Starting Seeds

I must have “spring fever” or something today. It may be only the end of January, but this morning I started to gather things together for my seed starting station in what is now the library in our home. Slowly over the next couple of months, as the plants begin to grow, our library will be transformed into what can only be described as a “garden room.” It is a wonderful thing to watch for it is the reminder that life does go on and there is a promise of better things to come.

According to the “Old Farmer'sAlmanac”, I shouldn't start the seeds until February 28^th. However, since I follow the old farmer's rule of thumb and plant seeds who's produce grows above ground, in the full moon, I will be planting the seeds on the 25^th.

 

My starting station isn't anything complicated or elaborate, but it does get the job done. I usually put my potting soil into bathroom type paper cups for planting my vegetable seeds. Some people use cardboard egg cartons, or cardboard toilet paper rolls. I have even heard of people using ice cream cones as a planter for their seeds. I have found though that the small paper cups work best for me. I then place the seeds in either the “greenhouse” in a west window, or under a grow light. 

 

Once the plant has sprouted and out grown the cup, I plant, cup and all, in a origami newspaper box that I have filled with potting soil. If you would like to know how to make the newspaper box, click here. Once it is warm enough to plant outside, I plant the newspaper box and all in my garden.

For the herb seeds, I sow 2 or 3 seeds on each grow pellet and once they are large enough, I transplant the herbs to a large planter that I will place outside sometime in May.

So far, the herbs that I will be growing for this year are: thyme, dill, sweet marjoram, chives, cilantro, sage, basil, garlic chive, parsley, oregano, and mustard.

The vegetables that I will be growing are green beans, carrots, onions, green peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, cabbage, and cucumbers. I also hope to grow some watermelons as well. What are you planting in your garden this year? 

Thanks for reading. And remember, "No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow." - Proverb from Guinea :-)

Preparing for a Winter Storm

Because of my darling hubs job, whenever there is any kind of a weather or other “event” in our area, he is called into work and it falls on me to take care of the home. A winter storm is one of those times. Today is one of those days, so I thought that I would share what I do to prepare for a winter storm. 

Before there is a storm:

• Check around the outside of the home to make sure there are no tree limbs that could fall onto your home during a storm.
• Make sure the gutters are clean and free of any yard debris to keep them from clogging up and flooding.

Things that are good to have on hand:

• Snow shovels and ice scrapers. I have found that having more than one shovel is a very wise thing to have. There has been a number of times when I have been shoveling snow and the shovel has broken on me. So having a back-up shovel just in case is a good thing.
• Salt. This is for if sprinkling on the sidewalk and steps to melt the ice or packed down snow.
• Food and Water. Have enough non-perishable food to last you and your family for at least 3 days. More food is even better to have. Same with water. You will need at least 3 gallons of water, per day, for each person for drinking, hygiene, food preparation, etc. In an emergency, you can melt snow and use that for non-potable water. Or, you can use a filter to use the melted snow. Another way to purify the snow is melt it and let get to a rolling boil for five minutes. You also can use eight drops of non-scented bleach that has 6 percent chlorine to one gallon of water. Make sure you have food and water back for your pets as well.
• Prescriptions and other medication. The last thing you want to do is run out of medication during a snow storm.
• Baby products. Diapers, formula, etc.
• Battery  operated radio, NOAA radio, flashlights, extra batteries, candles, matches, solar or battery cell phone charger,
• Camping stove, grill, or equipment needed for a candle stove.
• Blankets and warm clothing
• Something to entertain the kids and yourself with. This can be as simple as a book, cards, board games. It can also mean a laptop computer, hand held video games, a portable dvd player, and so forth.
• Have a back up heat source. This can be wood, solar, wind power, or even kerosene. If you use a kerosene heater please make sure you place it in a well ventilated room. Fireplaces are good if the temperature remains above 20 degrees F. If temps are lower than that, you may lose more heat up the chimney than will go into the room and your room can actually become colder rather than warmer. Also remember that gas furnaces will not work during a power outage as they need electricity to run the fans.

Winter Storm Watch/Warning Issued:

• Stay calm!!!! It seems like every time there is a winter storm warning people start to freak out about it. They run to the store and grab anything they can. Then they get on facebook, or some other social media, and become hysterical about it. While you need to be prepared, common sense preparation and precautions, will make the winter storm more of a nuisance than anything else.
• Check on locations of family members and notify them of upcoming storm.
• Check all your supplies. If needed, gather them into one place so you will know exactly where they are at.
• Start charging all electronic, battery operated devices.
• Monitor NOAA radio to keep up to date on the approaching storm.

