Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Another day on the homestead

I can’t believe it. I spent an hour last night writing this post (while being distracted by the homesteading videos Hubby was watching on Youtube) and when I went to publish it, it was just gone! Grrr…technology sometimes!

At any rate, I wanted to share about our last couple days on the homestead before we came back to Oregon.

Oh, it was simply wonderful to be back in the wide open spaces, with only the sounds of nature around us. To sit for hours with the Hubs and just talk and dream of our plans for the house and homestead.

We’re hoping that when we go back in December, that we’ll be able to stay in the trailer again. But then again, we’re hoping that Nevada has so much snow that we can’t even get up our driveway. They need moisture so horribly. I guess we’ll see.

Oh, before I forget, let me introduce you to our new/old membet of the family.

This is Obsidian (ie Sid). He’s a 6 year old black lab whom we’ve had since he was just 7 weeks old. But, for the last year, he’s been staying with friends in Nevada. When we had to move so unexpectedly, it was just too much to try to figure out how to bring him with us. But we have some wonderful friends who offered to take him for us.

Well, a couple months ago, their circumstances changed and they could no longer keep him for us. So, the Hubby and I talked it over with Mom and Dad and we decided that we were in a position to bring him to Oregon to live with us.

And so now we have a very large dog living in our small back yard. But we play ball with him. And take him for walks. And so far, he’s adjusted well. Scooter is not sure what to think of him, and the cat just avoids him. But eventually they’ll all be friends.

So, that’s Sid. We can’t wait till we are all back on the homestead and he can roam free again.

Ok, back to our regularly scheduled program (yes, I’m aware I don’t actually post regularly :-). Here’s how we kept ourselves busy our last couple days at Castle Rock:

Cooking in the outdoor kitchen. Because even though we did hook up the propane to the trailer, who wants to be cooped up inside on a beautiful day?

Playing. Our girls LOVE swings! And I love that our carport frame is sturdy enough they can play on it.

More playing. We call this area next to the driveway “the Sandbox”. The sand there is only a bit more coarse than beach sand.

Taking some time to just relax and take in the view.

Playing with bugs…well, their casings at least.

This is the shell of a cicada. At some point in their lifecycle, they shed their exoskeleton.

Do they remind anyone else of aliens? And they are everywhere! The more you look for their shells, the more you find. On branches. In bushes. On the ground. It must have been a noisy summer on the homestead!

As an aside, for those of you who might be wondering, this is our bathroom while we’re at the property. Not looking forward to using that in the middle of December if we are able to stay in the trailer while we’re there.

The Hubby decided to repurpose an old gas grill. After gutting it and cleaning it, he made it into…

…a GRILL! yeah, yeah, it still functions with the same purpose. So not really REpurposing. But now it is a charcoal, rather than a gas, grill.

And it worked great. Look at all that meat! Good thing we had a bunch a family over to help us eat that.

That night we had a spectacular sunset.

Signs of fall on the homestead. Our apple trees have survived the summer. Here’s hoping we get a super winter to keep them hydrated.

Princess Girl is such a good helper. I can’t believe she’s almost 10.

It was a great several days on the homestead. A time to dream, a time to rest, and a time to plan.

And now we’re back in Oregon. Now it’s time to concentrate on schooling for the girls. And working on some canning projects I’ve needed to do fo a while now.

Ahhh…fall. I’m looking forward to cooler weather, soups, canning, and baking.

*sigh*

I love this time of year.

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

Camping out

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We’re spending some time in Nevada camping out on the homestead. We used our time today to get our trailer put back into livable order. It had become a catch all for storage and we want it ready so that when we come down from Oregon to work on the house, we have a place to stay on the property.

And speaking of the house plans, we meet with our Residential Designer tomorrow! We’re finally almost done with the engineering phase! Next will be the permitting phase. Lord willing it will go quickly. We’d love to be able to get the footings done and the main shell of the building put up this winter. But if this winter is as bad as all the forecasters are predicting, there won’t we any building going on. I guess it would be a good trade off. In the grand scheme of things, an extra 6 months to build our house is worth it if we get the snow we so desperately need.

Flower Girl passed out on the living room floor after a busy morning of getting reacquainted with the homestead.

