Well I'm sitting here waiting for my chicken bones to de-pressure so I figured I'd write something today. Not as much as yesterday mind you... btw in case you were wondering it came out to about 4 pages on my word prossesor when I converted it over. Looks back a few words. I love those spelling mistakes that the "suggestions" have no correction for even when you know you spelled it wrong; but cannot spell it right.
I have watered all of my plants that I put in yesterday and they do seem to be doing rather well except for 1 of the red cabbages. That poor thing is drooping. I think I know why too, it got only about 1/2 of the roots available when I had to cut them apart. So it probably does not have enough roots to make it.
We discovered this morning that the 2 hoses we are using can reach everything but... The pecan tree and the current. No biggie, we need at least one new hose as one of the 2 like I said has a leaky connector.
I have discovered this morning that we have 1 small frog living near our pond. I hope there is more but 1 is a start. My blue berry is looking very promising so far and I hope it produces well this year. It has buds everywhere, it looks as healthy as the Elderberries do.
Once I get my soup going I get to go out and do some clearing near all of my plantings from yesterday. Just to ensure no over crowding and plenty of sun for my new plants. I did notice the Kale seems to have sprouted finally, just when I was ready to give up on them. I also may have one carrot sprout, we'll see as it grows.
Time to go work on the soup,
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
As in yesterday the kids had a snow day. We had a reasonable amount of snow finally for this winter, and due to the rain that fell before the snow...  As you can now see the pond is now full! YEAH! Now if it just stays full we'll be doing very well. The fun part we had yesterday was that the top was all slush. so just to see we were tossing snow balls onto the top of the pond and it would hit the slush leaving a dent in the slush which under it would fill with liquid water. Do you see all that wonderful snow?? It was a fun storm that is for sure as it had started us off with rain Monday afternoon. Then in the evening, and I was watching it happen. We got large fluffy snow flakes that as I watched were "sticking" to the ground. ...and as for my comment about watching it. I was standing at the door making sure the dogs didn't run off while they went out to go do their business; which took less than five minutes. So I saw the snow starting to fall and "stick" in that time frame. At 4 am yesterday morning we got the message that the kids would be off of school for the day. Which after I opened the door yesterday morning I understood why buses here wouldn't be able to pick up the kids. As I know the buses here do not use chains they would not have done the dirt roads here yesterday. So this morning looking at all the school closings lists the kids were semi disappointed that they were going to school today. I guess the school determined that the roads were used enough so their would be grooves in the snow on the dirt roads. I am not sure how much the school bus the kids are on traverse the dirt roads around here. This morning the weather person told us due to what the storm is doing we may have snow for the next few days, on and off. Well I know this will help our "rainfall totals" so that's good. Though we may wind up with a bit of flooding when it all melts. Good thing we live on a hill. We lost our internet for a portion of yesterday as after the snow storm the dish was coated with snow. So Silver had to go out and clean it off carefully, and that did it. Though for some reason at some point last night it went out again. Maybe one of these days I'll get to pintrist and put in all the pics I have to put in there. Well I have to run the kids around to get them moving a bit more this morning. Have a great day. Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
Well this morning on my way to feed the chickens I got myself a nice surprise(yes I know "got is baaaad grammar but in this case it suits my needs).  As you can see we seem to have a tad bit more water in our pond. As yesterday when we went out to work it was about 1/8 of the way full seeing it at about 1/2 was a big surprise. A good surprise but still a surprise. Yesterday the pond was not was smooth as it is now in this picture, and as you can see it is only half the pond. That... unfortunately is due tot he fact that after I fed the chickens I ran back into the house for the camera and got a beautiful picture of the full pond. Then I slid on the ice and it fell into the water. I fished it back out, but as I don'rt know if I'll get the image off of the camera I went and got our old smart phone and used it's camera as I know it has a nice camera on it. I guess if this keeps up I need to get use to using the phone camera, we should know in a few hours to a couple days if the camera survives the trip into the pond. As for the pond itself we are suppose to get more rain today then it changes to snow tonight for the next to days. So it is very possible we will have a full pond by week's end. Now we just have to hope it stays full. If it doesn't we will try Silver's method of "sealing" the pond bottom with clay cat litter. He says if you get straight clay cat litter and make a slurry of it and coat the bottom of the pond it will seal the "leaks" in it. Hey, if it works that's good. Here is the other picture of the pond.  