Tag Archives: homesteading

14 Comments

Homestead and Blog Updatery

  By Maria Zannini • October 17, 2016

7-month-old

On the Homestead: We sold our two bachelor bucks last week. They went pretty fast, but people hammer you for the first few hours after the ad comes out, asking the very same questions I already answered inside the ad.

We had intended on holding back “Freezer Meat” for the freezer, but Greg might go deer hunting this year and I want to make sure there’s enough room in the freezer. With my luck, he’ll change his mind at the last minute. At least I’ll have clean freezers.

A few of my neighbors are deer hunters. I hope they nab the gang of thugs that have been eating my garden.

 

prison-veggies

 

I’ve resorted to barricading each individual raised bed. The lettuces and chards are prisoners in their own garden.

The deer leave the tomatoes and peppers alone, but greens are like cocaine to them. This is my third time replanting. The fencing seems to be working so I hope that will be the end of their rampage. It’s expensive and inconvenient to put up individual fenced beds, but I think a big fence all around the garden would be an eyesore.

My chickens have all but stopped laying. I get a few eggs a week, barely enough for all the baking I foresee next month. I’ve been coveting what few eggs I get.

Ironically, I should be drowning in eggs next summer. I’ve got a lot of future layers waiting in the wings (pun intended).

The Blog: Starting this week, I’m going to take one day a week and do a gift guide by interests. I’ll tag those posts “Gift Guides” so you can see them all in one group.

I’d like to think I’m pretty good at choosing gifts so I hope I can give you some ideas to kick start your Christmas shopping. The nice thing about gift guides is that they’re like fuel. If the item you see isn’t exactly what you want, it might be the catalyst to finding the right gift.

I’ve already started my shopping because, well, I have a border collie mentality. I never do tomorrow what I can get done yesterday. 🙂 That and I hate trying to figure out what to buy at the last minute.

Speaking of blogging, there has been a tremendous jump in visits for a couple of my posts. My post about Dog Alley at Canton Trade Days was (the last time I checked) at the top of Google’s search page under Dog Alley. I’ve never been at the top of any search. I actually thought it was a mistake!

If you have a blog, do you know which post brings you the most visitors?

Has the weather cooled down for you yet? Or warmed up if you’re down under? It’s still pretty hot but they say we might get some relief later in the week.

 

16 Comments

The Year of the Deer

  By Maria Zannini • October 12, 2016 ,

 

We’re in the middle of a deer population explosion. Worse yet, they’re so used to seeing people, they don’t even have the decency to run when they see humans. They know we can’t catch them.

They’ve decimated my garden. I tried netting and that thwarted them for a couple of nights, but they still managed to pull my lettuces and chards out by the roots. I had tried another stand of sunflowers just to feed the stalks to the goats, but the deer wouldn’t let them get bigger than a foot before they gorged themselves.

Hunting season will be here in a few weeks. It’ll probably be too late to save my garden, but maybe it’ll thin the herds.

When friends visit, they’re awestruck when they see deer watching them from the woods, thinking it’s so noble and all Mother Nature-y, but deer are bullies. Gluttonous bullies.

The coyotes used to keep them in check but I think too many of the neighbors have killed them out of fear. I’ve seen fox, but very few coyotes this year. Deer bring ticks too, something I despise more than their hosts because ticks can kill or seriously threaten your immune system.

It’s all about balance.

I like seeing wild animals on my property. I don’t even mind losing some of my plants, but deer graze in packs. They’re thugs, deer gangs with brown leather coats and big brown eyes.

Bambi, my Aunt Fannie. Don’t let their soft expression fool you. They’re vegetarian desperadoes.

 

8 Comments

Dehydrating Food 101

  By Maria Zannini • September 26, 2016 , ,

 

You don’t have to grow your own food to dehydrate fruits and vegetables. I had a dehydrator for years before I started using it regularly. Part of me couldn’t believe that such a small amount of heat could make food edible let alone more delicious than before.

It’s true! Drying foods concentrates the flavors.

jerky

This is beef jerky halfway through the drying process.

My first foray into dehydrating was making beef jerky. But I’ve since dried tomatoes, okra, beans, peas, strawberries, and squash.

There are few rules to dehydrating.

• Always slice your meat, vegetables, or fruits the same thickness. If some are thinner than others place those on the top trays so they don’t dry out too quickly.

• For best results, freeze your meat until it’s firm (but not frozen through). It will make it so much easier to slice.

• Wash fruits and vegetables, then pat dry.

• Never let your food touch each other. You want air to circulate freely on all sides.

• You can make fruit leathers if you blend fruit into a puree then pour (carefully) into liners on the dehydrator trays.

• Check for doneness. They should be flexible but not rock hard. You can dry them until hard if you plan to pulverize them.  Many people do this for onions and garlic, but also for tomatoes and celery. Heck, I’ve seen people dehydrate tomato skins alone and turn them into tomato powder.

***

For meat, you can add a dry rub from any number of prepared mixes from the store. I’m a purist. I prefer salt and pepper.

For veggies like green beans, I coat them in a little olive oil and toss with fresh ground salt. They are DELICIOUS! Greg and I polished off an entire batch in one sitting. (That ended up being our dinner.) They’re great snacks when you want something other than potato chips or popcorn.

I don’t season tomatoes at all. I dehydrate until semi soft and put them in the freezer. When I make soup, stew, pasta or pizza sauce, the dried tomatoes go in the pot and I let them reconstitute there. It will take your meal to an entirely new level of flavor. Every year I dehydrate tomatoes rather than can them now. They are that good!

Dehydrators come in all shapes and sizes. Some are very fancy, others are nothing more than a light bulb at the base of the machine.