During the storm:

• Stay inside and enjoy life. :-)
• Continue to monitor your NOAA radio for storm updates.

After the storm:

• Check to make sure that there is not to much snow on the roof of your house or that there is any other kind of damage.
• Check around with the neighbors, especially with the elderly to make sure everyone is okay and not in need of any help.
• Be careful to prevent frostbite or hypothermia while shoveling. Take your time and take frequent breaks. Drink lots of fluids and keep warm.

Thanks for reading.

Tracking Animals

Last night we had a snow fall, which made a perfect day for tracking animals. Besides the normal squirrel, bird, cat and dog tracks that one would normally expect to see in the suburbs, today I found out that there are at least two coyotes, and a fox, that are roaming my neighborhood. I also saw some deer tracks along the river and some other animals that I couldn't identify.

It is a good idea to do that even if you don't ever plan on trapping them. One is so you will know how best to protect your gardens and other vegetation from the animals that are around your neighborhood. Another is you just never know when you will have a hankering to eat some squirrel. (lol) It is a fun and interesting hobby to have and the kids get so excited when they find a new kind of animal track.

Take some time today to go outside and see what animals you have in your neighborhood. Thanks for reading. :-)

Planning a Garden

It is cold today...baby it is **very** cold here. The current temperature where I live at is 6°F with a wind chill of -15° F. To help warm myself a bit, I am working on planning this years gardens. Somehow, that helps to warm the air a bit. :-)

I found an awesome website that allows for the user to plan their garden for free. Gardner's supply company  lets you pick from either preplanned vegetable gardens or it lets you plan your own. If you plan your own, you choose the size of garden you want, and the plants that you want. Easy, Easy. Easy!!! It takes out a lot of the guess work to planning a garden and the site is very easy to navigate.

One of the things that I am doing this year, besides planting the normal vegetables that one finds in most gardens, is adding some more fruit trees/plants to my yard. Currently, I have a mulberry bush and a elderberry bush in my yard. I will be adding an Arkansas Black Apple tree , a pawpaw bush  . I will also be planting some red raspberry and black raspberries bushes as well as some heritage strawberry plants all of which will be starts that will come from another property that I own.

What kind of plans do you have for your garden?

:-)

Thanks for reading.

Oven Canning

I think that just about everyone has had the unpleasant experience of opening a box of cereal, cake mixes, flour, pasta, potato flakes, that they have had for awhile and finding “little critters” crawling around. As you know, bugs and eggs that are not visible to the naked eye, live in our dry food goods. One way to stop this is to put the food in the freezer. However, that takes up a lot of room in your freezer.

Another way to preserve dry food goods, is through oven canning. This is a very simple and easy well to prolong the life of your food. Any dry food good that contains oil (such as nuts) cannot be oven canned. 

 

What you will need: thoroughly cleaned and dried canning jars, lids, hot pads, towel, rings, funnel, cookie tray, oven, whatever you are wanting to can. Shown here is macaroni. I also oven canned some oatmeal which you will see pictured later on.

 Preheat oven to 200° F.

Place jars onto cookie sheet which helps to keep the jars from tipping over in the oven. Fill jars. Place jars into preheated oven for one (1) hour.

 Remove jars from oven, one at a time. The jars will be very hot so make sure to use a hot pad. Place jar on a towel and carefully wipe the rim of the jar. Place canning lid and ring on jar and tighten ring. Allow to cool. Repeat with each jar.

 

As the jars cool, you will hear a “popping” or “clicking” sound which means the jar has sealed. Once cooled, label jars. Storage life is 15-20 years.

 

I “skirt” my jar lids using paper muffin cups. It does help to prevent dust building up on the jars and it looks pretty when they are on the shelf. I suppose if one was really organized they could use the different colored muffin cup for each food product. (i.e. flour would have one color muffin cup, cake mixes another color and so on) That way a person would know exactly what they had by just glancing at the shelf.

Tip: We use a wire coat hanger to store our canning rings when they are not in use. Simple unwind the hanger and slip the rings onto the hanger. Rewind the wire to hold the rings in place.

Thanks for reading. :-)

Dehydrating Celery

For some people, the subject of dehydrating is a real yawner, but other people seem to feel that it is just about the only way to preserve food. I am somewhere in the middle. Dehydrating has its good points and some bad points. Dehydrated foods does save storage space as opposed to other methods of preserving foods, you don't really need any special equipment like you do with other preservation methods, and it is a very simple thing to do. However, dehydrating does not retain the taste and texture of the food like canning and freezing does. It also takes more time and attention. To me, being diverse in the way you preserve food is always a good thing.

