Missing blogger found and back on job

Soft leather covered handmade journal

I love blogging but sometimes I get caught up in life away from the computer and have a hard time finding my way back.    Hope everyone has had a great fall and Thanksgiving.

I have always had a love of books and lately that interest in has expanded to include bookmaking and bookbinding.   The journal above was my first experience in making a book from start to finish; choosing paper and cover materials, making signatures, deciding on the appropriate binding style and then sewing it all together.  

Scrapbook and some tags 

I've also been working on a scrap book for Malia.   I have been making it from an altered book and will share what  I we, did when it's done.  For anyone with kids I think you'll really enjoy it.   It took on a life of it's own and became a wonderful experience that let us relive the memories of pictures included while making it into something both meaningful and fun at the same time.  

Vintage photo of my grandmother and grandfather 

Sometime around 1920 my grandmother married a young man from Italy and being the great cook she was she took on the task of learning to cook all things italian as if she too came from Italy.  Thanksgiving tradition in her home, which was where I spent every Thanksgiving was based on vast quantities of scrumptous homemade italian foods.   Handmade raviolis & pastas, meats that had cooked in various italian sauces for hours and hours.   Side dishes, like more traditional Thanksgiving feasts, were plentiful and delicious but not what you would typically find on most tables.    Desserts were rum cakes and italian cookies and lots of pies.    

Some years I will still have italian Thanksgivings.   Nothing to rival my Nana's that's for sure.   This will as a rule leave me with the need to make a turkey a week after everyone else is finishing up their leftovers.   My 25 lb bird is in the oven as I sit here blogging.   I just can't pass up a good sale on turkey.   

Thanks Victoria for getting me here today!

Elizabeth

Why do we do what we do?

Our boots, always at ready by the door.

The past couple of weeks I've found myself asking "why I am homesteading".  Why am I caring for all these animals when it would be far easier and truthfully far less expensive to go to the grocery store and buy my dairy products, eggs and meat.  And the same goes for having a large vegetable garden.  What an immense amount of work without guaranteed results. Diseases and insects see to that.  In all truthfulness, I can totally understand why today, for the first time in history, more people live in cities than in the country and why there are so few farmers left.  Quite simply -  it's a ton of work.  And it's work most of us don't need to do in order to survive in this world of Walmart's and Sam's Clubs.  So why am I doing this?

I've been asking myself that a lot here lately.  I've finally got my little place in the country, acquired the animals (driving all the way from Virginia to Tennessee in one case for just the right animal ) and worked at the skills to care for them properly.  I've done all the backbreaking work to start the gardens and make them productive.   Yet, this past couple of weeks I've considered selling all the animals including the goats I so dearly love. The gardens have lost their appeal to me and have felt more like a burden than a blessing.  And I've not even been able to bring myself to post on the blog I've so enjoy writing.

All of us that choose this life do it for different reasons.  Some for survival, some for the ethical and humane treatment of the animal we use for food, some for the health benefits of knowing where our food comes from, some for the health of the planet and some for all of the above.  For me and many others it is also about family.   I do it for most of the above but much of my motivation is about family.   And about the values it instills.

Right now family is just Malia, 10, and I.   I've home schooled her for years and 2 weeks ago she started public school again.   She missed kids and was getting bored here and starting to hate it all.   I made the decision to let her go back against all my fears.  Fears of malls becoming more important than the local Tractor Supply Store with it's aisle of farm books she had so loved.  Fears of clothing becoming more important than the person wearing them.   Fear of Steak-um's from the school cafeteria becoming more desirable than healthy foods.  Fear that the other kids mothers who wore the latest fashions with matching nail polish with every hair in place and drove clean and shiny mini vans would seem more to her liking than me.  After all my outfits never match, my hair is always in a ponytail with stray hair everywhere and our vehicle looks every bit the farm vehicle it is.  The fears were many.   And giving all my fears credence was the fact that she had  declared even before her first school bus ride that she wasn't sure she wanted  Basil, Rosemary & Thyme, her 3 beloved pigs, anymore and thought maybe I should look for a new home for them as well while I was selling the piglets.

So for 2 weeks while she was at school I did it all and wondered why.  We are lucky; we don't need to do this for survival.  It's a choice for us.  So was I making the right choice?  This lifestyle requires a huge amount of time each day and was this how I wanted to spend my time?  After all, time is a currency even more precious than dollars and should  always be spent wisely for once spent it's gone forever. 

