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...
I know it's been a while since I have been on here.. over a year really. I thought it was about time I updated here as I have regular internet now. We tried out growing luffa gourds this last year and they did grow pretty good we got about 2 full sized sponges. One of the two had better seeds in it than the other. Funny thing about it was that the one with the better seeds is one I never noticed until we took the vines down once winter started. I did learn from it that it's a plant that while you need to thin some flowers the plant itself is pretty much self caring for. It is a voracious vine though, it tried to eat our electric pole.
We had tons of tomatoes this year and we have decided that the Cherokee orange purple smudge is the best for us. I have finally discovered why you need to trim the plants and cut back flowers. I have learned that if I don't understand why “they” say to do something I won't know until I figure it out myself.
I got my Tiger's eye beans to grow better than I thought, even though I didn't try to grow them. Odd how that the one I plant for “the heck of it” grew the best? Considering I can't find the seeds though I cannot eat them this year though, I have saved them all for next years planting. The “green bean” that I grew up growing.. well, it just didn't want to grow for me at all. I think we got maybe 20 beans and I planted ½ a pound of seeds. When I was a kid I could plant 10 seeds and get 10x's that.
My eggplants didn't do much of anything, as well as my bell peppers. The Rhubarb I ordered and planted grew a bit then quit on me. I hope they come back this year, we will see.
We have gotten the space for our house and our new chicken coop cleared fully. In 2 weeks we will be starting to buy the rebar to work on the house. We built a newer type of a barrel wood stove, we made it upright; and it takes up less than half the space. There is also no wasted space inside the stove, we also have the ability to cook on the top of it.
We also made an attempt at helping a friend out. A young man,who wants to be a woman who was living homeless. We invited her to live with us in exchange for being a “farm hand” to help me out with the day-to-day chores. It did -NOT- work out. I think it partly had to do with the person's age, and the desire of them to only play video games all the time. We just recently sent her to a place where she can spend tons of time playing video games with someone else 90% of the day.
So now I am hoping to keep this site up to date as my other blogs. Lets hope I do!
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be....
 That lovely picture is of this morning’s harvest or if you will the product of my foraging, as I got them from a location I didn't plant intentionally. That is about 3/4's of a gallon of blackberries in one morning! They are being frozen until the season is over and I have some rose hips, then I am making some jam and maybe some syrup.
It made me think though, as I had help after I had gotten 2 pints already on my own by at first my youngest... then my oldest and then finally the middle child. I -LOVE- fresh blackberries, not as much as fresh strawberries; but hey nothing adds up to them.
To me there is nothing better than putting into my mouth a blackberry just off the bramble that has exploded into my hand from being sooo ripe. Sweet with a lite bitterness that comes from natural sugars. I did pause this morning when I tasted a particularly sweet one, with a moan escaping my lips. As oddly, considering modern life I prefer my sweets in the form of berries now. Don't get me wrong, I love chocolate... but it's just not the same.
I think many kids and adults miss something good when they don't eat something freshly picked, like fruit. It has it's own flavor and it's very unique. To me most of the processed sweets have all the same flavor, and it's missing something.
The other part that I was thinking on is how my kids pick berries. Had I handed them my berrying bucket and sent them out I'd have been lucky to get maybe a pint. ..and the thing is it would not be because they were eating while picking. Part of it is they don't seen them all on the brush. They also want to find the “perfect” berry. It really made me think when I realized that, as I just finished a book about primitive man(novel) and how they lived and that included gathering food.
If my kids had to rely on what we had found to eat.. they would wind up picking more of them. My youngest admitted that, so I told her then just think that way and we'll have tons of berries to make things with. One or two blemishes mean nothing, and partly dried out? Come on, people pay tons of money to buy dried fruits; pick them yourself. It'll do you some good to be out in the sun enjoying the fresh air... and grins getting covered in berry juice! It's an old family pastime, that I think needs to be revitalized.
People use to spend whole days going out “berrying”, and they'd bring a picnic lunch and the dessert would be the fresh berries with sometimes some home made cake. To me that sounds much better than going to the store and “foraging” for a nice looking package of berries. As that is what you are doing when you are in the store turning the berry packs all around to check every angle until you find just the right one that looks to be “perfect”. WOW.. I just realized where my kids' idea of perfection on berries comes from. As if you don't do “perfect” on ones in the store you are likely to have rotten berries.
I don't know if any of you remember seeing an older orange commercial a number of years ago from the orange growers. It had a woman explaining a ripe orange isn't always fully orange, which tech if it's green it's not ripe... but the point is most people have no clue what “ripe” is... I certainly don't know what a ripe wild blueberry looks like. So I am learning that, maybe true ripeness should be taught to all people; most of all children.
I hope everyone out there gets to experience the freshest of the season!