If you have a big garden or a big family, go with a larger dehydrator, otherwise you’ll have that machine running for days at a time. This is the Excalibur 2900ECB. Within my circle of gardeners and cooks, this brand is the hand’s down favorite.

The one on the right is the same brand but about $50 more. It also has a 10 year warranty compared to the one above with a 5 year warranty. You can click on the pictures to take you to the Amazon page.

The dehydrator I currently have is pretty old. It doesn’t have the nicer trays or higher wattage of these newer models. When it finally dies on me I’ll probably opt for the Excalibur since all my gardening friends speak so highly about it.

If you don’t need something this big, try the Nesco Snackmaster. It’s just the right size for people who won’t do a ton of drying but still wants to do jerky or fruit leathers.

If you have teenagers, jerky and dried treats are way healthier for them. Better for junk-food eating husbands too. 😉

Oven drying: You can dry food in your oven but between you and me, it’s kind of a pain. Not only do you waste a lot more money on energy usage but it pretty much monopolizes your oven until the drying is done. I don’t recommend it unless you have no other choice.

Outdoor drying: There is one other option for you heartier, back-to-the-land folks, and that’s solar drying. If you live in a climate like mine where it’s hot and has relatively low humidity, you can dry your food outdoors. The reason I’ve never done it is because you have to make sure no insects can get inside your drying trays. I’m real touchy about this which is why I prefer to stick to the machine.

green-beans-ready-for-drying

Oiled and salted. Ready for drying.

green-beans-dried

Same green beans, dried and ready for snacking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have you ever tried making jerky or dried fruits or vegetables? I always say I’m going to dehydrate snow peas, but somehow I never have enough left over. 🙂  The green beans were the real surprise though. "=D They were absolutely delicious. Greg wanted more but I only planted a few token green bean plants. Next year, I’m doing a big bed of them.

 

 

16 Comments

Pioneer Quest: Reality vs Reality Show

  By Maria Zannini • August 8, 2016

I was browsing through Amazon Prime’s movie list and came across Pioneer Quest. It’s an old documentary/reality show shot in Canada in 2000. The producers screened thousands of people who applied to live one year in the Canadian ‘wilderness’ as people would’ve lived in the 1870s. Two couples were chosen. If they could make it a year, each couple would receive $100,000 Can.

Pros and cons: They got off to a rocky start when one of the first couples chosen ended up being charged with sexual assault the day before they started shooting. I felt they did that couple a disservice by putting that information on national television. They should’ve just excused them and moved on to another couple. The charge had nothing to do with what they were trying to accomplish.

They eventually got another couple, the Treadways, but right from the start the new couple didn’t get along with the existing (younger) couple, the Logies. The younger couple wanted to stay true to the mission of living in the 1870s. The Treadways were a little more willing to bend the rules and accept help from outsiders.

I take nothing away from them. They endured horrific months of mosquitoes, ticks, and the worst aspects of each season. They had the coldest winter, the wettest spring, the driest summer…you get the picture. They suffered tremendously, but they stuck it out even while disliking each other.

According to the show’s producer, they chose couples that either had farming experience or hunted, but I feel they did a poor job preparing the couples. You can’t throw someone from the 21st century into the 1870s with only their 21st century knowledge on farming and hunting. At the very least, they should’ve given them a period book about farming, or given them some education before throwing them into the deep end.

On the other hand, these two couples scored low marks on frugality and animal husbandry. Throughout the series, their animals suffered from neglect or poor nutrition. The pregnant sow had to be shot when her pen caught fire and she was nearly burned alive.

The worst part though, is that instead of butchering it, and preserving the meat as much as possible, they buried it because they didn’t think they had enough salt to preserve it.

I get it. It was a traumatic experience. They were exhausted and depressed, but your personal problems play no part if you’re trying to eek a living in the wilderness. Nature will eat you alive and then swallow the bones had this been for real.

I would’ve had a ladder of poles set up over a fire and dried the meat, boiled down the fat for cooking oil, fried the skin-side fat into cracklings, and tanned the hide. I was so angry at the waste. That poor animal suffered for nothing.

Another time, one of them was tossing away the milk from the cow because they can’t drink it all. Had they had some education on 1870s living, they could’ve made butter or soft cheese. At the very least they could’ve fed the milk to the chickens. They had some starter plants with them too. Raw milk makes remarkable fertilizer.

There were other mistakes too like planting in soggy mud or trying to get unwilling animals into their pens. They were mad at the animals when it was entirely their fault for not planning ahead.

I’m not overly intelligent when it comes to farming. If mistakes were bricks, I could brick my entire house, and probably yours too. But I’ve found if you focus on the simplest components of a problem, you end up solving the bigger problem with a lot less grief.

Many pioneers died, some whose names we’ll never know, but they were the building blocks that made us who we are today. This is why I think it’s important not to forget the simple things. Not that you’ll have any reason to know how to butcher a pig, but your freezer might die on you one day and you could be left with hundreds of dollars worth of meat gone to rot for not knowing the most fundamental means to preserve it.

For the record this actually happened to us during Hurricane Rita, but the devastation was so tremendous we had to tackle bigger issues like restoring water and getting trees off the house. We had no outside help for 21 days.

 

Still, I learned a lot from the show. I realized just how much ‘stuff’ we have–a commentary of 21st century living. We don’t know how to be quiet either. Electronics, traffic, power tools, and overcrowding is constant, loud, and obnoxious.

The pioneers had none of that and I think the quiet is the one thing they missed most after the series was over. They did a final episode where they visited each couple back in the 21st century.