Found this checklist from when we first bought the trailer. It is a huge accomplishment that nearly everything on that list is marked off (and most of the “want”s we decided to either wait on or just forego all together.)

We decided we needed a little treat tonight. I didn’t even look at the ingredients. I know there’s a bunch of stuff in there I usually choose not to eat or feed to my family. But every once in a while life demands cookie dough ice cream.

And the four of us sitting on our recently cleared off back bed in our home-away-from-home on our own property seemed like one of those times. 🙂

Tomorrow I’ll try to get some more pictures of the trailer and our newest member of the family, who just happens to be an older member of the family.

Stay tuned!

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

Summer Doings

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I know I’ve been horrible at posting for months.

So, what have we been up to this summer?

Take a look and see!

We went camping:

We traveled to Nevada to work, see family, and spend time on the Homestead (click or hover over pictures to see captions):

preventative maintenance on the drainage ditches so they don’t wash out the driveway.

My little helper

Can you see the orange markings on the dirt? We started laying out the house!

Tea time with my sister and nieces

Working at the Ropes Course.

We worked on house plans:

And found a building almost the exact size of the one we are going to build:It’s cool (and helpful) to see the dimensions in real life rather than on paper.

We harvested cherries from our very own cherry tree:

Dad and Flower Girl planted the garden.

Princess Girl and her BFF ran a lemonade stand and made quite a lot of money!

One of my sisters came to visit and we made raspberry jam after picking the raspberries from her extended family’s farm!

We had some weird stuff happen in the chicken coop:

We were messy like a typical 2 and a half year old (there’s STILL specks of paint in the bathroom from this!):

We had our first tomato (and a couple more since then). Mmmmmm….

We played with sparklers to celebrate the 4th of July:

We traveled back to Nevada once again, then to Missouri for a family reunion (click or hover for captions).

Nevada beauty

Our “Shuttle” van which carried 7 people to Missouri and back.

Looooong road trip (34 hours on the road!)

Full van!

It’s my restaurant! (Almost spelled it right, anyway 🙂 )

Princess Girl and some of her cousins whom she just met.

Havin’ fun out on the lake.

Missouri sunset on the White River.

Cousins having some fun!

The Castle Rock family on the salt flats in Utah.

We did other typical summer type stuff (click or hover for captions):

Handstands!

Summer camp. Princess Girl is in that crowd somewhere and this Mamma’s heart was squeezing tight at the prospect of letting go, if for only 5 days.

Playing in the fountains at a park.

Taking walks in the lush greenery of the PNW.

Hanging out on the nice shady deck in the warmth of the afternoon.

And we traveled back to Nevada once again so I can work – (click or hover for captions).

Checking on and watering out apple trees.

Hoeing the weeds out of the driveway.

Working on the ropes course.

Putting up a tipi at the ropes course.

So, you know. We’ve kept busy.

🙂

Stressed

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Hey there.

How are ya?

It’s been a while, I know.

Sorry about that.

Been a little crazy in our life lately.

In fact, I just added it up. In the last 6 months, I’ve traveled back to Nevada 5 times. That’s traveling nearly once a month! And they weren’t weekend trips either (well, one was). We’re talking about being gone from home for over a week, sometimes closer to two weeks!

In fact, I’m sitting in my mom’s living room in Nevada right now. Been in town three days already, and not leaving for another week.

Why have I done all that traveling? Good question. All but two of those trips were for work. But even when we came back down for other reasons, I still managed to get in some work days.

Normally I can do most of my job (about 5 hrs a week) from home on the computer. But every once in a while, the ropes challenge course I work for in Nevada needs their office manager actually IN the office. Or on the course. So the girls and I, and sometimes the hubby, pack up and make the 12 hour drive back to our second home. Who ever heard of a 600 mile commute?

To say that I’ve been busy this year is an understatement. No wonder Princess Girl got behind on her book work in school.

But, we’re trying to build a house, right? So’s I gotta make some money. Could I find a job in Oregon and cut out the monthly travel? Sure, but the ropes course needs me, and we want to see friends and family anyway, so here I am.

But it does get stressful being gone from home so much. Or is it that I like being in Nevada better and hate having to go back to Oregon after every trip?

