Question- What The Hell Happened to Homesteading???

 

 

 

Question- What The Hell Happened to Homesteading???

I stumbled onto this Youtube video (link to article in Substack Jill Winger Substack) and was blown away. I had been thinking the same things for quite a while now. Video here, please comment on what you think? My comments on Youtube and Substack below video-

 

My comments- 

Really great post on Substack, interesting comments. I'm a little different where my husband and I started a little urban homestead back in the 2010 or so. I grew up in the city in Southern California, mostly in apartments and never had a yard until I was an adult. I got married and raised a family with a wonderful man who loved gardening! I started blogging in 2011, Little Homestead in Boise, which I still do. I thought it might be fun just to sort of document what we were doing as we did it and it's actually really great to be able to look back and see what we did over all the years. I think my grandparents would be proud! I grew up in the city with the only set of grandparents I knew who had fruit trees, avocado tree, Concord grapes and strawberries in their little tiny urban backyard. My grandmother also knitted, crocheted, embroidered, canned foods, made everything from scratch. That was the generation that were adults during the Depression. I'm almost 70. After I became a Master Gardener we bought our current house where I really wanted to pursue more self-sufficiency type skills. I had stumbled on to a California family that were doing hardcore "urban homesteading" and Permaculture. It was really inspiring to me. I didn't know what else to call it, so "urban homesteading" fit for me. So after we moved in we planted fruit trees, medicinal herbs, low water use plants (high desert here), got chickens, and planted another summer garden like our two previous houses. Almost all of this was done frugal and DIY. Sadly my husband has vetoed beekeeping as he is afraid of liability issues! Oh well, what can you do. My husband luckily had parents that were hardcore gardeners also, in Portland, Oregon. His Mom grew tons and tons of homegrown produce. Eventually I learned how to can and dehydrate foods, etc. I never really made any money off of my blog. When I started to see YouTube taking off years ago and a lot of bloggers going there or even just switching to Facebook I just sort of shook my head. I really didn't want to lose my privacy by going online and posting videos of myself doing stuff and I didn't really think there was much interest in it anyway. Boy was I wrong. While I'm not sure if I thought it was a movement, it was something. When chickens became a "thing" for instance, I saw a huge onslaught of cheaply made, inappropriate sized instant chicken coops for sale. I saw a lot of people buy a lot of chickens and a lot of them died. People didn't know what they were doing, but it sounded fun. I did about 6 months worth of research before we ever bought our three little chicks and built a nice sized big coop. We've been successfully raising chickens for years. Sadly many of my blogger pals who were around the same age or maybe younger have either stopped blogging or passed away. I used to have a real regular group where we crossed pollinated each other's blogs with comments and now I'm down to one or two. Sad.  Now we have the cosplay farmers and homesteaders who have millionaire husbands and dress up in overly expensive, quaint clothing and say that they are farmers. They have large families (some of them) and promote all their sales and/or services and the attitude of "you can do this too without any money"! It's also easy to raise lots of kids when you have lots and lots of staff doing most of the work. I do feel sorry for the children in that scenario as the ones who are all over social media have no choice in that sadly. I see a lot of therapy in their future. Good job on your post and you made some excellent points! Will be putting a link to this on my blog. Will be curious to see any comments. 

 

Independence Days Challenge

 

Independence Days Challenge-

Here's what's been going on! It's finally warming up, grass is getting a bit green. Hopefully no more snow!!!

 

1. Plant Something- Getting ready to plant some lettuce starts in a little pot inside just to get something green growing. We've relocated a few things, trying to find room to put up our grow light rack to start some early vegetables. Otherwise too cold outside! After multiple mini snow storms we finally got into the 50s. Happy dance!

 

2. Harvest Something- Chives are up in the garden. So happy the girls have started laying! We have almost two and a half dozen eggs so far. It appears only two out of the three but that is another story listed below. I could be wrong on that, with two laying brown eggs and one white. Once we get three eggs a day we're good!

3. Preserve/Store Something- Bought some deeply discounted artisan breads and stashed those in the freezer. Keeping an eye on canned goods, etc. and stockpiling those. Found some good deals on some Augason Farms Butter powder on Amazon. Got a #10 can for $19.00 on sale. Got three freeze-dried entrees from Mountain House, nice to have on hand.

 
4. Manage Reserves- Get a Good Deal/Barter/Stock Up/Prep- Clearance priced wild bird food, clearance price winter clothes, and  several used Dvds and books from eBay. My food processor died, found a good deal online. My most recent read, highly recommended, this would make a GREAT movie!!!