The show suffers from pacing, especially in the beginning but it does have better moments when they learned to plow with horses successfully and build their homes. The home building was especially well done. Tim Treadway was a contractor so he had some prior knowledge of construction.

If you’re interested in 19th century living, it’s got some interesting aspects to glean. For a better perspective, I’d recommend the British productions of Victorian Farm or Edwardian Farm that I mentioned in this post.

It’s been several weeks since we’ve seen Pioneer Quest but it stays on my mind. The producer wanted to create a social experiment but he failed on so many levels. For a true social experiment the series should’ve lasted at least three years and preferably four. By the time these pioneers got three-quarters of the year behind them they weren’t bothering with anything anymore since they knew their stint was nearly up. What was the point?

Would you ever consider applying for a job like this? I think Greg and I are too old now, but it would’ve been interesting to test our mettle back in our youth.

Have you ever seen Pioneer Quest? Are there any other shows like this you’d recommend? Have you ever lost a freezer full of food?


13 Comments

State of the Homestead: July 2016

  By Maria Zannini • July 13, 2016

jailbirds, july 2016Despite the heat, the homestead goes on. The garden is nearly spent except for the hardiest of vegetables–the ones not tasty to deer, rabbits and raccoons. Here’s the rundown.

Garden: Every year it gets better. More compost in the beds, better weed barriers around the plants, and more permanent sunflowers, july 2016walkways. The walkways are a slow process. My plan is to eventually accumulate enough brick to cover the walkways.

My first task is to keep them clear of weeds. Weed barrier helps but it’s flimsy and short term. I’m opting now for heavy rubber matting, the kind used in horse stalls. It’s expensive, but nothing will grow through it.

On top of that is the brick. It will take many thousands of brick to finish the walkways. I’ve already lay nearly a thousand brick now and it’s barely covered the perimeter. At this rate, it might take the rest of my life, but it’ll look nice when it’s done. I don’t buy my brick. I look for free brick on Craigslist whenever I can.

Deer and rabbits have decimated my chard, soybeans, strawberries and sweet potatoes. Greg said he’d build me a fence. I hate to do it because it looks nice the way it is, but it’s either that or he’ll have to get all Elmer Fudd in their furry faces. At this point either is an option. I’m really tired of getting robbed nightly.

We did get some corn and strawberries before the greater damage was done, but no soybeans at all. The sunflowers are over 8 feet tall. I had hoped to bag the flower heads as the kernels ripened (to save them against birds and raccoons) but there’s no way to reach the tops. Next year, a shorter sunflower variety.

Tomatoes were so-so. The plum tomatoes weren’t as prolific as last year, but there’s a large yellow variety that popped out fruit like a machine. The yellow tomatoes are tasty but they over ripen fast. I barely have time to preserve them before they go bad.

I am getting some nice spaghetti squash and okra. The beans and peas were few but delicious. Must plant more next year.

Chickens: I incubated several dozen eggs but my hatch rate was low. Why? Because I have a certain rooster who’s rather picky about his mates. Half the eggs from his harem were infertile. The other half turned into cute little chicks.

Never in my life have I heard of a picky rooster! I still have his father. I might put Picky in the pot and keep old Dad. He loves all his girlfriends equally.

dog tracksWe did have a terrible murder in the chicken coop just the other day. We found one hen gutted. At first we thought it strange because a raccoon or possum would’ve eaten the whole chicken. This poor thing was simply murdered and disemboweled, that’s when we found evidence of a different predator in the coop.

A dog had dug under the wire and entered the coop from the pen. He left his calling card on the hay. It had to have been a little dog because it was a pretty small pile of poop but that would explain why he killed the chicken and didn’t eat it.

I know this chicken. All the others roost way up in the rafters, but this hen liked to roost at a lower level. The dog must’ve snatched her right off during the night. He had the nerve to come back and try again, but Greg used concrete blocks to bar the way.

(Click on each image for full size.)

Rabbits: Bunnies are going in the freezer this week. I’ve held back two for next year’s breeders.

Goats: We’ve put it off too long, but we really need to get a new doe. Since we lost Daisy, we’ve been a doe short.

Our plan was to get smaller goats, but I think we’ll have to transition to that more slowly since I don’t want to get rid of the Boers before I buy their replacements. Buying a new herd is expensive, so it’ll be bit by bit as funds allow.

I’ve decided on a Nubian doe. First for her milking abilities but also because I can breed her to Ray Charles (the Boer buck). They’re close to the same size so there won’t be delivery issues with babies.

The solar panels are working beautifully on Greg’s shop. I think it’s safe to go ahead and create a solar array for the main house too. It’s going to take some time to find the right place because we’re so surrounded by trees. I’m sure one or two will have to come down. But first the fence. We’ve needed that for a long time. I hope we can start on it this fall.

solar array

Thanks to Greg being home full time, and despite him crying foul for depriving him of retirement status, we are doing a better job keeping up with homestead chores. It really is a 2-person job. It was awfully hard when I was alone.

 

12 Comments

British Farms Through the Ages: A Documentary Series

  By Maria Zannini • June 8, 2016

We’ve been binge watching a fascinating series about English farms throughout history. They’re historical reenactments where Ruth Goodman (historian), Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn (archeologists) live a year in as close an era based farm as possible. Tom Pinfold appears in Tudor Farm.

I tried looking for these videos on Netflix and Amazon, but the dvds aren’t available for the US region, so we started streaming them from YouTube. There is a book on Victorian Farm though.

I found the videos accidentally when I was looking up something on homesteading. From the moment I met Ruth, Alex, and Peter (and sometimes Tom) I was hooked. It was like meeting up with the quirky members of your family. FYI: We’re the quirky members in our families.