I finally came to a decision.   I decided that yes, I wanted to do this regardless of her involvement.  Maybe I would scale it down a notch or two.  It is a lot for one person to do alone.  Maybe her pigs would go but my beloved goats would stay.   Perhaps the garden would be a tad smaller next year and maybe all our bread didn't need to be homemade after all.  Maybe instead of the eco friendly push mower I would invest in a gas powered mower.  There were many small changes that could be made rather than giving up the whole dream.  It didn't need to be all or nothing.

So with that resolve and my couple of weeks of doubt and depression behind me Malia and I headed to the local Tractor Supply Store yesterday where she announced she had changed her mind and definetely did not want me to sell her pigs.  I, with a smile in my heart, asked if she was sure.  She was.  It seems we both learned something these past weeks.

Making precious childhood memories in the garden

Malia planting pea's.... her favorite veggie and the first thing she's planted by herself.

By the standards most of the people of the world live by today we live a pretty slow and simple life here on this tiny homestead.  Malia and I are 50 yrs apart in age.  I'll be 60 this year and she just turned 10.   It's just her and I here.  We have no family locally and  I homeschool her.  She''s been with me since Thanksgiving day 8 yrs ago. We don't have tv most of the year because we're too rural for the local channels and if we have satellite we watch too much so I have it turned off a lot.   At 10 she's read a lot of the classics...Black Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, The Yearling and a number of others.   We talk of her going back to school so she has more contact with other children and more than likely she'll be in 4H this year, homeschooled or not.  

Some people would think it's a great way to raise a kid in today's world and others might consider it child abuse....no tv or video and only books, the woods and life for fun.   Either way, it's our life.   We have the animals...the pigs, goats, chickens, dogs and cats.  And that's great and can, at times be very exciting, like at baby time.    But I know in my heart some of her very best memories will be of our garden time.  

Every day we start out the same.   She gets the chickens out while I head out to the garden with a cup of coffee.  She joins me and we walk and look.   We talk about what's bigger or what's not bigger; what bugs there are, what flowers are blooming and  in plants like the squash or pumpkins, if it's the male or female flowers doing the blooming.  Sometimes we stop and pick something.  We talk of the great meals we will have this winter with what we are growing.  We watch the bee's do their busy work and walk somemore holding hands taking it all in.   It's a routine that is quietly solid.    She never fails to tell me " We sure have a great garden Grandma".    And I know these moments more than any others we share daily will stay in her heart and memory all her life as a time every day of  love.

A treasure found

Who knew lawn clippings could be such a treat?

It almost makes mowing pleasurable knowing these guys all enjoy this treat so much.

Me???

I'll take that ripe juicy tomato I picked today.

So, whatcha been up to? or a day on the homestead

Morning cart loaded with food and milking equipment for the for the goats and food and dishes for the pigs.  

So whatcha been up to?   Nothin much....  Same thing as everyday.   That's my answer to that question.  It's a question much like the one I get from my family in the mid west...."When you coming to see us?"   Ahhh.... probably not anytime soon guys.  Maybe you could come see me????   Usually -  not always -  but usually, when I get asked those questions it's as if  the person asking is waving a red flag that says they have absolutely no understanding what our life is like.  You can tell them and on a intellectual level they may get it but at gut level they really don't.  

We have a small kennel.  We raise and occasionally show Tibetan Terriers.  We used to show the dogs more but when you have a lot of animals it is hard to go anywhere.  Then, because we were limited in being able to leave anyway, I decided why not get those goat's I had always wanted.  I had been hesitant to get goats because of the twice a day milking and how that would really tie us to the house but what the heck we already were tied down because of the dogs.   After a couple of years with the goats the decision was made to get the pigs my 10 year old wanted to help use the milk and produce some of our own meat.   Now we are at a point that getting to the feed store is an event.   Add the garden and all it's chores to that and home has become a lifestyle called homesteading.  

 I have to check in with myself on occasion to see why the heck I'm doing this,  like on the day we moved all those cattle and goat panels when it was 100 degree's out.   Or tonight, when after doing all the day's chores and fitting in a trip to the feed store, I get home in time to get ready for the evening chores but realize, it's gonna rain tonight and momma pig hasn''t got that litter of piglets out of the woods yet and up to the pig house so I need to figure out how to either move them or somehow keep them dry where they lie.   I decided to haul a 9' picnic umbrella and heavy duty stand and some hay out to the woods to keep them covered and up somewhat off the ground on the hay.   We'll see.   Then I get to start the nights chores which are an abbreviated version of the morning chores.  

