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. 

 

Happy Spring & The Winter That Wasn't, Upcoming Home Updates!!!

Happy Spring & The Winter That Wasn't:

Happy Spring to all of you out there! It was 80° yesterday which is crazy for March! We didn't really have much of a winter this year. It was 62° on Christmas day! I believe that was an all-time record. I really missed having very little snow this year and it's really not good for snow pack and water here. While it is really pretty to see all the green it is way too early to be this warm. I hope we're not going to have a brutal, early summer. It was nice to see some of the bees out pollinating the peach tree which has flowers just opening up. The backyard is super green and the Italian parsley that should have gone dormant on the deck never did because it was so mild- 

 

 

 

We did get a little bit of snow this winter, but just not very much. Meanwhile watching the news it was terrible to see what the Midwest and East Coast were going through with all of the blizzards, over and over. I guess nature is what it is, we just all have to stay prepared. Preparedness is one of those things that people need to keep taking seriously. A lot of people still don't seem to bother, which I don't understand! I guess we all do what we do. Luckily our new little dwarf apple tree did great over the winter. Hoping for apples in the coming years. Girls are laying eggs steadily also! 

 

  

Old "buffet"

 

Upcoming Interior Home Updates:

We've been living in our house right now almost 20 years. We've done a lot of updating over the years with various things. When we first bought the house the carpeting was super cheap and wore out really fast, so that was one of the first things we did. Dave installed laminate through the main part of the house at one point. We had the kitchen cabinets refaced by professionals which luckily has held up really well. We painted all the rooms and the exterior, changed out all the light fixtures, redid both bathrooms, and that's just the inside! Since time goes on of course things wear out and need to be replaced. Then there are things you're just ready to update, and we saved up for. Since we have no plans to sell the house we decided to have some work done, by professionals. We don't want to be on the roof and have to be careful with lifting, etc. We got several bids and are happy with our choices. 

At this point we're going to be getting new light gray carpeting in all three bedrooms, new luxury vinyl planking in our kitchen and main bathroom, new countertop in the kitchen with under counter sink, new backsplash. We're also going to be removing our old microwave exhaust fan and replacing it with a vent/light that's ducted out. Will buy a new smaller microwave. We're going to be updating our current "buffet" that used to be an old computer desk the previous owners installed and we'll top with butcher block. I may whitewash it. Will probably keep the fabric for now but may pull that out and put in a couple of painted cabinets. Here's the previous blog post of on of the original updates Kitchen Update 

 

A couple MINOR updates first- 

hoping to replace the old Habitat brushed stainless dining fixture. We have a combo kitchen/dining room, hoping to get something like this, 

sort of rustic French/Scandinavian. Maybe thrifted, new one here Rustic Wood-Chandelier -

 

 Old one- 

We're removing this, to replace with a small vent/light like this in white Broan-NuTone  Nice and quiet, a good brand! We will remove and have the backsplash go up into that area, maybe add a shelf when they install the tile-

 

 

  

 

Small bathroom needs a new faucet, that's it! Old Ikea one getting pretty worn, too much hard water- 

 

 

Major changes- Old sage bedroom carpet, will get a light gray-

Old kitchen flooring beige- 

 

  

Old bathroom gray vinyl-

 

NEW kitchen and bathroom flooring will be LVP, same as our small bathroom. We will install a new toilet as well-

  

Old kitchen laminate counter/plastic backsplash-

 

 

New counter, quartz "Peppercorn", basically white with small particles of gray/off white. We were going to do a light gray, but it was too dark. We wanted something durable and simple-

 

Backsplash still to be decided. We got great advice- what until counter is in, then make the final decision! We are leaning towards a satin white/off white with a textured surface, like this- Apollo Tile White I REALLY wanted Zellige tile, but it's WAY too expensive. It's handmade (partially) and I love the rustic look-

 

Really looking forward to an UNDERCOUNTER sink, finally!!! Will be this one KRAUS Undermount    Counter top very similar to our new one-

 

 

I'll do some "after" shots once things start up. New roof coming first! Carpet, then counter/backsplash, then flooring. So excited!!! Work to start in about 3 weeks, roof sooner. Happy Spring!!!

