Homesteaders

[rancher hicks]

Garden looks nice Bee. Going home tomorrow. Packed a box to send with books I bought and other things. An antique Poultry Deseases book. Alaska is nice for views but we're disappointed to some degree. The farmers market or market as they call it was mostly jewelery and non crop items. I would love to get some berry plants of the native kind. I expect they'd grow well at home too. Lots of political stuff and employment issues. Alaska U is downsizing nearly 500 jobs and the homeless is an issue here more than at home. Of course it's not good anywhere with things so expensive.

Still we had a great time with family.

Went to a nature conservancy ranch and saw my first non captive Bald Eagle. The view are just gorgeous.

Take care folks will post pics when I get home.

 

[Loc20chick]

Yesterday we picked a lot of wild green vegetables from a field marked "no spray organic field" (amaranthus & Black night shade) it's amazing all this will be filled in a few days. Both are great for iron deficiency among other stuff. So grateful to God for having friends who share info and took me there. Hoping to get another day to pick more for freezing.

 

[rancher hicks]

Saw a mother bear and her cubs today. Got some nice pictures I think. Met a nice couple too and gave them my card and the BYC a address. Hope to see them here.

 

[Serenashome]

Picked my first batch of mulberries two days ago and our bees have been busy on our neighbors old cherry trees so I picked a bunch of tiny tart pie cherries. I ended up with a quart of each for the freezer. Had a blast teaching the four year old grandson how to harvest.

A very nice two hours spent and well worth the pies we will have this winter.

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

Picked my first batch of mulberries two days ago and our bees have been busy on our neighbors old cherry trees so I picked a bunch of tiny tart pie cherries. I ended up with a quart of each for the freezer. Had a blast teaching the four year old grandson how to harvest.

A very nice two hours spent and well worth the pies we will have this winter.

My girls have stared making a daily check of each mulberry tree and stuffing themselves with every berry within reach (I noticed the chickens are doing the same )

 

[Serenashome]

My girls have stared making a daily check of each mulberry tree and stuffing themselves with every berry within reach (I noticed the chickens are doing the same

)

Yes the four year old ate them almost as fast as I could pick them. He would pick one and eat it then grab a handful out of the bucket and eat those. He was purple even after a shower.

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

My girls have stared making a daily check of each mulberry tree and stuffing themselves with every berry within reach (I noticed the chickens are doing the same )

Yes the four year old ate them almost as fast as I could pick them. He would pick one and eat it then grab a handful out of the bucket and eat those. He was purple even after a shower. 

Lol, what a great childhood
My mother would give my brother and I an old blanket, we would lay it on the ground and shake the tree. All the ripe berries would fall down and we would gorge ourselves.

 

[Beekissed]

Spent the entire day yesterday doing what is usually a fall chore...the huge cleaning out and organizing of the log shed. It's where we store all our tools and sundry of life that we use all year, usually in haste, in the middle of a work day and then just throw it back where we thought we found it. Then my sons come out and work on a project and put them somewhere else or just drop them where they were and they also store their hunting and fishing gear here, among other things. All my canning supplies, all our implements for homesteading are usually kept here, with smaller portions of them kept in the spare room off the back porch where I keep canned goods, small appliances, bins of tools and sundry.

Each year we eliminate more and more things, which always feels great. I love to streamline work spaces and chores to make them more ergonomic, which saves me time and effort, so this project is always one of my favorite of the year.....hard and tedious work, but some of the most rewarding.

One cart load went to Good Will and the Habitat store, one cart load went to the dump, some things went home with the boys. The rest was more organized than the previous year...each year I try to do that more and more. Mom and I are both getting sketchy in our short term memory, so finding things we thought we'd remember where they were is a frustrating, time wasting siege. This year I bought white and red wash pans at Dollar General for $3 each and used these to catalog different categories of hand tools, garden and yard supplies, house repair items, pet supplies, etc. I also had picked up laundry baskets at Good Will this year for this purpose....at $3 a piece, they make for great and sturdy storage bins.

Son #2 put up shelves out of L brackets and scrap lumber to hold additional items....they were the perfect size for the chainsaws and other saws and also smaller bins of things. I used Sharpies, big and small, for labeling right on the bins or on fluorescent orange duct tape labels. Some bins were large enough to warrant a posterboard label with a list of items....these labels were covered with clear Gorilla tape so they wouldn't get damaged over time.
Now...if we can only be good about putting things back where we found them.

I love walking in there right after it's been cleaned out and organized....such a lovely sight to see. Can't stop looking at it!

Today....building benches out of old, unwanted bedsteads. I have three to build but will likely only get one or two done, if that. I'm still crippled up from yesterday's marathon, so moving slow and taking a lot of breaks.

 

[Serenashome]

Lol, what a great childhood
My mother would give my brother and I an old blanket, we would lay it on the ground and shake the tree. All the ripe berries would fall down and we would gorge ourselves.

Yep we use a clean sheet. It's got some very nice purple blotches from the last two years. He loved shaking the tree. He stood under it with his mouth open like he was eating snow until I made him move so he didn't eat sticks. lol

 

[Raech]

Do pea plants do a second flowering like tomatoes and peppers do? I just got a nice harvest of peas(2 18 oz jars and a mayo jar). Which is more peas than I got last year. I have carrots planted under the pea trellis and I am thinking that after the peas are done they will get pulled so the carrots have more space, plus I might plant some more stuff in the pea's area. If the peas are done, I don't see anymore flowers all that I am seeing is a few stray pods that aren't quite ready yet. I picked 2 handfuls of peas and about 1/2 a cup of blueberries this morning when I took the dogs out. I have a foster dog right now that will be with me for the next 6-8 weeks until she goes into a training program in the Jail/Inmate Program, then she will becoming back to me to be re-homed if I see it as her being ready. If not she will being staying even longer with me until she is ready. Kind of excited for an 8 week break of dog fights and having to muzzle one dog just so they can be together in the same room. She has learned with the muzzle on she can't fight back after she starts the fight. After the first fight my dog learned that she had to fight back, so now she tries to finish them, so we are starting the NILF training in our house(Nothing In Life is Free). Hope the weather cools off some, the radishes have went to seed and the grass is turning brown. We are having to water every night just to try to stay ontop of it. On the upside we had some nice thunderstorms yesterday that cooled it off enough that I could grill chicken outside for dinner.