Load the cart, haul it to the goat area, tether the goats  so they don't eat each others food,  

Check out the udder on Tina (on the right).  That's about a gallon of milk in there.   With her two kids gone this week to their new home it's all ours...oh yeah, and the pigs.

Goats sweet feed mix with extra corn, sunflower seeds for extra protein and  2 overgrown summer squashes cut up in it - Yummy!

Now on to the pigs.  They hear the yellow wagon and me feeding the goats and know their next...momma even left her babies in the woods to come wait at the fence.   I throw them some hay over the fence first to distract them so I can get the food in there.  They don't always take the bait though.

Pig bucket... soaked corn, pig pellets with sunflower seeds, summer squash and milk.  Now the trick is to get it into their enclosure.  Yikes!  Let the squealing begin!  I  ALWAYS wear my knee high Welly's for this job. 

The adults don't look much better.   What little pigs they are about their food!   And isn't that Tina and Passion I hear letting me know they are done eating...come untether them?   I need to milk anyway now that all have been fed.

Let see, do I have everything?  Udderly easy milker and it's inserts, wipes to clean her, udder spray for when I'm done, insect repellent for her, a Pepsi for me,  milking bucket and my stool.   Oh and I better check baking soda before I leave and I think I'll do her hooves while I"m here.  Most goats can go 3 - 6 months on hooves but not my Tina. 

These were done at kidding time.   The kids are 10 weeks old now.   Should have done them a month ago.

OK,  that's better.  Not perfect but I'll do a little more tomorrow.   Now I need to go do the kennels, check the gardens, pick up the house, get some food on before I go to the the feed store so I can get home in time for evening chores.  

And I love it and  am so very very grateful that I have this as my life.  

Well it's getting light out now so I think I'll go see how those baby pigs made out last night in the woods.

Taking time to see the flowers

Black Knight butterfly bush

As the name implies, this butterfly bushes flowers are a very dark purple when they first come out.  They lighten up as they open more but the color initially is a gorgeous rich deep purple.   Today it was full of butterflies.

 Summer Snowfall Trumpet Vine

This variagated trumpet vine was planted 3 years ago and it's the first time it's bloomed.  It's still pretty sparse and spindly  but getting there.  This year it's sharing a piece of trellis with a melon plant.

Sometimes it seems we get so busy with all the chores around here seeing the beautiful parts of this endeavor goes by the wayside and what a shame that is.  I need to put on my to-do list - stop and SEE the beauty every day!

On the not so bright side of the gardens today... my goat chewed tomato.  It was getting pretty tall.  Tall enough evidently for the goat to reach over the fence and chew the top right off.   She got two of them.

Back to the good stuff...jalepeno's will be ready shortly.  Wish I had been able to find some habenaro plants but couldn't and it was way too late to start seeds.   Next year!

The zucchini's are doing well.   Of course they usually do, but this plant is in partial shade so I wasn't sure it would do well at all.   I planted it in the flower bed in front of my house.  Most of my veggies are intermingled with flowers in flower beds.   Behind the zucchini is a Bugbane - Cimicifuga Atropurpurea that does very well so it's certainly got a good bit of shade there.

Baby Chicks, Gardens and Goats

Chicks hatched this morning

This morning we were blessed to have 3 baby chicks hatch.   We had started with 8 eggs so it wasn't a great hatch but we were pleased none the less.   Last year I purchased hatching eggs so this was the first year we've hatched from our own chickens.  A couple weren't fertile to begin with when I candled them.  Don't know what happened to the others.  The ones that hatched were really pretty.    I was blown away with the coloring of the 2 darker ones.   This was a cross with a blue Orpington rooster and a buff Orpington hen.   One looks almost orange and the other chocolate.   The silver one is between two blues.  

Chicks are so much fun.   They haven't learned to be afraid and come right to you.   I think they are looking for a mother and you qualify if you bring them food and water.   They are so curious and so very chicken already.  They peck at each other and the smallest speck on your hand or a dish.      We cleaned out the incubator and added another 8 eggs to it. 