There are several ways to dehydrate food. You can do it the traditional way by placing it in the sun, or you can use your kitchen oven. The third way, is to use a dehydrator. This past Christmas my darling hubs bought me a new dehydrator. Its a fairly inexpensive one as far as dehydrators go, but it works fine and gets the job done.

I have been asked by a few people how to use a dehydrator, so I thought that I would write about how I do it. Note: You cannot rehydrate celery as you can other foods, but it is good  in salads and soups.

First cut off the root end of the celery. Don't throw the end away. You can regrow your celery indoors which I will blog about on another day. Clean the celery stalks as you normally would.

 

Chop the celery into ½ inch crescents.

 

Place celery into boiling water (blanching) for 1-2 minuets.

 

After removing celery from boiling water, place it immediately into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process. 

Lightly pat the blanched celery dry using a clean cloth.

 Place celery onto dehydrator trays in a single layer.

 

Dry until crispy which takes 6-10 hours. After celery is fully dried, remove trays from dehydrator. Allow to cool about 10-15 minutes. Put dehydrated celery into a glass jar and screw on lid. Store in a cool, dry, place away from direct sunlight.

Enjoy and Thanks for reading. :-)

Soap Making Epic Fail

I was going to write today about making soap. At least that was the plan. Since I have never tried doing that, I thought that I would take pictures and blog about my first attempt and end the post with attractive pictures of home-made bars of soap lined up in a pretty row. Guess what happened” To say that it was a complete and total failure, would be the understatement of the century. The only thing I ended up making was a huge mess.

How could something as simple and every day, like soap, end up being such a total failure? I had a recipe for it. The recipe was guaranteed to “work every time.” I had watched so many videos on YouTube about soap making that I thought that I could do it in my sleep. I had all the right ingredients and tools for making it. I even had some high-tech stuff to make sure I did it correctly. Still it came out as a huge flop.

I guess the moral of this experience for me is this: Just because you think you can do something, have the correct tools, and watched others do it, doesn't mean that you will actually have the skill to able to do it. So practice, practice, practice now before you really need it.

Will I try making soap again? Yes! Will it be today? NO!!!!!!!

Thanks for reading. :-)

Starting Out Homesteading

 Sunrise at another property that I own. 

  I have had several people in the past day or two, email me and ask me with questions about homesteading and prepping. The questions that keeps on being repeated are, “Where do I start? What do I do? How much should I do?” Hey folks, I am new at this too.*smiles* But the good news is that there is an excellent video on YouTube that answers those questions better than I ever could. 

 

If you wish to watch the video directly on YouTube, click here.

I would invite you to visit southernprepper1's channel. He has excellent advice about homesteading, self-defense, and other related topics. Click here to view all of his videos.

 

Candle Stove

 

It is cold here in the mid-west today!! It is suppose to get even colder. By the end of this week it is suppose to get below zero along with a snow storm. Which has me thinking...suppose the grid went down this week, how would some people be able to cook their food?

A wood burning cook stove would be an awesome answer to that problem. So would a generator. A grill or camp stoves would also work. But...and that is an important but...if the temperatures really do get below zero, using a grill or camp stove, would be very dangerous. Because being out in the cold long enough to cook anything on those, even in the shelter of a garage with the doors open, it would be cold enough that it could cause the onset of hypothermia fairly quickly...which could make for a very bad day for you. What about those people that live in an apartment, and elsewhere, where they wouldn't be able to have those options available to them? What would they do?

A candle stove is a very short-term, temporary, fix for in that kind of situations. While you can buy candle stoves online, I have to wonder why anyone would since they are so easy and fast to make yourself with things most people have on hand.

The picture at the top pretty well shows how to make one yourself, but I will break it down:

 

Place your candle(s) in a sink. You will need to try to get the candles as close to your pot or pan as possible, without the flame actually touching the pot. The candles that I used were not tall enough to for the maximum amount of heat to reach the pan. So, I inverted a cake pan and placed the candles on top of the cake pan.

 

 

I then placed a rack across my sink. The rack that I used was from one of our grills, but a rack from an oven would also work. Ta-da!!! You now have a candle stove. Easy wasn't it?

 

It does take a lot longer to cook on a candle stove than normal. It took me 35 minutes to boil some water and 40 minutes to fry scrambled eggs. Obviously the more candles the hotter the air will be and the faster the food will cook. Just don't have so many candles that you end up setting your kitchen on fire.