The only spot it hasn't done much yet is on the shallow end, which is where my cat tails are going to be growing when the pond is full and it gets warmer. Though I imagine the blackberry canes that grow on that side of the pond will now wind up HUGE with all the extra water they will have there. Pity Paris died over the summer she'd have a blast this summer with a pond in our yard, the two pups do not even seem interested in investigating the pond as it is now. Neither does Midnight their daddy. Can't wait to see the cats when it's full of water and try to walk across that log over the middle. As for the rest of the water that is in our yard... All of our trenches have water in them, also the new septic for the house has a layer of water in it as well. Funny thing is as I was leaving to feed the chickens and was walking next to the electric trench and noticed the water I thought to myself. I'd live to see that much water in the pond. Guess that falls under the "ask and ye shall receive" heading huh? We still need to get the piles of mud down a bit, which I am figuring they will work good to "deter" some of the plant growth I don't want in some areas. We also have to restore the trench that went from the section of woods that line the road to our pond as it was the natural draining area. I'm going to have to hand dig it. At least it will ensure steady influx of fresh water though. I also did notice that when I watched the water in the pond yesterday that it was still bubbling from the ground up, so it's possible it may stay liquid at the deepest parts in the winter which would be great for raising fish. Well that's it before breakfast, which is going to be beef hash (leftover from last night's roast) with eggs on top and maybe some of my fresh sourdough. While my oven is on the fritz I can only make my "no knead" sourdough bread as it cooks at 500 degrees. ..and don't forget today's moral... don't stand on ice above a pond to take pictures with your camera! Have a good day all! Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
Yes, I have some minor news for all who are keeping up with what is going on here. Yesterday evening me and Silver went out to peek at the pond and discovered that it is about an 1/8 of the way full. So we seem, so far to have a good possibility of having a full pond. I am certainly hoping it'll be full enough by the time the local farm store has their fish ordering days. As they will send for catfish, I do not know if they do tilipia or not though.
I will be once the pond is full enough and it's warm enough. Be going across the street to get some cat tails and one bucket of pond water. Why the pond water? Well I have in one of my homesteading books that the best way to make sure you have the right microbial life in your home made pond is to go to a living one and get a bucketful of it's water and dump it into your own. There by adding the "pond life" that is surviving in one pond to your own. Also this way you know the microbial life is acclimatized to your area as well.
I already have permission from the people who own the property across the way to go over and gather some cat tails. They had, had a hard time finding a place that sold them when they put them in, so they were very willing to let me go and get some once we had a pond set up. Now that said I know of one nursery that has cat tails at it also Lowes has them in the middle of summer in their "water garden" area. So I do have them available if necessary, but I'd prefer to get some that have grown "wild"
That's it for now, have a good Saturday!
BE Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
Well here we are the morning after the storm and I'm making brownies. Sourdough brownies specifically, it takes about 25 minutes after the sponge sets most of the night to mix them. However I am a tad worried that they might come out a bit burnt as my oven is now running a lot hotter than it was before.
As for the storm...? Well we have ice, we have snow, and we have power. That makes me happy, not long after my post yesterday our internet went out for the whole day, it was expected as we have satellite internet; breathe the wrong way and it goes out. The kids again have no school so lets see... They had a total of 2 days of school this week, guess it's better then them not having any school at all. Granted though some school are having a late start today it would be near impossible for them to walk to the bus stop safely. Also as Silver mentioned yesterday due to the ice, we are not driving for the next couple of days.
We are planning on either tomorrow or Sunday to go out and set the rebar stakes into the ground, more likely on Sunday as we are going to be in the 50's then. Maybe I'll cook something outside on our mini grill if it's going to be that nice out. Though we had something interesting in the storm previous to yesterday's. The old dishwasher that was left on our property before we got here that we are going to turn into a smoker was knocked onto it's side by wind. Now it's sat on it's base for years and a couple of days ago it gets knocked over? Defiantly a strong wind, or rather strong gusts. The wind that day also picked up one of our 2 good outdoor chairs and dropped it in the pond breaking it. So now we are down to one outdoor chair, we need a couple more; hopefully we can find some more cheaply as we still have building supplies to buy.
Speaking of which on next Friday we will have money again and after bills/animal feed/gas are paid for and my DL is replaced we are going to go and buy soil for the apple trees then the next item on our building supply list. Which may be either wire, pipe or fencing for the dome itself. Depends on what we have left really.
Well have a nice day all, I have to go check my brownies as they are starting to smell very done way to soon. Where did I put that aluminum foil again?
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
Well today was FUN, we picked up the track hoe,;(again I am amazed that there is such a thing) and after seeing the full sized back hoe up close I defiantly think the track hoe is the better option for us. I was very happy when we picked it up that the hitch held, which I was worried about it. As we left the young man who got us hooked up (literally)
However as you can see when we got very close to home the tire..