I started planting vegetables today.   I got pea's, spinach, lettuce, radishes and collards in.    Last year I missed most of the planting season so it was great to be on top of it this year.   I've been using the old hay from the goat house for mulch and also in the compost bin.   I am doing a few area's of no till beds using hay as well.    I need to get pictures as it progresses.   I am hopefully optimistic about using this method as it's just so much easier and better for the soil structure as well.   And it's a great use for all the wasted hay from bedding etc.   Goats are notorious about wasting hay so it feels much more tolerable knowing it's helping improve the soil.

I tend some years to get carried away with trying too many new vegetables that I don't use in the end so this year I  decided to stick for the most part with the things I use regularly... tomatoes, peppers of all varieties, onions, pea's, beans, pototoes, celery, spinach,  cucumbers and eggplants.   I think that's about it.   I also have an area out by the road I'm preparing as a no till bed.    I am going to use that area this year for lots of squashes and pumpkins.   I must have seeds of  4 or 5 varieties of winter squashes  and 5 or 6 different pumpkins so it will be great to have a large area to just let them roam.    I did bid on some walking onions on ebay tonight.   I've never tried them but they sound great and low maintenance to boot.   I'll post a picture if I win for any one that hasn't seen them before.  

Then next problem to contend with is the chickens in the garden.   I think they will have to go into the goat yard until the seeds sown have germinated and become established.   Last year the few things I did get planted the chickens pulled up the same day or the next day.   I love having them free range but they can really wreck havoc on a new garden.

After planting I went to work on the goat house.   I put down both lime and  dry stall for the ammonia smell from urine and laid new hay on top.   I smelled so much better; cleaner.     While I was doing it I looked at Passion who I was sure wasn't pregnant and I am now not so sure.   She wasn't having any part of Elvis while he was here but I think that may just have been while we were watching because she looks like she's getting bigger.   I won't know for another month but I do believe we'll be having two does kidding instead of just one.   I had been thinking  I may sell her as soon as Tina kidded and just yesterday I said I might put her on Craigslist now instead of waiting until Tina kidded.   I am really delighted  and hope she is in fact pregnant.   Time will tell.

Getting ready for spring

Tina is pregnant

It appears Elvis did a good job with Tina.   She's certainly pregnant and due around the first of May.   I would guess she'll at least have twins from how large she is this far out.    Last year she gave us triplets.   From the looks of it he wasn't able to breed Passion.    This isn't all bad since last year we had much more mik than we needed.   The first 2 months after kidding Tina alone was giving us 2 gallons a day.   She tapered off  until in Dec. she was only giving us about a 1/2 gal a day.    We stopped milking her then to give her a rest,    I am hoping for does from her which I will keep if we are lucky enough to get them.

Genesis incubator with 8 eggs

    Hopefully we'll get a good hatch from these.  Last year we bought hatching eggs but this year we are using our own eggs.   I put them in last Thursday and I'll candle them this weekend to see how many are viable.  I wanted to get a few in early so they'll be laying for me by the end of the summer.  I think I'll just keep adding any extra eggs we get from here on out although I've been doing a lot of cooking and haven't had many extra's.   With only 4 hens and 1 of those still isn't laying, there really haven't been that many eggs.

 Rudy is a very handsome and gentle rooster and I'm anxious to see what we get.   I separated  and marked the eggs so maybe I will know who's who when they hatch.  Of course that's if I'm there when they do.  

I'll also be starting some seeds this week.   I need to go through and see what I have.  I didn't get much of  a garden in last year but I had bought a ton of seeds.  Most will still be viable this year so it wasn't a total loss.   I also hope to get a large area in for winter food for the goats and pigs.   Turnips, mangles, collards and sweet potato's.   Maybe some sunflowers and jerusalem artichokes.

On bean soup and being frugal

Mixed beans soaking to make soup

There is a part of me that loves that the economy has made us look at our spending and reassess  how we are spending and to try and be more self sufficient.  I have always hated spending on things I knew I could get cheaper if I bought in a less trendy fashion.  I love looking for a bargain when I do need something and am just about at my most happiest when I have figured out a way to make what I have work without going to the store at all.   I love that doing this is somewhat trendy now instead of being afraid to let my more spendthrifty friends see that side of me.   What was almost an embarrassing quirk about myself is now acceptable.   I hope to pass these values on to my now 9 yr. old child.   What to value and give our life's energy to and what's a true waste of our life's energy.  Easier said then done with children sometimes.