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
 This is half of my "horde" of green bush beans that I'm growing this year. Aside from maybe 3 plants having slightly yellowed leaves everyone of them is very healthy and in flower. I actually think they are putting out secondary flower stalks.
I am hoping to get lots of beans from them, I will try canning some. I know I cannot eat commercial canned veggies as they make me ill, so Silver is hoping/thinking that home canned I could. The thought is that maybe it's a preservative in them besides being too soft that is the reason for it.
I seem to have also issue(s) with over cooked ones as well so we are going to try raw packing them. who knows maybe they will do well and I'll be able to eat them. If I can't the kids and Silver certainly can.
Last year I had tried growing pole beans and I was sorely disappointed. That's why I am doing bush beans this year. I have grown "Blue Lake" bush beans for almost forever and I know they'll produce. This year I am determined to have a good harvest from my garden. As I said I do have my Tiger's Eye beans growing up front, we will see if I can get them to produce this year and if I can we will just go with those as they are also a dry bean. Pinto style, which for us means chili.
 This is one of the many cabbage plants I have growing, and this is one of the remaining three that I myself started. I had started 6 of the Early Jersey Wakefield, but after some four-legged lawn mowers went through I only have maybe three of these and the red cabbages I bought.
These green ones are a tad behind my red cabbages, as the red ones have been heading for a few weeks and the greens have only been for about one week. I am really hoping to be able to harvest them soon so we can have some cole slaw. I love fresh cole slaw!
Oh pardon the picture quality as my camera is out of batteries and we keep forgetting to buy them so I used our phone to take these pics.
 This is my volunteer squash, in flower (male flowers btw). It has had I'd say about 8-10 flowers at this point and they have all been the "male" flowers. I am waiting on the female ones to appears so I have a better idea as to what kind of squash it is.
Now like I said I think it's a Dark Star Zucchini, and next time I'll get a picture of those in flower as they are starting to get their flower buds now. Which for me is a wonderful thing, I am hoping again that they produce lots of squashes for us.
We got hooked our first year here eating for lunch a stir fry with two or more squashes in it and maybe some canned ham and a fresh herbs. I really want to do that again, so because last year our squashes didn't do much past producing male flowers we didn't get any of those fun meals.
One other "Crop" that I am hopeful on is melons. I love to eat melons and I have a wonderful recipe for a catulope jam that I made last year with half of a huge one that I bought. I have some melons sprouting and .. considering I had tried some vine peach seeds, which at this point they all sprouted then withered. I planted to see some of the melon seeds I bought last year. I planted "Oran's melon" which is suppose to grow well in this state.
 This is one of the two flowering heads on the one Elderberry that is blooming. I do hope the other one blooms next year. As you can see the flowers are starting to open up. I am going to be watching this closely as I have no clue how long it takes for them to go from flower to ripe fruit.
I spent the early part of this morning doing the kids' early chores of feeding the animals (which in the summer they do). I went out and took these pictures and I did a bit of pond digging. Maybe I'll post some pond pictures next time. A progression of what we have done so far.
I also checked my plants out and the Oran's melons are still very healthy, which is making me very happy. i do hope they do well and we get melons, in some amount. Even if we are overwhelmed by them. I would not mind, because if they do I'll just turn them into jam.
We've lost one of our chickens yesterday to I think a fox, and I'm wondering if maybe we've lost more than one. As a number of days ago they had managed to get out under the fencing and there was tons of feathers all over their yard. So after finding the dead one half pulled out of the fence and half eaten, I do wonder.
Well that's about ti for now.. I'm heading to wordpress and Blogger to put up updates there as well.
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
I don't know if anyone read my "new addition" to my GMO page, but here is a statement on what I wrote there yesterday..
Just in case I hear it here about my last post...
seems everyone who reads this thinks I am complaining about hybrids. I was trying to make a statment about the idea of making a "seedless" anything... which to me.. seems very silly... and even though hybrids occur in nature a "seedless" one wouldn't truly last in nature so it seems a bit like what the Big M is doing...
everyone however is just seeing me say ... "hybrid BAD"....which I'm not... I was talking about 1 type. I did not think I was bashing hybrids, but it seems for at least 3 other places I have posted that post on seeds that people think I am bashing hybrids.
I do think hybrids are a good idea, however when you come across something like the seedless watermelon, which I have heard many people complain about it not "tasting like a watermelon". what is the real point behind it? To me it just seems like it was made just so that seeds had to be re bought every year thereby making the seed company lots of money.
This morning I cut up a yellow fleshed watermelon that I bought locally. It had that "watermelon" flavor that I remember when I was a young child. It tasted nothing like the typical "Seedless" watermelon you find in stores now. I have saved the seeds from it, and my kids were surprised by how large the seeds were. I have to say they looked big to me as well.