I tented the pot and the air around the the pot with aluminum to see if that would improve the cooking time. It greatly increased the efficiency of this method, but if you try this, make sure to use hot pads when removing the aluminum foil or the pot. They both get hot very quickly.

Some foods that are easy to cook using the candle stove method are: hot dogs, soups, grilled cheese sandwiches, chili, warmed canned chicken added to instant or canned gravy added and then placed over some instant rice. Oh yes....s'mores are awesome to make this way too. :-)

Thanks for reading.

Chickens, Goats, and Bees...OH MY!!!

The Hubs and I have been talking recently about purchasing a few chickens (White Rock hens only...no roosters), and also thinking maybe a couple of miniature goats to have as pets and also for fresh eggs and milk. I decided today to look into how many of those, the city that we live in, would allow us to have. Come to find out we aren't allowed to have any. None. Zip. Zilch. Na-Da. The city ordinance doesn't even allow for bee hives. Nothing that can be considered “livestock.”

Not sure that I am understanding that one. Less than a mile away from our house our park district has a “farm” with all kinds of livestock. But I guess that is different because they call it a “petting zoo.” The “zoo” consists of....you guessed it....chickens, miniature goats, miniature ponies, and so on.

Hmmmmmm. Maybe it is time for me to have a visit with my city council and find out how to change that ordinance. They say, “You can't fight city hall” but maybe I won't have to. Stay tuned...

:-)

Thanks for reading.

DIY Button Lamps for Emergency Light

Alternative emergency lighting. Are you ready?

When the grid goes down, we think of emergency lights as things like kerosene lamps, flashlights, candles, solar and wind powered lights, or even propane camp lanterns. Those are all fine and good. But what happens if you lose power and you either don't have any of those handy or the power has been out so long that you have run out of those supplies? 

Any fan of the “Little House Books” by Laura Ingalls Wilder, knows exactly what to do in such a situation. You do like “Ma” (and countless other pioneers) did when kerosene wasn't available. You make a button lamp. During the pioneer days, they would use a button to weigh down the wick and to hold it upright. The buttons back then were made out of bone or metal. Today our buttons are made out of plastic so they would melt under the heat from the lamp. Never fear though. You can use a quarter, bolt, washer, or a penny in place of the button. This is a one time use thing, so after the lamp goes out you will need to make another one.

 

 

Supplies you will need:

*Some kind of grease for the fuel. It can be shortening, lard, axle grease, vaseline, whatever you have handy.

*Small square of fabric about 3 in.x3 in. to be used as wick.

*Sewing thread

*Something to hold the wick in place. Shown are two different sizes of bolts and a quarter. I used the smaller of the two bolts for this project.

*A 5 oz tuna can

*Match or something else to light the button lamp when you want to light it.

 

Step 1:

Empty tuna out of can and make yourself a tuna-fish sandwich. Because everything is better when there is food involved. LOL Shown above is what I used: tuna, onion, homemade zucchini relish (yuuuuum!!!), chopped celery. :-)

 

Step 2:

Wash and thoroughly dry the can. Spread about 1 tablespoon of the grease around the inside and bottom of the can.

 

Step 3:

Spread the grease around both sides of the cloth and place your weight in the middle.

 

 



Step 4:

Bring the cloth together up over the weight and tightly wind the thread around it and tie off.

 

  Step 5:

Twist the fabric straight upwards into a tapering twist and grease the fabric again to form wick.

 



 Step 6:

Place wick into the center of the can and light. Burn time is 15-20 minutes.

 

Safety Tip: When using an open flame of any kind, it is always a good idea to have a working fire extinguisher handy. Please never leave an open flame unattended.

BTW...the hubs says that I should redo all these pictures again because he wants another sandwich.  ;-D

Thanks for reading and God's Blessings.

Life Lesson Learned While Homesteading

At first glance this would seem to have nothing to do with homesteading, but actually it does. For how much you allow negative people influence your life could very well mean the difference between just surviving or thriving in life. This is especially true during the rough times when the world seems to be falling down around us or even during a WROL situation.

I have in the yard on the north side of my home, eighty-four (84) different varieties of flowers plus my vegetable and herb gardens. Because of that, during the summer, I spend on the average of three to four hours a day working in my yard. Since I am so “available” to anyone passing by, I often have neighbors, police (our “locals” sometimes walk their beat), and strangers stop by to chit-chat with me. They often ask to tour my gardens, or to see if I could help them with some gardening problem they are having.

