized jars ready to go as well as your lids and water bath canner, you are ready to fill your jars.

Fill your jars to within 1/4 inch from the top...be careful not to make a big mess...this is syrup remember and is very sticky!

Clean off the rims and place on your sterilized lids and rings and process in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.

I did several batches and made 11 quarts of mint syrup (7 chocolate mint, 3 spearmint, and 1 that is a combo).

These are the quantities I used (per batch): This batch will make about 3 quarts of syrup

6 cups Herb leaves (loosely packed) You can use any herb you have: Any Mint, Lavender, Basil, etc.
10 cups Water
This made about 8 cups of liquids after simmering and so I added 8 cups of sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice

Addie loves these Goats

2010-08-30T18:12:00.000-07:00

Does it get any cuter than a little girl with her two precious goats :)

Audio books from Audible.com

2010-08-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

Audio books are so fun for kids and adults! My kids love watching cartoons and I wish I could say we were a TV free house, but we are not...I'll admit it, my kids watch TV. One thing we have been doing to try and cut out the TV (but still have some "listening time") is snuggling up on the couch and listening to audio books. We still love to sit and read our own books, but audio books offer a whole new adventure to books!! The most fun is when we find an audio book to listen to that we actually have the hard copy book at home already and we can follow along!

You can always purchase hard copies of a book and CD combination, but those tend to be quite expensive. Audible.com offers downloadable audio books and have over 75,000 titles to browse through and purchase and you get a discount for monthly subscriptions Limited Time Offer - Get Your First 3 Months at Audible.com for $7.49/month!

My kids love listening to collections from Beatrix Potter (Peter Rabbit), Cat in the Hat, Curious George, Winnie the Pooh, and others. I personally have too many favorites. All of the titles have a small preview available to listen to, some are short (only about a minute) and some are longer (10+ minutes). I encourage you to browse their titles and listen to a few previews! Snuggle up on the couch with your kids and experience the wonderful children's stories with them. Some titles are animated with music (some classical composers) and sound effects to make them all the more enjoyable. I appreciate that the stories are read by adults with proper English and are not high pitched, fast paced, squeaky characters which is typical for modern cartoons. Also take some time by yourself to listen to a few titles. I feel this is the perfect way to relax after a long day...with a cup of hot tea of course :)

Canning Grape Jam

2010-08-28T16:14:00.001-07:00

I used the juice we crushed from the Marachel Foch grapes to make this jam. I made 2 different kinds of jams and just followed the directions listed on the packet provided with my powdered pectin. This is by far the easiest! I have searched far and wide for a good jam recipe but it always seems that the directions given with the pectin packet will contradict a good recipe. So trust the packet! I did 1 batch of jam with "No sugar added" and 1 batch of jam with "minimal sugar added".

The recipe will be similar to this. Measure out your juice and heat to a boil adding sugar if necessary (the recipe may or may not call for extended boiling times).

Have your jars sterilized and in a 200 degree oven to keep warm and sterilized.

Add the powdered pectin and stir.

Fill your jars and clean the rims with a damp cloth.

Process in a water bath canner for the time designated on your canning directions. My directions called for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath canner.