If you go back and look at GMO history though you will see something. The tomato, there was a GM tomato once; but the people complained that ti had no flavor compared to other store bought ones. So why is it when you have these "seedless" watermelons that to me have no flavor, people don't complain? People don't know the difference... they really don't, I mean how long has the seedless watermelon been out there? At least 20 years if my memory is right. So after 20 years that is the flavor that people are use to and now want.
So please... just because I have an issue with 1 hybrid... and compared it to a GM product... which to me has some similar things to some GM products. Does not mean I don't like hybrids, some of the tomato hybrids are wonderful. I would love to grow that all pink one that I read about how the person who "discovered it" wound up growing it. That one was used as a way to explain hybridization to people who know nothing about it.
Now here is the nice thing about a -BLOG- it's mostly a personal opinion on what the person writes. I do try to have accurate info included in what I write and sometimes my opinions shine through more. Such is the case with yesterday's post.
Hello!
For those of you who have not seen my blogs on Blogger or Word Press let me tell you about us. First I am 35 and a mom of 3 wonderful kids (yes my name rivenfae is fictitious, but I have my reasons) , my boyfriend is almost 53 and we live on 5.29 acres of land in the Missouri woods.
We moved here in April of 2010 and have had quite an experience. We started off in a tent and having to haul our own water from a neighbor's house. Let me tell you living in a tent is fun... until you do it for 6+ months with 3 kids. After about 4 months we had our power hooked up which required a $350 deposit here, so we had to manage to have that much money at one time to pay it out.
Before we had the power on and could use our deep freeze we had been only buying non-perishable foods to eat, which isn't as bad as you might think. It does take some getting use to only using canned meats in inventive ways. Oddly enough almost a year later with one of those "dishes" we are thinking of buying a few different canned meats to "recapture" some flavors we discovered we liked.  This is one of the "cook stoves" we had last year we built this one ourselves, all the metal on it was trash that was on our property. We had gotten so good at cooking with a wood fire that when we moved into our current (not final) home a 12X24 shed and started using a electric stove we wound up burning our food a few times till we got use to -NOT- cooking on wood. We are rebuilding this in a new location as summer's heat is horrible here for cooking anything, but we have learned a couple of things that will change how we do it. The cinder blocks we used when they are repeatedly heated and then get wet when you go to move them after they will break. As all homesteaders I have a garden, last year during our first year we just dug up and planted right in the ground. However, we did get for free a truckload of composted goat manure that i later added to the soil. i did learn things will grow in our very heavy clay soil. Just very slowly and that we need to water it a lot. So this year we have done a few things different, first the ground that got the goat manure is much better this year (no real surprise there), and all the amendment we put in; was straw once the plants were grown enough to put it down without choking the seedlings. We have started foraging more this year than last i have over a quart of blackberries in my freezer right now waiting till the season is over so I can make some jelly/jam for the first time. It will be a multi-berry as I do have a wild blue berry nearby and I have gotten the few I found there to the blackberries. i am also hoping to add rose hips to it for vitamin C content. I have also come up with a wonderful Lamb's Quarter wilted salad that one of my kids and Silver likes. We eat that once or twice a week, people say they taste like spinach; I don't think so. I can't place the taste either. As i said we are now living in a 12X24 shed, we got it delivered back in October and my 2 girls sleep in bunk beds built into the wall, my son is in the loft and me and my boy friend have a "room" next to the "toilet room". Our "toilet room" is just that our toilet is in it. It is a saw dust toilet, if you don't know what one is here is a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPg-n4czGE0I am surprised at how well this system works and you don't waste any water or have to worry about a septic backing up. We currently have a bath tub in a outdoor room in back that we use in warm weather (above 40 degrees). We are working towards building 2 additions onto this shed. One will be a better sleeping area for the kids and also a tv room. The other will be a bathroom, in which we will have a flush toilet (yeah!) and a shower. They will be built once we finish digging (by hand) our root cellar.Yes we are digging a root cellar and guess what...? It's soo easy! One of the biggest things that has helped is what we are using to "break" through the clay. It is a bulb planting drill bit that eats up clay. We put it on our masonry drill and it will tear right through the clay. then we just shovel the clay out. We have about 4 ft down to still go. Right now I believe it is 8X10X2ft. We need it just a bit deeper, which should be the easiest part.We are going to use all the clay we are digging up as well as we are going to build a cob-ish oven like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lGTGUo6tyQNot quite that one but very close as we are going to use a steel barrel for the body. I have a turkey in my chicken yard that is going to be a bit to big for my current oven so we'll need the cob-ish oven. When we put the addition on we will be using a rocket mass heater in it, this way we won't use any electricity for our heat this winter. We used just space heaters last year and our power bill went very high. For us wood is free so lets go with wood.So I hope you keep coming around to check us out here at Wolf Woods!Be Well and Blessed Be...
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