 5. Eat the Food- Try New Foods/Recipe- Working on trying some new Mediterranean diet recipes with some new and used cookbooks I was able to find. Another used book, while very heavy on the dairy (for us) great recipes!-

 

6. Build Community Food Systems- Not at this time. 
 
7. Recycle/Re-Use- Dave has been cleaning up and reorganizing our garage. He needed to reorganize some specific areas. We were able to donate quite a few things and get them out of the garage. We're trying to create more workspace, with two cars and limited storage. It's much better, but a work in progress. I have the new kitchen "buffet area" (previous computer desk) done, with mostly thrifted items! I went for a Mediterranean feel, just waiting on buying some butcher block for the new top!

8. Skill Up- I got a new job. Much higher pay, better benefits. My old job was a sinking ship and no one seemed to care. That gets really frustrating when you're trying to do the job right! I will be working part-time in the office and part-time at home, which is a nice bonus. Originally it was supposed to be fulltime in the office. Saves gas and the commute time! Kitty Bonnie will be happy.

9. Regenerate What is Lost/Salvage Something- Saved the life of our hen Debbie. I looked at one day a couple months ago, when it was really bitter cold, and she was standing there with her tail down looking pretty sad. Didn't know what was going on so I brought her in right away, got her warmed up. When I was handling her I realized she was really, really thin. I thought maybe she was egg-bound since the other two had started laying. I gave her a warm bath and blew her dry. 

 

She almost fell asleep! I waited a day or so nothing happened. So I did my first vent inspection and found no egg. She did have a hard little rubbery yellow thing attached to her tail feathers. I don't remember now what it was called, but it sounded like she might have a bacterial infection. Luckily I had some poultry antibiotics on hand and gave her several doses over the course of a couple of days. I also gave her food that she would eat, loves cat food apparently! So I tried to get her hydrated and eating, inside where it was wzrm. A double laundry basket worked great! With my work schedule I finally decided to put her back out with her flock. I would go out three times a day and give her some canned chicken, tuna, with water and oats, etc. She seemed like she got her appetite back. Within a week or two she started perking up and moving around more. She seems to have recovered completely, from what I can tell. She's eating, looks normal but not sure if laying yet? I'm really happy she pulled through and we'll see how things go from here. She's only two or three years old so she should have a long life ahead of her. Long live Debbie, named after Debbie the Space Chicken from Lost in Space-

 

Best Thrifting Scores! Installing A New Microwave, Kitchen Project- Turning A Desk Into A Buffet !

 

Best Thrifting Scores! 

We had some donations to make and I had the thrift store bug. I am redoing an area in the kitchen and wanted to add a little bit more French Mediterranean decor items . We decided to go out New Year's Eve day and dropped off some donations at our local Idaho Youth Ranch. We went inside and there just wasn't much in the store. They had a fire sometime in the summer at their warehouse and had asked people to stop donating. I don't know if they just never recovered or what happened but I've never seen their store that empty except for tons of clothing. We decided to go to Goodwill up the street. Oh wow wow wow were they ever stocked up!!! 

I started going through the home decor section and first found this really pretty pitcher made in Mexico for water for our dining table. Really nice size, $4.00-

Next I found a Ziploc plastic bag section of the store where they put all kinds of random things together. I found a brand new Teavana brand steeping tea brewer. Basically you put your loose tea in, fill with water let it steep. It comes with its own little coaster. After it's steeps when you set it on top of a mug and the weight of the liquid releases the tea through the stainless steel filter in the bottom. Pretty ingenious! It was brand new along with a few other crafting goodies, $3.00! New it is $20.00. The really nice thing about it is it's small and solves the problem of bulk teas that I like to brew. When I use a tea ball or tea spoon filter it seems like something always leaks through with chunks of tea in the bottom of the cup. The filter worked great!

Next I found a shadow box that was going to go perfect for a little vintage World War II French hen print that I found online. I inserted the photo, I'm going to add things like wheat sprigs, seeds and broken eggshells. So far it's really cute! In French at the top of the photo it says solve your barnyard problems. Then down in the middle it says something about a girl's school. At the bottom it says I Am A Brave Little Hen I don't eat much but I produce a lot. I stumbled on this print and loved it! We'll play around with the frame, which was $1.50.

