Pioneer Woman at Heart

from the homesteading journal. . . The garden is producing kohlrabi, lettuce, sugar snap peas, beets, organic red stem Swiss chard, collards, mustard greens, and radishes. The green beans, peppers, tomatoes and broccoli are just now coming in too. The joke's on us.  The flat of cauliflower that we bought just down the road at the produce stand, was marked incorrectly.  It was not cauliflower.  It was kohlrabi.  Big bummer.  The company hubby works for, dropped us off our insurance plan, and put us with their basic plan.  All because hubby forgot to fill out an online survey.  We are sunk.  We lost our co-pay, and don't have prescription coverage and have a huge deductible per person.  He's sending in an appeal, but it takes 45 days.  Basically, we'd have to spend out thousands before our insurance would pay anything.  We are paying a large amount to not have anything covered that was covered before.   The ridic...

With several home grown (organic) kohlrabi ready to harvest, I decided to make patties with them.  These were delicious!  They required no salt either.  This reminds of meals the pioneers could make - straight from the garden (aside from the flour, but they could grind their own flour too).

Use an over-sized safety pin to hold yarn needles.  I can pin this to just about anything when I am working on a project. We lost one of our Araucana pullets yesterday.  Such a sad loss.  My 15 year-old daughter has been working with them and they are very friendly with us.   She started to feed another hen with a dropper, in hopes to solve the issues.  We believe they have worms and we are treating them with apple cider vinegar.  They enjoyed being outside yesterday. After 6 hours of weeding and tilling  and harvesting the garden, I spent the night in bed with my foot up.  Yep, I did it again.  It hurts so bad I can't walk on it.  Between that muscle (I can't remember what the doctor called it) and my sciatic nerves, I won't be able to do much this week.  This is not a good thing. I did start another batch of goat's milk ricotta cheese. It will need to be rinsed today and put in the refrigerator.  I hope to make (or ha...

There's a cure for bored kids in my house. He he he!  It's called cleaning and organizing.  (Top cupboards, no hardware) (Bottom, with hardware) It's actually working for my 15 year-old daughter.  She's taking kitchen cupboards apart one by one and priming them for a new coat of paint.  These mix and match cupboards have really darkened the kitchen, with the bottom dark brown and the top an off-white.  The top cupboards will need hardware, because we are painting everything antique or country white.   The cubbies you see in the top cupboards had tiny baskets that I could not use.  I took the baskets out and placed tea cups in them.  I have them in the lower cupboards (have no idea what they would have used them for) and may try to saw out the shelves to store my cookie sheets etc. in.  I guess we'll see.  These are the before photos. While I took the time to "rest" I decided to pick up a few things in my room, ...

I've had a few people ask me what I am doing to lose weight and get in shape. My goal is to completely shed 50 pounds(or more).  I am down 14.  At our ages, it doesn't come off as fast, and if it took me 6 years to put it all on, I would rather it came slow to ensure it stays off (vs. fast).  I do not do weight watcher's or any program that requires buying frozen meals.  Here is what I am doing: ~Eating as many real foods (homegrown without chemicals or organic) vs. processed foods (even Subway is very high in sodium so don't let them fool you).  We cut out shortening, eat less bread, and now can jam with honey vs. sugar.  Last year we planted a boat load of green pepper plants, I am just now finishing up the last in the freezer.  It lasted all winter long. Peppers, along with apples, are high in pesticides in stores.  Even at some orchards.  We are trying to eliminate all foods that would have chemicals. *For example: eating fresh f...

Today, I am really missing my wall tent.  Thunderstorms are predicted, so the front porch may be off limits too.  The last two storms we had, caused lightening to fry one VCR/DVD player, and two fans.  Both times the lightening hit, there were loud "pops" and a flash of light in the house.  We never had this happen before.  I woke up extremely tired.  My 12 year-old helped me weed the watermelon, some tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and pumpkins.  I had the kids put the 3rd load of laundry out, and they broke the line - Hmph!  I rigged one line, but will need to buy new clothesline to fix the other one. There is more to weed today, but I need to take my 10 year-old to her library reading program.  I am skipping berry picking too.  Unless the storms hold off, and it cools a bit later in the evening.  I'm just that tired.  My body is telling me to take a rest.  No canning either. Hubby worked overtime, and didn't get home...