 

 

 

Prepping for Winter!

Prepping for Winter!

We've been having some pretty weird weather. It's been swinging between the 60s and the lowest temperature so far was about 28°. We've had nice weather and then lots of rain. I think the next week or two will be kind of the end of our Autumn weather but that's a guess. We've been doing lots of little prepping things inside and out getting ready for winter. I have some nice Autumn decor on our front porch, took down the Halloween goodies from our front yard that we like to put out. It was fun seeing the trick-or-treaters again this year! Now we have some more regular decor out and prepping for Thanksgiving. Lots of leaves coming down daily- 

 

 

Turkey prices are seeming a bit high in our area, but I'm not seeing any shortages yet. Anybody seeing anything interesting out there? We will be hosting this year, doing a potluck with our adult kids and grandkids. Sometimes we have a little snow in November that doesn't last, but comes down. I'll be curious to see if we get some before Thanksgiving. The leaves are definitely coming down! Dave already cleaned out the gutters once-

 

We both got new wiper blades for both cars the other ones were toast. Got out out winter woolens and fleece, gloves, hats, etc. Had to buy some new wool socks at Costco, mine wore out. I love theirs, just throw in the washer dryer! Snow scrapers in the cars with emergency blankets. Cleaned out the garden beds, picked the last of the tomatoes. Caulked some of our windows. Dave repainted our house trim, gor new address numbers, all looks great! Chickens are still on strike since they molted, but that's normal for them! Dave put up the coop sunroom while it was still mild. Gives them lot of extra dry space during the snow and rain. We just take apart in the spring and store the frame-

 

 

Luna on the left Sunny on the right

 

I put our winter bedding out, nice heavy comforter to keep us warmer on the cold nights. I put out our faux sheep skins from Ikea. I have a few on our living room furniture pieces which we love. Makes it look a little bit more warm and cozy and they're easy to throw in the washer and dryer. I bought a couple blue ones too and Bonnie loves them on the foot of the  spare bed. I think she enjoys the fuzziness too!

 

 

I fermented some pickles for the winter. Also stocked up on some French baguettes, low-cost at a local French bakery. They freeze really great! Nice to have those on hand for soups in the winter. So nice to also have our homegrown, organic peaches and tomatoes frozen for the future.  I decided to try my hand at making my own sourdough starter soon and make some sourdough breads. I found a YouTube channel, Our Gabled Home, that had a really great video on how to easily make your own starter. Great video How To Easily Start Sourdough  She also has tons of simple Sourdough recipes and German food videos too. Enjoy! How is your autumn weather going???   

Garden Update/ Successes & Failures, New Coop Interior, Great Score on New Tableware

 

Garden Update/ Successes & Failures-

It has been a really crazy summer for everybody in our area with gardening. We had cool weather with rain, then heat. We got into a pattern of monsoonal moisture which is a blessing especially living in the high desert. Sadly it brought lightning and we're having terrible fires. Also that rain makes every single weed seed sprout! Just trying to keep things weeded was really insane. We did have a few good ideas though since we were desperate. We had some leftover weed barrier and there was a really bad area right in front of our blackberries that's a walkway. So I suggested to Dave that we throw down the weed barrier and cover with bark dust. We did that, problem solved! We did a lot of extra watering with the 100° days off and on, it just it was so hot. Good news we've had some nice big tomatoes coming off of some of the plants. The flip side is we got almost 1/3 of our usual Early Girl tomatoes, almost no paste tomatoes, and very few cherry tomatoes. Our Siberian black prince tomatoes and cukes all went crazy! Almost 5' tall!

We try to grow mostly Heritage but I do the others just for a quicker Harvest. So I do have lots of fresh tomatoes in the freezer that are vacuum sealed. We had a really good crop of pears. I made several giant crisps out of those. I gave the rest to my two daughters since I still had some canned ones left from last time. Froze a lot of peaches! I may do some canning this winter when things are cooler and it's quieter. We did get our first new black currants that we planted in our front yard as a shrub.