As far as Mediterranean/French I found a cabbage leaf serving platter, $4.99. Many of these kinds of ceramics are made in Majorca, Spain-

Found a really cute whitewashed flower with galvanized metal and a jute center, $3.00. Really reminds me of a bakery we go to in McCall (Stacy's Cake's). They have lots vintage baking tins and make flowers out of them for decorations. It's up in the dining room now-

I found a faux lavender pot for $1.99-

 

And then a Fleur delis-style statue/baluster for $3.00. I wasn't sure about the green but it's growing on me. I had planned of painting it white but I think I like the green. Time will tell...

Next I found a serving platter, about 11 inches across that I will hang in my wall once I get a plate holder. It's a really nice brand, lots of available online, for $4 it was a bargain. At Home Depot a while back I bought a faux miniature olive tree that will also dress up the space this will be going-

Last for a couple dollars I found a Rachael Ray olive oil picture, like new and my favorite color! Washed really well with very hot soapy water and just like new, is $20.00 new! 

 

On the actual free side of things I found this nice free printable online. It's for my frame I already had for the holidays. I had originally put one with the same French wording but it just didn't print out right. I finally found one I like and it was free! Will save that for next year-

I was looking for a greenery swag for my living room but all of the Christmas items were completely gone. Will have to wait for next year. My entire haul (small items not shown) was $30.00!

 

 

Installing A New Microwave- 

Dave and I were relaxing nicely, about ready to eat on New Year's Eve, when suddenly our microwave arced and that was the end of that. I was cooking some veggies. We had it for about 13 years so we got our money out of it, for sure. So New Year's Day we spent shopping for a new microwave. I had pulled up a few models on YouTube and did a little research the night before. All our appliances are white so we were sticking with that. I noticed that a lot of the newer microwaves have recessed handles which I really like. Lower profile is always good for me. We stopped at Lowe's to look and see what they had and we lucked out. We found one in stock for $279 with the recessed handle! Dave and I installed it New Year's Day and it works great, and much quieter. Also made me finally really deep, deep clean my range top and stove. I took all the knobs off and scrubbed with really hot soapy water and a toothbrush. Scrubbed down the upper section really well, the bottom drawer and door. Looks much much better. All in all Santa came a bit late with that, but we got a good deal and got what we wanted. There is a series called Profile that we really liked with all of the digital keypads down along the bottom in a thin strip but they are much more expensive and it wasn't that important to us. Happy that we have one installed and it works!

 

 

Old dead one

 

We pulled the old one and proteced the glass top stove

 

New one out of box, Whirlpool

 

Installed and we cleaned up!

 

 

 

My inspiration from Romantiskahem.blogspot

 

Kitchen Project- Turning A Desk Into A Buffet! 

I saw the photo at the top a while back. It gave me an idea and so here's the reveal! Here's the history first- When we bought our house we inherited a desk in the dining room which we decided to keep. For a long time it was good to have our computer there, work online, pay bills and be able to chat with each other-

 

Earlier this year we decided to move the computer into the home office that I used to work remotely. When I changed jobs and went to work in an office we decided we could really use that space in the kitchen for other things. I'd always wanted to put in a buffet there. The plan right now is to put a slab of butcher block type wood and replace the counter. Eventually I'd like Dave to remove the cabinet, pull out the rolling cart and add some finished shelves. I found the fabric at Joanne's and loved it! I bought a white tension rod and sewed it up! I wanted something sort of Mediterranean-ish.

 

 

Kind of reminds me of the ocean

 

 

Hides lots of stuff! Next sewing project will be re-upholstering my two dining chairs, they need some love! After winter decor is put away I will put out my French/coutry decor-

 

Flowers bloomed in time for New Year's!

The Giant Tree Trim! Success Wintering Over Veggies w/Row Covers, Seafood Lowland Boil Recipe, Mason Brand = Pur Brand

The Giant Tree Trim!

Spring is here! While I have been feeling the blogger blahs, I am ready to start planting seeds! We'll set up our seed starter stand and get things going under the grow lights. Last fall we decided to get more sun on our backyard vegetable garden area. I could see the writing on the wall with potential food shortages and other issues at that time. We have a huge maple tree that we absolutely love! Gives us tons of much-needed shade on the hot west side of the house. One of the challenges though has been getting enough sun over the garden. Quite a few years ago we used a really great tree service (Wolff) and they trimmed the south side of the tree enough to open up the garden and keep the tree healthy. Tree preservation here is key. They've also done some other trimmings of the tree, taking down some dangerous huge branches. We called them again this winter and got a bid on thinning the south side  again. I had them leave enough branches, however, over the coop to give the hens some shade. Our huge tree you can see from the front yard-

I left the chickens in the coop in the early morning with snacks. I went over with the tree crew to try to keep the chicken's sunroom intact. They did a great job! Sometimes you have to make these tough decisions for food production. We also had them trim back our apple tree in the front, so that we can reach it for better harvesting. When a fruit tree gets too tall it gets to be impossible to harvest the fruit at the top. We had them trim it a few years ago and this year just had them shorten the top a bit. Problem solved. 