At any rate, here we are in Nevada once again. The other evening, Flower Girl and I went up to Castle Rock with 7 gallons of water to put on our trees.

The trees were fairly stressed after having gone nearly a month in the middle of summer without anyone but God watering them. Considering that, however, they actually looked pretty good.

I thought they’d be crispier than they were. But then, it has been an unusually wet summer here in Nevada (while the Pacific Northwest is drying out in a particularly dry summer. Go figure!)

As the water jug was emptying onto the trees (slowly so the water would soak in, not run off), I took a hoe to the house pad. Weeds were starting to pop up quite a bit and we want to keep a handle on them.

I felt bad knocking down the Blazing Star flowers. I love their delicate beauty, yes, but more than that, I saw quite a few bees buzzing around them. And we all know that bees are our friends. But we are pretty serious about wanting to keep the house pad weed free, so I was merciless. Besides, there are plenty more lining the driveway.

And speaking of the driveway, I attacked it a bit with the hoe, too.

All those weeds in the right hand tire track used to be in the middle of the drive. I cut them out with the hoe, but I didn’t have the energy to come back and throw them all over the hillside. Not to mention the fact that I did not have gloves and these are nothing but green tumbleweeds (ie pokey!). They’ll dry out and the wind will take care of them for me. 🙂

And then it was time for “The Show”. That’s what my parents always called a particularly spectacular sunset. And, boy, was it ever spectacular!

Flower Girl and I were only on the homestead for about an hour, but it was enough to help ease the stress I’ve been feeling lately. (And, of course, the stress of the trees, too, since they finally got watered again ;-). )

Just wishing the Hubby and Princess Girl could have been there with us. They both stayed back in Oregon since we don’t want to leave Mom and Dad totally alone again so soon after our last time gone in July, and Princess Girl went to summer camp for her first time (how is she so grown up?)

And speaking of the homestead (’cause, ya know, that’s what I’ve been talking about this whole time), look what we got!

No, not really official blueprints yet. More like the preliminary plans just to see it on paper. But it’s from a real residential designer and looks all official and everything! It’s an big step forward in our plans for building on Castle Rock. We’re hoping that the next time we come back to Nevada we’ll have actual, real live, ready-to-take-to-the-building-department blueprints.

Exciting stuff right there!

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

How to preserve marigolds the “easy” way

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The no-work, no-fuss way to get perfectly preserved marigold blooms:

1.) Have a child

2.) Grow Marigolds or otherwise acquire them

3.) When child is around 2 – 3 years old, buy said child a clear plastic beverage bottle

4.) Leave said child, in possession of said beverage bottle, in the care of husband

5.) Find said beverage bottle in toy box two weeks later with perfectly preserved marigold blooms inside

*Disclaimer: Author does not claim that step #1 or the intervening years between #1 and #3 is easy, only the end result of having preserved flowers, without having the do the work yourself. The author does not know why you would want to preserve your marigold blooms in such a way or how long they will last, she is just offering a unique and easy way to do it. 🙂

(This article first appeared on Maridy’s personal blog in 2008.)

To-do list

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I went grocery shopping yesterday. I spent $315 and that will feed us for the month other than weekly milk and egg runs (can’t wait till the chickens start producing!) and a mid month produce run (can’t wait till the garden starts producing!). The cart was filled mostly with produce and cheese and meat, but there were also some canned goods. I try to buy products with the least amount of ingredients. My dream is to be able to grow enough veggies that I am able to can them for our family for the whole year. But that dream is quite a ways in the future. So, for now, I make do with store bought stuff and try to buy as healthy as possible. But there was one thing on my list which I hated to put in the cart. Condensed Cream of Mushroom soup. Have you read the ingredients on those cans? First of all, they use wheat as a thickening agent and wheat is a major cause of inflammation in the body so I try to avoid it like the plague so my knees don’t flare up as easily. Also, they all have msg and a bunch of other questionable ingredients. But they are conventient! I have made cream of mushroom soup from scratch numerous times and it is absolutely delish. But when your 9 year old wants to make her old standby, greenbean casserole? Or you’re pressed for time? Or you don’t have fresh mushrooms in the fridge (a biggie for me!)? That’s where the canned stuff comes in handy. I think we’ve all been there. But I still hated putting it in my cart and I swore it would be the last time.
But what about convenience? my brain rebelled! That’s when I determined to finally get around to making and canning a big batch of mushroom stock which is the basis for cream of mushroom soup. Open a jar of home canned mushroom stock. Add it and some cream (or even just milk) in a pot and cook it down till as thick as desired. Defitely more time involved than cracking open a can of the condensed stuff, but still easy enough my 9 year old could handle it when she makes greenbean casserole. And waaay easier and faster than starting from mushrooms which may or may not be residing in the fridge.