We've had some kind of disease or fungus in our front lawn resulting in a big brown patch. I contacted the Master Gardener program for help with that. At first I thought it's because we cut down our really old apple tree and it has full exposure to the sun burning it. But then it spread and spread. I spoke with them and sounds like a fungus hitting the valley. Will take a sample in. Sounds like we'll need to re-seed. So with gardening there's just always ups and downs every year. Another reason why we try to plant a variety of veggies and fruits. If you have a failure over a couple varieties you have some backups. We did get about four or five apples off our brand new baby apple tree! Looking forward to having more apples next year. Herbs did great and got a new pump for the pond-

New Coop Interior-

The chickens are doing really well in the new coop. We decided to do a second coat of paint since it weathered a bit in the Sun and winter is around the corner. Here's some photos of the inside to show you the layout, which is a little different. We did the same footprint but because we did the flooring and foundation the way we did it's a little bit narrower. After I saw another blogger had this idea we built in a little mini-enclosure inside the coop for either sick chickens or new chicks. For new chicks it would obviously be when it's warm enough for them to be out there and the temporary situation. The girls love sleeping at night up in the nesting boxes. They were used to being up on a shelf by the upper window, but we put the new (used) window down low this time to avoid falls. Everything else is going well with the coop through good ventilation and everybody was happy this summer. Super grateful that we have our huge maple tree in the backyard, gives us lots and lots of shade! Here's the main area, feed and water on the left, floating perch on the right-

New temp enclosure for chicks or ill birds-

Window above nesting boxes and enclosure-

Naturewood first batch

Great Score on New Tableware-

A couple years ago I had stumbled on a stoneware pattern that I really loved on Facebook Marketplace. Sadly I just couldn't afford it at the time. I left Facebook for a while and then went back recently to follow local businesses and have access to Marketplace. Then I spotted the Pfaltzgraff Naturewood stoneware pattern again! And the price was way down, not sure if it's the economy? To make a long story very short I was able to get a great price on a set from two different sellers. The first seller had mixed in a second pattern called Perennial Flowers which coordinates with the Naturewood. After doing some research I decided to sell those on Marketplace. It's actually a quite expensive pattern since it was only in production for about 5 years. Long story short is also I may wind up actually making quite a chunk of money on this as it is very valuable, and I am selling it for a really good price. Will be listing it in a day or so. Worked out great!

Naturewood pattern

Almost Spring/Another Bug, Saving Money/Bread Machine, New Coop Coming!

Almost Spring/Another Bug-

*** FYI, I made the font BIG to fit on cellphones screens and read. If too big please leave a comment. I work off a laptop to blog, but also read on my phone. Thanks! ***

Spring is almost here, maybe! Temps have been up and down, snow then thaws. Today very cold gusting winds! Brrrr.....  Just when I was feeling better (after my cough and cold in January)  Dave got sick again (same bug) and then I got sick again. Oh brother. The only good thing was I didn't get a cough this time. I had a cold, minor scratchy throat then I woke up on a Wednesday with my right ear really, really hurting. Luckily my regular PCP was squeezed me in that day so I didn't have to sit in Urgent Care. I had a good ear infection, with the left ear percolating. Onto the antibiotics! I'm feeling much better now almost normal. Will start some probiotics as soon as the antibiotics are done doing their job. I'm going to work on trying to de-stress a bit more, if that is possible given the current state of affairs in the US. Will work on boosting my immune system and staying healthy. Being prepared for this kind of thing is also really good.  We had all kinds of OTC and homeopathic remedies at home, so when I did start coming down with something I didn't have to go anywhere to buy anything. 

Something fun, a mug!

Saving Money/Bread Machine-

As usual I'm always working on saving money, but I really upped it the last couple months. I did buy the cute tea cup with a bamboo lid and spoon (the blue fish on top) just for fun, makes me smile! I knew the tariffs were coming and so I wanted to do some strategic buying in January. I have to mention- I'm very grateful that Dave and I bought our new (to us) slightly used Subaru Crosstrek in October. Got a great deal, runs perfect, lots of warranty left, super safe. Very thankful, especially now. I did load up on some things on Amazon, especially ones that were also on sale. Costco too. I stocked up on some raw chicken breasts with ribs and Italian sausage. I repackaged in vacuum sealed bags and froze. I've been getting some great deals on eBay. I was looking for a lighter down coat for spring. I found a great deal a few years back for my super warm LL Bean down coat. Luckily I stumbled upon another great deal! An LL Bean down jacket, was $130.00 on the website. The seller had it listed for $35, like new. I got it down to $22.00! Lighter weight, really comfortable, nice and toasty-

Bonnie photo bombed!