...didn't last. Well I called the person about it, and he came out quickly with a replacement. Within 20 minutes and considering where we were sitting that was fast. He even made a joke, as he used the track hoe to lift the trailer. “It comes with it's own jack”, cute joke especially while we were pissed off at the loss of the time.
So we drove it home, the dirt road was so much -fun-; we had no traction and we had to go at about 15 miles an hour to go up the first hill. We had to “get off to the side” twice on the way to the house on the dirt road as no one would yield for us.
So the first order of business when we got home was, COFFEE! For Silver anyway, (btw pics will now be tossed in at random)I set up a new pot of coffee and put cookies in the oven for a warm treat. While he “figured out” how to start it. While he has used heavy equipment before this was a different model than he was use too using. Of course our dogs were not happy with this new loud scary looking device and only stopped barking once Silver stopped using it at about 4pm.
After he figured out how it worked he started on digging the pond out for our fishies to go in. I am also going to grow the edible water lilies and cat tails for food production. We are also considering either ducks or geese to keep in the pond, mainly to keep the algae down. If we get pairs then we can butcher the extras.
So we have a short area for the little fishies and the cat tails to grow in. Then a deeper area for catfish and full grown other fish. We are considering Tilapia. I think the deep part is at least 6 foot deep maybe deeper, hard to tell until the extra dirt is “ground down” and we can tell the “actual” ground line. After we finished it off and worked on a few other projects we discovered something that may be very good news. We may have a spring under where we dug for the pond. I will know more tomorrow after it has sat overnight.
When we finished working the pond Silver went out and dug a septic for the dome out past our tree line. The only problem we had there is he was hitting something too hard for the track hoe to cut through after about 3 foot down. So he had to opt for a wider septic than a deep one, which we would have preferred. Once he finished that he dug the trench for it all the way into the area we have cleared for the house.
The next item we did was “unpleasant”, but necessary. We needed to dig out some more on our current septic. No I did not take pictures of it, I didn't want to take pictures of it shudders it's disgusting.
After that Silver went and turned the garbage pile of things we cannot burn or are already burned and is just the garbage ash. The thing that surprised me was that it seems some of the things “out there” are decomposing. Now before anyone rips my head off. Please recall the post where I commented on the fact that while I really want to be “green” I know in some things it not possible. Garbage, is one of those “things” I burn my trash, then I dispose of the ash and the “unburnables” in a pile that will not if it ever composes down be used for food crops. However, I will be happy to grow flowers over them.
That is all we have managed to do today, tomorrow we dig the trenches for the well and the electric. Then Silver will have to find things to do with it.... I am sure he will figure something out, one thing he wants to do is remove that engine block that was here when we moved in.
I am baking some sourdough brownies right now, and tomorrow morning is a bread/laundry day. Have a happy weekend everyone!
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
Well today was not the fun day we were hoping for. The delivery people called us to let know that the flatbed truck is in the shop so it'll be a few days before our rebar shows up. I am almost anticipating that they will wish to deliver it on Friday when we go to the grocery store. I looked ahead at the rest of the month weather wise and due to overnight temps it'll be to cold to put in the potatoes. However day time temps certainly will be warm enough.
I have taken the covers off my plant trays, and I did discover so far one of my sugar cane seeds have sprouted. All of my tomatoes have sprouted, though I am still waiting on my peppers of course to sprout. My eggplants also have not sprouted as yet.
We did run out and get some straw for the dogs and the chickens, next time we re-straw the chickens I'm going to get pictures as they are so funny when we put fresh straw out.
That's it for now...
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
We have had a great weekend so far folks! We got some of our building money, and we have a load of rebar coming tomorrow. We have decided to go down to a 34ft diameter dome. When we staked it (40 ft dome) out we noticed that we mis-staked it and the 34ft is not that much smaller than what we had staked out..
I got my apple trees ordered, I ordered ultra mac's for Silver and double delicious for me. I love the golden and red delicious. The company I ordered from a local nursery for this state Stark Bros nursery, they offered free shipping on orders over $85. So as I ordered 2 of each the order with the free shipping was just over $100. So I saved at least $20.
We had gotten a “pay later” flower catalog, that had Dahlias (edible root) and a few herb and bee friendly plants, We have been approved on their credit plan and I have a order of quite a few flowers coming that will be planted in a few various places one being our outdoor kitchen that will make it nice there and I will have lots of butterflies, bees, and humming birds stopping by.