One morning, I had three different types of people stop by and from their actions and reactions, I learned this life's little lessons while homesteading:

*Most people don't notice the little weeds in the garden because they are looking at the flowers.

*Some people don't notice the big weeds in the garden because they are only looking at the flowers, and if they do happen to see the weeds, they will stop and help to pull them.

*A few people only see the weeds in the garden , and not the flowers, because weeds are all they want to see.

Life lesson learned from this: Our personal faults and shortcomings may not be as noticeable as what we fear (or even perhaps sometimes wish) them to be to those around us.

*Our friends won't notice our petty faults because they see the good in us.

*Our good friends usually won't even notice our large faults for they will love us no matter what. But if they happen to see a fault in our life that will lead to our destruction, they will stop and help us overcome that fault.

*Our enemies only see our faults no matter what, because our faults are all they want to see. ***Don't pay attention to these people. ***

Have an awesome day everyone. Thanks for reading and God's blessings.

Wild Edibles in Your Yard

South-side of my home in the burbs.

It is easy to get so caught up with learning how to homestead, and all that involves, that it is easy to overlook the obvious things that can help us. Looking no further than our own yard for sources of food is one of those things. While eating wild edible food is not a replacement for growing and harvesting food, it is a good, nutritious, supplement to our cultivated foods.

The picture above is the south side of my house in the burbs. In this picture, are at least nine different sources of food in the yard. Four of them are in plain sight. The other five you will need to look close in order to find them. (Hint: Impatiens are not edible as far as I know.) How many food sources can you find?

Score Card:

9-8 food sources found: Awesome job!! Let's do lunch sometime. I'll bring a salad. LOL

7-5 food sources found: Hmmmmm you might want to brush up on wild edible foods.

4-0 food sources found: Maybe the links below will help you.

I had thought about just listing the sources for food in the above picture and then talking about each one, but then I thought, “Isn't becoming self-sufficient about doing it yourself instead of having others do your work for you?” I have listed some websites below that are excellent sites for learning about wild edibles so that you may start to learn about edible plants on your own . Enjoy!! :-)

WARNING: Please make sure that you know to how to use the universal edibility test before consuming any wild plant. Many wild plants have poisonous look-a-likes. Or, you may find that you are allergic to that wild food. An excellent site to learn about this is at http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/universal-edibility-test1.htm

Websites about edible wild foods to help you get started:

How to find wild edible plants http://www.wikihow.com/Find-Wild-Edible-Plants

Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/tracer-bullets/edibleplantstb.html

The Best of Raw Food http://www.thebestofrawfood.com/wild-edible-plants.html

The Daily Green http://www.thedailygreen.com/green-homes/latest/weeds-edible-plants-0409

Thanks for reading and God's Blessings be with you today.

Welcome

My great-great Grandfather hauling hay.

I have been wanting to write a blog for sometime now on homesteading, but I couldn't figure out where to start at. After mulling over this for awhile, I came to the conclusion that I need to just follow the old country farmer's wisdom of. “Simply start at the beginning and when you get to the end... stop.” So, that is what I'm doing. I am starting this blog with a short bio about me, so that you will understand where I am coming from and where I hope to go...and when I get done, I'll stop.

While I am new to the idea of homesteading and prepping, I am not new to that life style. I grew up on a small Midwestern farm that has been in my family since 1910. While growing up everything on our family's table, came from our farm. We raised cattle, chickens, and ducks for our meat and dairy products. We grew our vegetables, fruits, and herbs. Then either canned, pickled, froze, salted, or smoked the food for during the winter months. I have chopped and split more cords of wood then I can count. I've baled hay and straw, harvested soybeans, field corn, popcorn, and winter wheat. I have hauled water in buckets or used a hand pump so many times that my arms ache just thinking about it. :-)

I learned how to spin, weave, crochet, tat, embroider, and knit. I played in the fresh air, swam in the creek, and fished for tadpoles on hot summer days. I worked hard, I played hard, and it was a wonderful life.

In other words, I was the typical mid-western, down-home-on-the-farm girl. Then....I went to college, became a classically trained musician, traveled throughout the United States and Europe on concert gigs. Got married, had four kids and here I am today...A country girl living out of her element in the suburbs working with computers for a living. Which all somehow, makes totally perfect sense. ;-)

Am I an expert at homesteading? Nope!!! Not even close.!! So much from what I learned in my childhood, I have forgotten, and that is what this blog is about, It is my attempt in relearning how to become self sufficient once again.. It is is my journey back “home” and I hope you will join me in that journey, not only by reading, but also trying to become more self reliant yourself.

Thanks for reading and God's blessings.