from the homesteading journal . . .  I picked our first garden bounty - radishes and sugar snap peas.  Started to keep track of produce on the blog too.  I baked a red potato/kohlrabi/garlic scape dish I found on-line, and for the peas, we made a stove-top mix of sugar snap peas and asparagus .  Yum!  My husband paid a commercial fisherman to catch us some local perch.  It's not cheap either.  We may be renting a boat (or borrowing one) to take a trip up to catch our own.  Delicious fish. Cheddar and Tim are spending a lot of time with me outside.  I'm pretty sure they love their new home.  One day I picked berries and Cheddar was all around my legs, rubbing back and forth.  I bent over to pick some low berries and he jumped on my back - OW! We discovered bats in the goat barn.  Babies were falling from the ceiling and we didn't know what to do.  We contacted professionals and found out that we had wh...

It's a scorcher here today - 96°F.  I'm trying to finish up a few more batches of jam.  We are nearing the end of the strawberry season, but still picking wild black raspberries. I'm falling behind on housework, and really need to get myself back on track. 

I have not found balance in my daily routine. This may be something for me when all of the kids have moved out, and my daily duties are more at a minimum. I have been crocheting a car wash cloth for 3 weeks - messed it up twice, taking it out twice.  Sigh....

We gathered about 10 cups of wild black raspberries and will go back for more.  I have already canned 6 jars of wild black raspberry jam this week. 

I discovered wild rose bushes around the property last year, and have wanted to make a batch of rose jelly. I located one recipe for rose petal jelly:  

Give kids the pleasure of washing

 (draining after the rinse) I used 4 1/2 quarts of goat's milk

I've been wanting to make homemade marshmallows for a year now.  I finally took time on Sunday to make some. I was surprised at how easy these cut too. 

I'm enjoying the "retreat" we built even more.  Early morning and evenings are cool and cozy.  Afternoons are a bit hot, but with a fan I can spend quiet time out there.  It's definitely not something to have up in the hottest part of the summer, but late August I might put it back up for cool fall nights.

This is the lean-to or "wall tent" the kids made last year. We washed up some rugs, aprons, towels, tablecloths and sheets.

 (Our first backyard "retreat" just before Glamping Weekend.  This is just the beginning.) Had to cancel our glamping weekend (away from home) due to a situation beyond my control.   I promised myself that a glamped up tent would be put up somewhere on our 6 acres. We haven't done it yet.  Maybe today. Started building the chicken tractor. Planted 9 sweet potatoes (first time for us and a bit late), 6 straight neck yellow squash plants, the last of the tomatoes (totaling 121 tomato plants now), 6 zucchini plants (our planted seeds did not all come up), and one last sweet banana pepper plant for the billy goat (his favorite). One daughter went to put the red hens away, and found the rat in the coop.  She said it's "huge" and scurried up the chicken wire and up through a hole in the ceiling (which we blocked with a block).  My son went out to re-set traps and saw it to.  I think he almost got it with a shovel.  It's eating our ch...

The pioneers rarely used granulated table sugar.  Today, it seems like it's in every recipe I have.

I was just getting ready to start making jam and my 15 year-old daughter said, "Mom, Misty is ready.  It could be 1-2 hours." I grabbed my camera and we waited.  She took forever, but it's her first kidding. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy.  He's the spittin' image of a true blue white mountain goat.  What a cutie.  Of course, real mountain goats have larger ears than a lamancha, and are much larger, but he still has to the color. I'm not sure what he'll be named, so watch my daughter's blog for goat updates and more photos.  Life as a Teen Farmgirl Jam making can wait for this cutie pa-tootie!

The other day, hubby and I went in search for the person who sells his own honey in a nearby town.  We started by eating breakfast at a small diner that was still in business, and asked around.

In my state, " Littering is a serious offense, punishable by fines of up to $500 and 60 days in jail ." (source: http://ohiodnr.com/tabid/18283/default.aspx) These photos are just from last night's drivers.  There have been entire food boxes, cheese wrappers, birth control pill containers with their names on it, and more.  Even beer bottles thrown so far, they've almost landed on my front porch. It wouldn't be so funny to these people, if we set up a camera and had them fined.   One person has done this already (according to our newspaper).  I think more needs to be done in regards to those to litter.  This is just one draw back living in the country - irresponsible people think your yard is their trash can.