We have also prepaid on the track hoe for next weekend as we had rain yesterday evening and this morning it would have been a waste of time and money getting it for this weekend. My son is crossing his fingers and behaving overly well in the hopes of getting to learn how to use it. Well, a 16yr old boy should have that opportunity to learn it. He's not doing all the work however. Especially since we need to dig a ditch from the power pole out to the clearing. I'm NOT having a child no matter how old digging near the power pole.
The next pay day we are going to get the chicks ordered, I wanted to do it Friday; but we didn't get a chance to. I did get the chick food and the new light for them. We will still need some pine bedding and a cover for the brooder before they get here though.
Now for the next week we have to clear area for the track hoe to run in. Yesterday my son and Silver started on it before the rain showed up. They'll go back out today after the rain lets up and it drys up a bit. Tomorrow it'll be just me and Silver working out there.
On another note, I was thinking about the weather and I believe we are already in our “Spring pattern” for here as we are getting tons of rain. Which is normal Spring weather here. Oh, my plant starts have started sprouting. Cabbages, grains, and tomatoes; also a couple of herbs! I am very happy about that.
I hope everyone is having a good weekend!
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
So here I am with what now seems to be a once a week update of sorts.
I started my plants yesterday I filled 2 trays so far, and I'm thinking of in a month or so starting cukes and squashes to see if they grow better from starts. I discovered that I did not use up all the sugar cane seeds I got from Listia so I put six into the tray to see if I can get them from starting in the house. I'm using a “all weather” birding journal to keep tabs on this year's plants and with what I planted yesterday I have nearly filled all the lined pages.
Silver has pointed out that I probably should wet the starting mix before I put it into the “cells” so I don't have to water under them to avoid losing my seeds. ...hindsight... I defiantly think I'll be doing that next time.
I am hoping for 100% on my plants, but who really knows right? I have it set for 12 of each of the two types of tomatoes that I want to grow. I did 6 sweet peppers 2 of each of the ones I have and 6 hot peppers 3 of two of the multitude I have of those. I have some onions planted as well as cabbage, mini Bak Choi, edible chrysanthemums, nastrums, Kale, and a variety of herbs. I am hoping this time I get the lemon grass to grow good.
We have gone and found out how much a track hoe (wow it really is a “track hoe” ) would cost from a Saturday to Monday. It would be $350, and that's considering that Sunday is given as a freebie. Just need a nice weekend and the money and we can get the digging we need done. Oh, that price includes the trailer to bring it home.
We didn't get the package of insulation that I wanted to try to make the papercrete to try out, so we'll have to make an extra trip before we can buy supplies just to try it out. As I'd rather buy in large quantities only once and have it all delivered. We did discover that we are paying about ½ price when we buy the rebar in 20ft lengths, it's just a matter of getting it home after the fact. Which again would be best to include in a delivery option.
We did find out during the last rain storm that the area the house is going does get water during storms, but we are planning to build a bit off the ground; so we should be ok there.
Well I'm up again baking bread at this early hour and I need to return to it. Have a good day everyone!
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
We've been silent on the blog as we have not been able to get on the net as much as we'd like too. So an update to things going on here. Well we've had crazy weather again. For 3 days we've had spring-ish temperatures, yesterday we had severe weather in the form of severe thunderstorms and some tornadoes. Today the forecast is for occasional snow flurries and what ever our temperature this morning at 6am would be our high for today. It's so nice to see winter coming back, and I'm serious as I do have flowers that I don't want killed off due to the weather being wonky. Due to the rain yesterday our “pond” (which is still not finished being dug) is filled to the current spill over.
We have finally come to a good place in working with our wood stove, we have it burn new wood at the coal stage only and we have a smoldering fire all day and night. We don't “burn ourselves out” and it stays toasty enough. We also seem to have hit the spot in the wood pile where the densest wood seems to be at. Which is good for long burning anyway.
In the last week I have gotten up at 3 am to bake bread, I have to say I may be doing it more often. The bread I have made these last two times has been heavenly. Good flavor and just the right “weight” (if that makes sense), silver told me today that I need to get up at 3am every morning now. Guess that means he likes it huh?
We have made a small discovery that we hope will work like we think. Loews sells “blown in” insulation that is “green”. This insulation is made from shredded recycled paper. Silver has been wanting to do papercrete on the interior of the dome to insulate it. My only issue had been, where do we get that much paper. Then we noticed that insulation, we are planning on buying one bag and trying to mix some papercrete up and see if it does well with the insulation. If it works out I will let everyone know. Silver is also looking for a way to combine the wall flue of a Russian Masonry stove and a rocket mass heater. Any Recommendation would be helpful.
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
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