We went backwards in time, starting with Wartime Farm and ending up with Tudor Farm. We haven’t yet watched Secrets of the Castle.

First our favorites: Greg loved Wartime Farm because of Henry, the border collie. He was my favorite too, but I found Wartime Farm a grim venture. I have to hand it to the Brits of that generation. They were a tough lot. I’m not sure we’d be quite so stiff upper lipped if the US had been bombed as much as Britain was.

Henry, the dog, was a hoot. At one point we were worried they were going to get rid of him because the English had culled nearly all their livestock so they could produce wheat. They used to import it from the America but shipments were often sunk to the bottom of the sea by the Germans. Now the English had to fend for themselves. With no livestock, they didn’t really need Henry. Luckily this was a reenactment. Henry kept his job as chief cute dog.

Greg is a WWII expert so we were constantly pausing the video so he could tell me what else was going on during that time period. But living in England at that time was grim, truly a hard-scrabble life. One of my dearest friends grew up during WWII in England. She would tell me stories about how they had to climb rubble and occasionally a dead body on her way to school.

Every year the war lasted, the more they were asked to sacrifice. The government asked more than they should have in my opinion, going so far as throwing people off their farms if they had a bad year.

My personal favorite was Victorian Farm. Daily life was hard, but it was also rewarding. Unlike Edwardian Farm, Victorian Farm relied solely on horsepower and occasionally steam power. Smelly, loud petrol engines didn’t come into use until the Edwardian era. For the most part they hadn’t quite worked the kinks out of the equipment so it seemed more trouble than it was worth.

What I liked about Victorian Farm was that people had real skills. I learned all about straw plaiting, how to make a wood barrel, and how a wheel was made–all things I never knew. People were quite clever in solving everyday problems. I guess it could be said that each generation solves its problems for their time, but I was doubly impressed by the Victorians. Resourceful, elegant, and clever. Below is the first episode of Victorian Farm.

In all the series are as follows:

Wartime Farm: Farming in Britain during WWII

Edwardian Farm: Farming during the reign of King Edward VII

Victorian Farm: Farming in England during the 1880s

Tudor Manor Farm: Farming in England during the reign of Henry VII

Secrets of the Castle: Building a castle using medieval techniques at Guédelon Castle in France

The three presenters were charming. Ruth is always laughing and Peter is the clown of the group. I was touched with how much he loved his pigs in Victorian Farm.

If you’re into history, homesteading, or an Anglophile (or an author writing about any of these periods) you will love this series. I thought I had a good grasp on how to do things without the basic comforts of modern life, but I was wrong. The series was truly eye-opening.

Give it a try.

Have you heard of this series or these presenters? Can you recommend any other historical documentaries?

 

This post may contain affiliate links. Clicking on these links cost you nothing, but they do help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting MariaZanniniHome. I appreciate you!

 

16 Comments

State of the Homestead: May 2016

  By Maria Zannini • May 25, 2016

Ray CharlesTime again for another update on the State of the Homestead. The weather continues to be pleasantly weird. Last year we had an exceptionally mild winter. This year we’ve had consistent rain. Not that I’m complaining. Most of the rains were brief showers, though we did have a couple of gully washers that flooded roads leading into town. Despite the rains, I’ve got the garden planted and some of it is ready to be harvested.

We’ve been picking asparagus for nearly two months. The experts say we need to stop picking now and let it go to seed to replenish the crowns. I’ve got plenty in the freezer so I don’t mind.

future limes

Future Limes

The Garden: The tomatoes are in full fruit. We’re picking the cherry tomatoes now. I found a real winner with a yellow cherry tomato called SunSugar. It is absolutely delicious! Very sweet. We’ve been eating them as soon as they ripen. They’ve yet to make it to the salad bowl.

The green beans are also ready to pick. It was a small package of plain old Contender green beans and each one sprouted. I tasted one off the vine. It was pretty good. Better than the French Filet beans I planted last year.

Squash, eggplant, and cucumbers all have blossoms. I hope to see fruit soon. I’m a little disappointed in the cucumber. I’m trying a new seed for Armenian cucumbers. The plants don’t seem to vine much but they do have lots of flowers so maybe they’re just shorter than I expected.

The sunflowers and my token beds of corn are shooting up. So is my edamame. It’s old seed that was buried in the back of the fridge for two years so I’m surprised it’s still viable, but I had nothing to lose for trying. If I get pods, I’ll be saving seeds from these plants.

My peppers and okra are doing well, but I think they’re waiting for more sunshine and less rain. They should start producing more by summer.

Spinach, kale, and Swiss chard look good. The ones in the full sun seem more robust. That’s good intel for next year.

Rabbits: The plan is proceeding to replace Frodo, the mixed breed rabbit with one of his soFrodo, looking for a new homens. I’m keeping one of the daughters too. I’ll keep breeding for a larger sized rabbit until I breed his smaller size trait out. I still hope to find a home for him. I won’t rehome him until his son is old enough to take his place.

Goats: I thought I was getting rid of these guys but we’ve discovered they have a better use. A very nice lady at the tax assessor’s office helped us fill out AG exemption papers. I had kept enough receipts, photos, and sales information to prove we used the land for agricultural use. We now call the goats our Tax Breaks. We still want smaller goats. I hope to find some Nigerian dwarf goats this year to replace these bigger guys.

And…

Greg has been considering sheep. The tax assessor has sheep and she gave us a lot of good information. They seem less trouble than goats (and less aggressive), so there’s a chance we might add a few sheep to keep the grass mowed. I’m kind of steering toward Barbados blackbelly sheep. The Barbados variety don’t have horns. The American blackbelly do. The Barbados also don’t produce wool which I prefer since I don’t want to add sheering to my list of chores.