So, mushroom stock got added to my to-do list, and I started wondering what other things I need to put on that list. So below is a bunch of homesteading type to-do items which need to get done in the near future, in no particular priority other than that’s the order they can to mind.

-Render bacon grease into lard
-Make and can mushroom stock
-Make yogurt
-Make canned diced tomatoes from the ‘maters in the freezer
-Clean out the chicken coop
-Fix the bottom hinge on the chicken coop door
-Do something with the blackberries in the freezer. Jam? Syrup? Cobbler?
-Make bone broth from the chicken bones accumulating in the freezer
-Build a raised bed in my little garden space my FIL gave me and fill with garden soil so I can plant some early spring stuff (still amazed I can start this early!).
-Fill the containers with soil so I can plant stuff.
-Get the peas and broccoli and lettuce and carrots and… planted! (See above)
-list ebay items to sell

Ok, so that last one isn’t necessarily related to homesteading, and yet it is. The money I get from selling some of my extra costumes (I used to be a professional seamstress and made historical costumes) will go into savings toward building our house when we eventually move back to Nevada.

And yeah, I crossed the bacon lard off the list because technically I finished that this morning. But you know the saying. Put one or two items on your list which you can immediately check off so you feel accomplished. 😉

So there you have it. A list of things to get done amonst all the other chores and responsibilities of cooking, cleaning, caring for people, and homeschooling. A lot to get done, some of it immediately, some it may be a while to find the time for. But a good list nonetheless.

What are some of your homesteading chores you need to get done?

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth.” Ps 121:1-2

On my walk today…

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I’ve been trying to get out and go for walks every day. So far, so good. But it’s only been 4 days :-). Some days, like today, I can go about 2 miles in 40 minutes. Other times I take the girls with me and it’s sigificantly slower than that. In fact, yesterday’s walk was less than half the mileage in a longer amount of time because we were picking up trash in the neighborhood for a service project. (Ah, the joys of living in town.)

My plan when we lived on the homestead was to get out and go for hikes every day. No reason I can’t at least walk around the block here, other than the fact the view is less than inspiring. However, Hubby has been taking afternoon walks every day after work for about a month now and his persistence has inspired me to start doing the same. And what I’ve discovered is that our neighborhood has some fun little surprises. Like the wooded area with trails intersecting all the through it like a spider web. Sure, the sounds of the city were still there, but my feet were on a dirt trail and the birds sang over head. It felt somewhat secluded and peaceful.

And then there are countless pathways like this…

…just waiting to be explored.

Or there’s the blueberry farm literally just down the street (coincidentally owned by the same people who own a u-pick oyster farm we discovered near Tillamook, OR around Christmas).

Or, you see into the back yard of some house as you pass by and become instantly jealous.

Look at all those raised beds! I counted at least 10, and in the far back corner is another raised bed with a small grape vine on it. Oh, if only we had that much land here! But then, if we did, maybe we wouldn’t be as anxious to get home to Nevada as we are.

At any rate, I plan to take pictures of interesting things as I find them to remind myself that there ARE cool things about living here.

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth.” Ps 121:1-2

A Busy, Everyday Day

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Today was one of those days that just feel good at the end of it, ya know? It was just an everyday type of day. Nothing extra special, but I feel like I accomplished something -several things actually – and used my time wisely and had some fun.

First, as we were getting dressed this morning, we saw that the water district guys had started the flushing we had seen signs about. Since the hydrant is right outside our house, we got a front row view. And Princess Girl got an impromptu lesson in how the city water system works. She came up with about 10 questions to ask and the men very patiently answered them and even offered information freely. Plus, the girls got to play in the water. Win, win. But it did bring to mind the fact that we don’t really have the right systems in place for a water emergency. What if, during their flushing and testing, something came up and we couldn’t use the water coming out of our pipes? Not likely, but what if? We don’t have nearly enough water stored for a family of 6. Good food for thought.