Tree over the coop, left some for shade

Much more sun on the right! 

Tree all trimmed! 

Success Wintering Over Veggies w/Row Covers-

In the photo above you can see the white row covers covering some of our winter veggies. Usually in the fall I have always ripped out our collard greens, etc. and gave them to the chickens. This year I decided to cover them with row cover and see if they would survive the winter or not. They are collard greens and kale. I cover them really well with a double layer of  row cover and secured them with some heavy rocks. Other than that I didn't really do anything else. Dave and I uncovered them a few days ago and they look great! If some of the leaves are bitter we can give them to the chickens for feed otherwise we will be eating them. Row cover is so cheap here, about $10 for a long packaged piece it's worth the investment. Just another way to increase food production! I expect they will really take off with the warmer weather now with some water and a little bit of manure.

Seafood Lowland Boil Recipe-

Last week I saw an old PBS episode of Emeril the Chef, and it reminded me of an old recipe I used to do. Years ago I saw some travel show where they did a lowland boil. It's traditionally done with a spicy broth with crawfish, beer, vegetables and sausage. One of the secrets was putting in a can of beer. Old Bay Seasoning is used, easily found at all grocery stores. I used this recipe as a base McCormick.com  To do it economically I bought a bag of frozen seafood mix. It has shrimp, scallops, squid, and muscles. I bought an extra bag of medium-sized frozen shrimp. I went ahead and bought some fresh Old Bay seasoning. I followed the basic recipe here but cut it in half. I also eliminated the sausage, trying to be a little bit healthier. I did about 2 to 3 quarts of water with almost a half a container of Old Bay seasoning, onions quartered, Yukon Gold potatoes chopped, six large chopped carrots. At add one can of plain beer, don't use a lager or anything dark! Adjust water as needed. After the vegetables were fairly well cooked through I added the seafood for about 15 to 20 minutes. I served this with cornbread and it was great! Keep well in the fridge. 

Mason Brand = Pur Brand-

Last year I noticed Pur brand lids showed up in stores. Now I'm seeing jars with both brands listed. Looks like a merger or something similar. Luckily I am seeing canning lids in grocery stores! Nice to be able to stock up. 

Increasing Food Production/Garden Project for Resiliency

Increasing Food Production/Garden Project for Resiliency-

I found over the years that gardening is definitely a learning experience. With spring around the corner, and some temperatures in the 60's, we're looking ahead. Last fall I started thinking with the state of the world. I felt we really needed to increase our food production on our Little Homestead. Because we have a really large maple tree in our backyard we have very limited sunlight. When we first bought the house we laid out the back yard garden logically because that's where the sun was. Later we put up the coop which fit in that area well-

Sunroom will come down next month

Last fall I was looking critically at how, and why, we use the space we have. I love having the chickens in the garden because they pull the weeds and eat the bugs, but you do have to protect your plants. Protecting the plants eats up space and requires monitoring-

lots of useable space!

more protection

I finally came to the conclusion what we needed to do was extend the run that goes along our fence line further down about another eight or ten feet-

current run in the shade area

During planting season we will cut off the coop access to the main garden. We will close the main door and they can use the sunroom entrance. We can plant more intensively and the chickens would have a larger run to hang out in. I can do some supervised free-ranging in the garden. Late in the fall when we put the garden to bed we can open up that area again to the chickens. They will have lots of space over the winter and into spring. We need to feed ourselves more as a priority. Dave and I went out in the fall and bought another set of panels to match the existing ones we added last year-

With the matching panels it will look nice and fit in with the landscaping. Here's the extension area we will use-

you can see the arrows

This will create a longer run in a dead space, the hens can rototill the area, has more nice shade in the summer and the rest of the garden will be more protected. All in all I think it's a good compromise! We will also have the south side of our maple tree trimmed back soon. It's expensive but you need a pro with a huge bucket truck-

Tree hanging over garden

The trimming will remove some of the branches to open up more light, but still give shade to the coop. I will schedule when I'm home to supervise. Looking forward to gardening season!!!!