My research suggests that what I feed my lambs will give the meat a milder taste, so I’ll be interested to see if that’s true. If we decide to raise them, I want to sell the lambs as a cash crop, and keep the adults as lawnmowers. I’m not seeing too many Barbados blackbellies in the area, so it might be a good way to diversify from what’s already out there.

Here’s a link to show you how they look.

Chickens: The evil duo who liked to eat their eggs are back to being good and leaving their eggs alone. I’ve changed their diet a little so that might have something to do with it. Also with spring in full force, they get more greens too. I’m wondering if it’s a deficiency that made those two cannibals.

The dogs: I wasn’t expecting to add animals to the homestead since it impacts our ability to travel, but we can still do day trips. Aside from the surveillance cameras outside, we also keep two cameras inside to watch the dogs while we’re out.

We’ve discovered they’re amazingly lazy while we’re gone. Nana (the border collie who wants to rule the world) does the most patrolling. She lets big brother, Iko know when there’s real trouble. You do not want to see a paranoid rottweiler coming at you. That is just too much dog.

Nana is clever though. She can hear when the camera is moving. We operate it through our cell phones. If we pan the room her head snaps to the sound of the camera. We bought a second camera that allows us to talk to the dogs. Yes, we talk to our dogs.

The camera says it’s really  a baby monitor. The dogs are my babies so I guess I’m using it right. It’s got two-way communication and night vision. It gives me peace of mind to see that everything is all right. The neighbor is just down the road if we need someone to investigate further.

The future: I finally bought the trays and seed I needed to start a fodder system for the animals. I’ll probably only do a test run during the warmer months and do the big trial for the winter months when there are less fresh greens available to feed the animals. I found the perfect shelving system at a garage sale. The trays I bought new because I wanted to make sure there would be no cross contamination from previous plants. You’d be surprised how many diseases your plants can pick up while they’re being shipped or stored.

Tip: If you reuse your plastic trays or pots, be sure to spritz them with bleach before you reuse them.

The other plan for later this year are mealworms (for the chickens). Mealworms are an excellent source of protein. I was going to do red wigglers but the place where I want to house them is not quite ready yet. Mealworms on the other hand require minimal housing. I’ll post pictures on the next homestead update.

We’ve been busy despite the weather. We’ve had some serious appliance malfunctions too that will be costly. How costly we’ll discover today. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. If you read my Sunday post, you know I’ve been malfunctioning too, but I really think I’m getting better. No more spinning rooms.

How is it in your neck of the woods? What’s new?

This post may contain affiliate links. Clicking on these links cost you nothing, but they do help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting MariaZanniniHome. I appreciate you!

 

36 Comments

Adios, Sayonara, Arrivederci, and Goodbye to Our Old House

  By Maria Zannini • April 20, 2016

Our old house in SE Texas has finally sold!

The irony was that it didn’t move at all in the beginning, but things happened fast in the last three weeks.

People were FIGHTING over the property at the end. Unfortunately, we had already accepted an offer from the man who jumped at it first, so the others were left trying to finagle a new deal. We had backup contracts in case the first guy defaulted, but his wife wanted the property, and you know how that is. When a wife wants something, she’s going to get it.

The only thing that mattered to me is that we had enough to pay off our current house. As of today, we are completely solvent, not beholding to anyone.

This will make the fourth house we ever paid off. Unless we decide to downsize, this will also be the last house we pay off.

I have waited a long time for this day.

The weeks leading up to the sale is why I had been so frazzled as of late. We had to empty the house and workshop and be done with it once and for all. That took many trips back and forth. Then we had a massive dead pine tree that could’ve fallen either way. The bad thing was, it was too big even for us to handle. Somehow it fell neatly in the best possible place in three chunks. I think God took pity on us at that point and let it fall without hurting anyone or anything.

timber

The fallen tree was so long I couldn’t get the whole thing in one frame.

We had several offers come in at once. Some were low-ballers, others were legitimate. The person I had hoped would get it needed the property rezoned but the city turned her down. She wanted to build a seniors center complete with a park, several gardens, and walking trails.

Another buyer had his attorney write out a contract with a lot of verbiage even our realtor didn’t understand. We countered with a simpler contract and without all the stipulations he had requested. He said he had to think about it. That’s when another guy showed up with a cash offer and signed a contract on the spot. We took it.

Apparently, there was a lot of back-end tongue wagging between these last two buyers. The one who had to think about it wanted the property badly, but the one who signed said his wife wanted it and that’s all that mattered. He plans to bulldoze the little house that’s on it now and build her a mansion. I hope they live a long and healthy life there. It’s a beautiful piece of property–one of the few left with that much forested acreage intact.

Greg saying goodbye

Greg saying goodbye for good.

It had been our first homestead. We raised chickens, ducks, rabbits, hogs, rheas, and emu. We weathered hurricanes and a terrible fire that took the lives of two of our dogs.

When we bought the place in 1986, the woods had been so overgrown you could get lost. (I did get lost once!) We tamed it with nothing but machetes and chain saws until we could afford a tractor.

We bought the property from a good friend, an English lady who somehow never lost her lovely accent even though she had lived in the US for 40 years.

She had wanted to homestead there, but time slipped away and she and her husband grew too old. She knew we could make it and she wanted the place to go to people who could pick up where they left off.

I learned how to garden there and my neighbor taught me to crochet and bake pies. (My pies were never as pretty as hers.) It was a good time to grow up in the country. But it’s not country anymore. What was once the backwoods is now a full fledged city with paved streets, a library, a police department, and several schools.