 

Sadly my second thrift store bread machine did not work well. It was older than the last one I had. I decided to invest in a new one that makes the larger size loaves. I did some research on Amazon and looked around and bought this, on sale on Amazon for $115.00- 

Has two paddles for mixing

It works fine, nice size, took me several tries to get the loaf right. One didn't really rise, second one collapsed when it cooled too fast, my fault. Finally on about the 4th or 5th loaf  I got a good one! I simply doubled my honey oat/whole grain recipe I had used before. It made a big loaf, had a little bit of cracking on the top but I let it cool really slowly which seemed to have fixed the other problems- 

Well it did have a shallow crack along the top, but at least it rose really well and is a standard size sandwich loaf. Really nice and moist (photo makes the bread look weird, it's not)-

 I stocked up on some things at Costco. I like their new Kirkland rolled Oats, hadn't seen those before-

 

I went to Ross a few days ago and got some pretty decent gardening tools for $4 each. I really like the trowel since it was much deeper and you can pick up more dirt/compost with it, also bought some rope for tying materials down on the Outback-

 

When we were going through Home Depot looking at a few things they had some really nice house plants which I've been wanting. $5.00 each. One dracena in the pot actually had two plants! I always put a primrose in the spring on my windowsill and then the others went into pots around the house-

We did a little reorganization in our office spare bedroom/ pantry closet area. We had a small stainless steel rack that we had bought several years ago for extra storage. It was just getting to be a catch all though. It dawned on me that we could probably sit it under our counter buffet area in the dining room and just get it out. Dave and I move some things on to our pantry rack, donated a few things and then Dave was able to move it under the buffet where I can get things a lot easier. Now the office doesn't look quite so crammed and gave us room for our second desk chair. We donated our other desk a while back since we really didn't need two desks at home anymore-

 

Poor Dave had to move a few things first under the buffet, which was a desk originally-

Someday I want to pull the counter out, replace with butcher block, Dave can build some nice shelves

 

 

 

 Silver rack on left moved and filled 

I used the same fabric in the kitchen for the buffet skirt, still love the print!

New Coop Coming!

I've been keeping an eye on the coop this winter and was really seeing a lot of damage from all the years. Considering the fact that we built the coop with MOSTLY recycled materials it has held up for 12 years! Not bad. Dave and I talked about investing some money that we came into and decided to building a new coop. We will recycle a few components but most of the other materials are pretty shot. I'm not unhappy with how long it lasted but it does need to be replaced. We really like the siting of it, gives the chickens shade in the summer and a break from the storms in the winter. We're going to do a little bit different design with a shed roof, move the door to the front facing the house, and have a nesting box that doesn't protrude. Will keep basically the same footprint. We're also going to incorporate a little bit of storage for the feed. We've just kept the feed in a steel tote in our garage. Here's a few shots of the current state- 

Frame on bottom of window rotting/warped, Sunny and Luna photo bombed!

OSB de-laminated

 

We're getting lumber this weekend and will start building soon, photos coming!  I also told Dave I'd really like to build a cold frame in front of the coop in the existing garden space. It would enable us to grow some cooler weather crops earlier in the year. So we will buy some extra lumber for that as needed or use the scrap left over from the coop. Given the current state of affairs I am leaning toward not taking down our apple tree in the front yard but having it professionally pruned instead. I think it would be better to have more home grow fruit this year than not. It would also be cheaper to have it pruned than removed. I'm getting an estimate next week. Chicks coming in a few months, but at least we're getting 1-2 eggs most days now. Good girls!

 

Bulbs from early December finally bloomed!!!

Bonnie enjoying the winter sun-