This week we went shopping.  Some things needed to be new and were costly and to not spend money on them would end up costing us more in the long run.  Other things were determined to be unnecessary and still others were things we wanted but we were able to find a less costly way to get them.

I have for years gone to Goodwill to buy old comforters for my dogs beds.  I used them in their crates or doghouses.   I still use mats for smaller crates but all the larger ones and the dog houses get the old spreads and comforters I've collected over time at various Goodwill shops.   My dogs, especially my puppies eventually de-stuff them and new ones are needed.   This week my 9 yr. old and I stopped at a Goodwill to check for comforters and spreads (they are getting harder to find now) and while we were there she started looking at clothes.   We have for years gone to Goodwill to drop things off but never to buy clothing for her.  We ended up getting her a bunch of new- to- her, clothes, a much needed lamp for her room and a few books.

I found a vinyl swivel rocker for the kennel for both the dogs and myself and a glider with a gliding ottoman that I put in the living room.  I had always wanted one but could not make myself spend $300 -$500 for one.  I got this one for under $30.  We both joked about how we would be fighting about who would get to sit in it.

Our new glider chair and ottoman

My favorite "saying pillow"

 She commented on the way out how much she liked this going to Goodwill thing.   I wrestled with the guilt for about a minute.  The wanting for her to have the best of everything.   But letting her learn the value of money is the best thing for her. 

Later I had to stop at the grocery store.   I was looking for italian sausage for flavoring for my marina sauce and saw meat for $10 a lb.  $10 a lb!  Yikes.   And in a way I was glad it was so high.  With those prices many people truly can't afford it.   And that means less cattle for meat will be raised.  And less cattle means less havoc on the environment on a multitude of levels.   And that's a good thing.   And so is bean soup.  I still will add a bit of meat for flavoring but that pot will last a good while, was by far friendlier to the environment as well as to my wallet and makes me glad I am happy where I'm at.  Bloom where your planted and remember - inner piece comes not from getting what you want but from being happy with what you already have.

Happy New Year and more this & that

This is Elvis.   His real name is Dill but the other day my 9 yr old came in and said "he looks like a goaty version of Elvis with that bunch of curls on his head and it stuck.   He's an American Alpine and he's here visiting the girls and will be going home in a few weeks.  None to soon I tell you.  He's into everything and could give goats everywhere a bad name with his antics!  He escapes every chance he gets, stinks to the high heavens and is tormenting the girls.   I wonder if  his absence will make us think better of him? 

Nope.

Christmas & this and that

This was my view from my living room on Christmas.   I love watching the birds and we get such a diverse showing especially when it snows and food is scarce.   I put warm water and scattered some scratch on the railing as well.   Great, inexpensive entertainment.   My 9 yr. old loves to see how many she can identify.  

Christmas was hectic.    We still have a visiting buck we call Elvis because he has the craziest hairdo.  I really must post a picture of him.   Just above his eyes and back to his ears he has a bunch of curly locks.  It's silly looking or charming depending on my mood when I look at him.  Either way it's unique. 

The goats, pigs and chickens all got carrots for their Christmas treat.   Shredded for the chickens and sliced for the pigs and goats.   I swept / shoveled a place for the pigs to come out of their house but the goats were having no part of that.  They stayed in their warm house and just peeked out for a 5 days.  I didn't even offer the outdoors to the chickens until today.   I give them all warm water both morning and night.   I hang a flashlight in the chicken house above their food when I do their water at night and even though we had one night down to 10 degree's I have one little blue Orpington hen that lays me an egg.  All 3 of the other girls have quit till spring I guess.   Just that little bit of light from the flashlight made all the difference as she wasn't laying until I added the light.   I use rechargeable batteries or it would be rather expensive.

I'm still a  bit unsure of my feeding with the pigs.  They are going through a 50 lb bag in 4 days which seems like too much since they aren't full grown and even when they are full grown they are smaller than most pigs so I'm thinking I may be over feeding them.   I would like to get them on hay and milk only but I think they will protest strongly at this point if I were to try.   It being so cold at night I really don't want to try just yet.

I ran out of time with my Christmas wrapping for my little one this year and decided to make almost everything a stocking item since we don't wrap stocking items in our house.   Her stocking clearly wasn't large enough for everything to fit into so I got creative with a flannel PJ bottom with doggies and santa's on them much to her delight.

                            

Hope you and yours had as wonderful a Christmas as we did!