It had changed with the times, but I think I’ll always remember it the way I saw it 30 years ago. For two young people, it was a pretty neat place to put down roots.

I think I want to rest now for a couple of weeks. I’ve had enough excitement to last me a while.

What’s been your wildest real estate venture? Weren’t you glad when it was all over? Good or bad, the experience wears you out.

 

22 Comments

Dog Alley, Our Trip to Canton Trade Days

  By Maria Zannini • April 11, 2016

 

We finally made it to Trade Days in Canton, TX. If you’ve never been to a Trade Days event in your area, you’ve got to try it at least once.

Canton Trade Days, or First Monday as it’s called locally, dog towncovers over a hundred acres. It’s so vast it spans several locations. You could walk from one to another if you were 20 years old and on a sugar high, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Trade Days is divided by pavilions that cover crafts, antiques, general flea market stuff, animals, and junk. Occasionally we hit the antique and craft pavilions but since it takes all day, we’d rather spend the day on the animal grounds. The old timers used to call it Dog Alley, but the sign reads, Dog Town.

They sell a lot of dogs there, something I try to avoid since it breaks my heart to see them peddled like that. I go mainly for the livestock and farm/garden equipment.

red wattle piglets

This little piggy almost came home with us.

This month, I was on a mission to find a piglet, a blue New Zealand rabbit, or some quail. The quail were too expensive and there were no rabbits that interested me, but there were a couple of vendors with piglets. I almost bought one but he was too big for the crate I had brought. I was hoping for much younger piglets.

We left empty-handed, but we did get to see a fire jugglerfire juggler on a unicycle. I also had a nice chat with a lady about my egg-sucking chickens. She was willing to do a trade with me, but I didn’t want the breed of chickens she had on hand. Had it not been so far to travel, I might’ve traded her for something else since she didn’t seem put off that my chickens ate their eggs.

Dog Town is a mish mash of old country farmers and newbies trying to unload their stock. Like all flea markets you have to go in with a wary eye. I hate to see the animals cooped up in such small pens and cages, but that’s the flea market trade. All you can hope is that they’ll be sold before too long.

turkeys

This turkey was sidling up to the hen, but she seemed uninterested.

After Canton, we hit a few garage sales on the way home. We hit some sweet deals mostly because it was late and people just wanted their stuff gone. One garage sale had already closed and they had put all their unsold stuff on the curb.

We came home with a nice Oriental rug (similar to the one the dogs had destroyed), a big clay pot (I can never have too many pots), and a small dog carrier. I collect dog kennels. A couple I keep for myself for when I want to transport livestock, but we always pick up extras when we can and donate them to local shelters.parrot

In all, it was a great day. The weather was beautiful and we got to drive down some gorgeous countryside. We needed the break after the week we’d had. Two more weeks of running around and then I can tell you why I’ve been so frazzled.

Have you ever been to a big flea market? Do you like them? I’m not a fan of the craft markets, but I love to hunt for bargains or unusual items. Have you ever been to Canton, TX?

It’s a great place for inspiration if you’re an author or artist. I’d go for the cast of characters alone. You meet all kinds of people in Canton.

 

Christmas is not far away. Check out this year’s Gift Guides. A new one comes out every week.


20 Comments

Honey for Life

  By Maria Zannini • April 8, 2016

I think it’s kind of cool that ancient Egyptian honey is still edible.

Today of course, there’s fake honey that’s made from corn syrup. (The sun god, Ra would throw a hissy fit.) There’s also filtered honey which is honey, but it’s ultra processed so it doesn’t crystallize so easily.

Why is it we always have to improve on the original?

If you want the real stuff, look for raw or unfiltered honey. The pollen is what gives honey its health benefits. The ancient Egyptians would approve.

Hmm…you’d think the ancient Egyptians would’ve had a bee god.

Do you eat honey? We bought some a few years ago that’s as thick as paste, but oh, so good.

 

20 Comments

Garden Plan 2016

  By Maria Zannini • March 30, 2016 ,

 

Here is a layout of my garden for 2016. With so much going on I don’t think I’m going to get a chance to till the secondary garden for my tall plants, but if I have time, I might try planting loofas in the back forty.

The tally for this year is as follows:

Asparagus
Basil
Beans: Green and Speckled Bush Beans
Bee Balm
Blackberry Bush
Blueberry Bushes (3)
Bok Choy
Broccoli
Brussel Sprouts
Carrots
Collards
Comfrey
Corn
Eggplant
Garlic
Grapes (4)
Kale
Kholrabi
Lettuce
Mangels
Okra
Oregano
Peas: Sugar Snap Peas, and whole peas
Peppers: Serrano, Jalapeno, Sweet Banana, Bell, and Poblano
Potatoes
Pumpkins
Radish
Rosemary
Spinach
Squash: Yellow, Zucchini, and Patty Pan, Spaghetti Squash
Strawberries
Sunflowers
Sweet Potatoes
Swiss Chard
Tomatoes: Roma, Cherokee Purple, 2 different yellow tomatoes, and Better Boy
Thyme
Watermelon

Ordinarily I’d grow the corn and sunflowers in the secondary garden. This year I’ll plant a token bed for each in the main garden.

The graphic below is how my raised beds are set up. I have a large asparagus bed to the left of this, and several smaller beds for greens and lettuces situated around the chicken pen.

Garden Plan 2016, raised bed

I’d like to get a couple more blueberry and blackberry bushes. I also need to move my grapes, but I think it’s too late in the year to do that now

How does your garden grow? What are you planting this year? Do you have any reliable favorites to suggest? I’m trying a new green bean this year and some new lettuce varieties. (My lettuce is beautiful, but every year it’s bitter. Still trying to work that out.)

 

26 Comments

State of the Homestead

  By Maria Zannini • March 28, 2016

 

It’s been an up and down month on the homestead. On the up side, today is my birthday, which is always a good thing. I don’t plan to do any cooking today so I leave it to Greg to fill in the details. I plan to play a diva today. Ha!

spinachGarden: In Texas, spring comes early. We had an exceptionally mild winter with hardly a week of really cold weather. This year, spring actually arrived in February. I’ve been suckered into false springs before so I didn’t put any plants out except for the cooler weather greens like kale, spinach and Swiss chard.chickens and greens

I thought my comfrey had died out but they came back. I love plants that come back every year.

My big winners this year were the asparagus and carrots. This is the first year I successfully grew both. At first the asparagus only came in one a day, but now we’re getting a regular supply (6-10 spears a day), which is enough to freeze. It is without a doubt the BEST tasting asparagus we’ve ever eaten. It’s such a treat, especially considering how expensive (and tasteless) they are from the store.

carrotsGreg bugs me for carrots every year. Late last year I had a bare spot so I threw in a few seeds. If I had watered it more I think they would’ve been bigger, but for throw-away seeds, I thought they did great. I still have more carrots in the ground. I’m only pulling them out as we need them.

I’ve put out tomato, peas, and pepper plants, but I’ll wait a few more weeks before I start the sunflowers, okra, and soybeans. This year I also plan to plant a raised bed of veggies exclusively for the rabbits, goats, and chickens. Last year I fed them the extras from the our garden, but I thought I’d plant more turnips, beets, and greens especially with them in mind.

Goats: This is our one low point on the farm. Daisy, the younger of our two doedobbys was due to deliver soon after Pan. I felt the baby kicking and I knew it was a matter of days. But something went wrong and the baby died in the womb. Daisy didn’t seem herself one day, and the next she seemed worse.

Out of options, we took her to the vet and he gave her a heavy dose of antibiotic, pain reliever, and anti-inflammatory drugs. She didn’t improve. We dosed her again, but she was getting worse. I finally asked Greg to shoot her to put her out of her misery. We buried her in a nice deep grave so nothing could disturb her.

We’ve raised goats for three years now and this is the first time we’ve ever had a serious problem. These things happen. For years, we heard some awful horror stories from other goat herders. We had been lucky until now. RIP, Daisy and baby.

new chickensChickens: I had it in my mind to sell our existing flock of laying hens but I can’t justify selling hens who eat their unborn young. They had stopped for a while but now they’re doing it again. There are ways to stop them from pecking at their eggs, but I’m lazy and don’t want to go through the trouble. So now, the girls are going in the pot in the next few weeks.

I do have a small flock of new layers in another pen. They’ll keep us in eggs until I hatch the new batch for next year.

Rabbits: I kept back one buck from the last litter that Belle had so he could be a future mate. The white doe will go in the freezer, but I hope to sell the original buck because he’s quite friendly. I think he’d make a good pet.

It’s funny. In December of 2015 I had these big plans on how I would make a little side income from the animals. The goats would give me the usual twins to sell later in the year. The chickens would lay enough eggs for me to incubate and sell chicks, and the rabbits would give me enough bunnies to sell and put in the freezer. (I make the most money with the least labor from incubating chicks, so I was really looking forward to this.)

None of it came to pass. Pan gave me a little buckling but that was it. (He’s doing great, by the way.) Daisy and her baby died. My chickens act like idiot zombies and eat their unborn. The rabbits have never been good mates for one another and they refuse to breed without assistance. I need to either get a bigger male or another blue New Zealand.

If you couldn’t already tell, I’m not used to having problems with my animals. Sometimes the puzzle pieces don’t fit and you have to start over. I think this is where I am now.

I’m hoping to find a piglet this year, but they are awfully pricey in my area. We’ll have to wait and see.

Dogs: I’m happy to report Nana and Iko are getting along famously. My only concern lately is sometimes I have to leave them for up to 18 hours when I travel. I generally feed my dogs twice a day. The first meal is always cooked food, but dinner is dry kibble. When we travel they refuse to eat. I feed them before I go, but they refuse to eat anything else until we return.

It’s not a big deal but I worry because I’d like to go on vacation at some point. I hope they won’t go on a hunger strike if we leave them at a kennel. I had a dog do this to me once before. Luckily, I have a wonderful friend, (thank you again, Mel) who hand-fed my nervous pup at the kennel until I returned home.

Moi: As it’s my birthday, I get to be queen for the day, but I might have to take a rain check since we have a million errands to run today. I’ll be happy if the next four weeks go smoothly, then I’ll be able to breathe again.

For my birthday, I’d like to visit another bookstore but we’ve already hit the nearby ones. I’m looking for a cookbook for my electric pressure cooker. More about this handy machine later. Best thing I’ve bought in years!

I also want a birthday cake, but it’s unlikely I’ll get one unless I bake it myself.

I think I’ve neglected some friends on Facebook or their blogs. I’ve tried to keep up but there are days when I don’t even have time to look at my computer. I’ll be back to a more normal schedule by the end of April. Bear with me. Great things are happening, but not without a lot of stress and hair-pulling.

 

 

 

28 Comments

It Pays to be Prepared

  By Maria Zannini • March 7, 2016

 

I’d been sick all last week, so it’s a comfort that most of my posts were already prepared but some things had to change–like last week’s menu. Most lunches were soup since I had a sore throat and Greg was in charge of meals. Dinner was whatever he could muster or something I already had pre-made and could be taken out of the freezer.

The plague took me by surprise. I hadn’t felt well the Sunday before. Nothing terrible, but I felt off my game. Monday the sore throat came. Soon after I was on my back for the rest of the week.

I feel better today but I regret all the things that didn’t get done. Today was supposed to be a post about Canton Trade Days, but I was too sick to go. (Next month, I hope.) I’m behind in planting and moving dirt to the new raised bed garden boxes. I knew if I attempted anything that strenuous it would result in immediate death. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed.

It’s going to rain almost all week so I guess it’ll put me even further behind, but it can’t be helped. Maria must wait her turn.

baby boy, 2016

All knobby knees

The big news this week is that we have a new baby!

Pan (short for Pandora) delivered one little boy. I missed it! I’m usually aware of when birth is imminent but I’ve spent so little time outside since I’d been sick. Mom and son look good, but she’s still huge. I’ll be keeping a close eye on her to make sure she’s okay. I wish I could’ve been present for the birth just to make sure everything was normal.

This post is about being prepared though. It certainly saved my bacon last week when I was too sick to follow my usual routine.

For the blog: I’m maintaining an editorial calendar for blogging this year. My goal is to have a fair division of topics between saving money, food, and homesteading posts. I’ve kept an open document listing blog topics before but this is the first time I’ve paired them with actual dates. With posts either planned or already written it made me feel better knowing I could rest and recuperate without worrying about writing a post.

an hour old

We think he’s no more than an hour old in this photo.

The only post that had to change was this one since I couldn’t travel to Canton to do my report.

Menu planning: Even though menu planning is new for me, it’s been so useful. We don’t argue about meal choices anymore. Last week, instead of the Vietnamese noodle bowl, Greg substituted macaroni and cheese. I had lost my sense of smell during the week so there was no point in making a meal with a complicated flavor palette for someone who couldn’t taste it.

My loss of smell came in handy too. Yesterday when we went out to feed animals, Greg said he smelled skunk nearby. I smelled nothing–but I did keep my eyes open just in case he was still around.

Freezer meals: A lifesaver! With a few hours investment we can make a dozen batch meals to freeze. I take them out on days when I know I’ll be too busy to cook. It never occurred to me how useful they’d be if you got sick too.

The goats: I keep a bucket of medical supplies in case any of our critters need first aid. While I’m usually the nurse for man and beasts, I can see now I should label stuff better in case Greg has to do it in my stead.

Even though I usually prepare to make me more efficient, it was a nice bonus to have everything in place so I could cough and sneeze in peace instead of worrying about animals, husbands, or readers.

How about you? Is there anything you prepare in advance? Lunches? Blog posts? Kids?

 

 

26 Comments

Homestead Expo in Belton, TX

  By Maria Zannini • February 24, 2016

 

We attended our first ever Sustainable Living Fair sponsored by Mother Earth News. Mother Earth News has held these fairs before but this is the first one to come to Texas. What took them so long?

It was jammed packed with speakers and events on topics from beekeeping to preserving food. Although it was a two-day event it hardly scratched the surface. I could’ve gone all week on one topic alone.

There were some well-known speakers like master organic gardener, Eliot Coleman, Howard Garrett (the dirt doctor), and the amazing Joel Salatin.

There were over 150 workshops and lectures over two days so it was impossible for us to catch them all. Greg and I ended up splitting up so we could go to as many presentations as possible.

It was standing room only for every workshop I attehognded. Unlike writer conferences, this expo spanned three humongous buildings plus the outdoors. We got a workout sprinting from one end to the other.

I had several favorite speakers, but I was really impressed with butcher, Meredith Leigh. She was a tiny little thing with the physical prowess of a linebacker. She demonstrated cutting up a whole hog while making it look easy. I’ve butchered whole hogs in the past, but I learned a lot about where best to put my knife so I didn’t work so hard at it. I think I’m going to get her book, The Ethical Meat Handbook.

Another lively speaker was Marjory Wildcraft. She was a hoot and a half. Her time on stage went by in a blink of an eye. That’s when you know you have a great speaker. I was only able to attend one of her lectures about growing food efficiently. I liked how she put things in perspective by showing hard numbers about the calories we need to take in and what kind of livestock and crops to grow to achieve that magic number.

tiny house

Tiny house, 500 sq ft

The exhibits were equally awesome. We got to talk to a lot of experts on beekeeping, chickens, and even wind turbines. One of the coolest things I saw was a 500 square foot house. From the outside it was barely more than a cabin. Heck, my master bathroom has more square footage. But what this guy did to the inside was nothing short of amazing.

The bedroom was in the loft. There was a full bathroom, kitchen, and a sitting area with office–all in 500 square feet. It didn’t even feel the slightest bit cramped. I don’t know if the picture does it justice, but  anyone who says you can’t live in a tiny house, never saw this one. It was a marvel of efficiency and clean design. And the best part? The entire house was powered by a solar panel and two car batteries.

The one thing I regret not photographing was the exhibit for Claborn Farms. They had the most beautiful chickens I had ever seen. We plan to buy some of their fertile eggs and hatch some chicks. They claim the size and health of their flocks is due to years of selective breeding and not to feed or supplements. If that’s true, I’d be willing to spend the extra money for some of these birds. We’ve reached a point in our homesteading efforts that we’d like to take our livestock lines to the next level. Quality over quantity.

Here are a few more pictures from our whirlwind trip.

 

We had a great time. I hope Mother Earth News holds this expo again. There were so many more lectures I wanted to attend.

Have you ever met a longhorn? Would you attend a homestead fair if you got the chance?