Our homeschooling day continued with some online research for her Geography lesson. Princess Girl’s daddy got a look at her outfit and thought she was being silly to be wearing her butterfly wings and bee dress while doing her school work. I love that while homeschooling, she CAN. No uniforms here.

Half way through the day I got some Apple Butter cooking in the crockpot. It’s the absolutely easiest way to cook it. It only requires stirring every once in a while. However, I had forgotten about doing it, so I really got it started too late. Here it is after 9pm and I’m looking at at least another hour or cooking, then the canning process. It’s gonna be a late night. 🙂

I spent some time getting some jams together for a friend. She is buying them for her coworkers for Christmas. I also boxed up a few things I sold on Ebay and need to mail tomorrow. I ran a few errands and made potato soup for dinner.

Then I decided it was time to introduce you all to the newest members of our ever growing family. So I went out to the garage and got some pics of our six chicks.

We don’t know what breeds they are. They all come from the same nest of eggs, but the friends who they belonged to said it was a hidden nest and could have had eggs from several hens. They didn’t even know they had a broody hen until they saw the babies a couple weeks ago.

They have a very mixed flock and don’t even know exactly what breeds they have. But they knew they didn’t want 6 more chickens. They mentioned it to us and we told them we could take the chicks off their hands if we could borrow their chick nursery setup since we don’t have any equipment and no money to buy even the basics, what with the holidays fast approaching. They said sure and even bought us a new heat lamp!

So, now we have 6 chicks in a cage inside a box out in the garage. It’s so cold in the garage that I’ve been checking on them roughly 20 times a day (maybe a slight exaggeration). I even dreamed about them last night. But with the heat lamp, they are staying warm enough. Actually, my fear would be that they would get too warm, since there’s not much room in their little cage to get away from the heat lamp if they get hot. But they are happy and doing well.

We brought a few of them in the house to play with this evening. I am always amazed at how gentle Flower Girl is with helpless creatures. She just about mauls Scooter when they play (and Scooter loves it all!), but she seems to know instictively to be careful with the chicks. So adorable.

This one is so cute. It’s the only dark one. Any guesses as to what breed it might be?

It looks like it will be a speckled brown when it gets fully feathered.

How about this one? Pretty much pure blonde.

Silly girl! (And well behaved chick 😉 )

I love this picture. The chick had just pooped on her. 😉

So, yeah, we hadn’t planned on getting chicks this winter, we were going to wait till Spring, like normal people. But like so many things in our lives lately, it didn’t go exactly as we planned. And I’m good with that.

And yes, of course we are well aware that some or all of these could be roosters. We are hoping not of course, but if we do get some males, we know what to do with them.

Alright, it’s getting late and I have some Apple Butter to can. Guess I’d better go. I hope you have had a wonderful Autumn day.

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth.” Ps 121:1-2

Makin’ Moolah!

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Yay! I’m going to be setting up at several craft fairs this Holiday Season with my jams and jellies. I’m so excited to be able to not only make some money for my family, but to be able to share with people my canning skills and the produce of our labors. I love it. You can find new info on my facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/TheCarpentersKitchen

Oy, but now I need to get my ducks in a row and get some more jams and jellies made! Oooh, maybe I can turn this into a teaching opportunity and invite some friends over as slave labor…uh, I mean to learn how to can. 🙂

Oh, and this reminds me of a post I want to write about all the different ways you can earn money from your homestead. Is anyone out there interested in that type of information? Leave a comment and let me know. Thanks!

Oops :-/

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To any of you who are subscribers and might have gotten an email for a post about MSG, I did not mean to post that. I am doing so research for a possible future post and accidently hit the publish button. Ahhh, the problems of using a smart phone :-). Anyway, sorry about that. Hopefully soon I will have my thoughts together enough on not only MSG, but other artificial food additives, to do a post, soon.

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth.” Ps 121:1-2

Castle Rock Homestead

Off-grid homesteading in the high desert of Northern Nevada.

Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Another day on the homestead

Camping out

Summer Doings

Stressed

How to preserve marigolds the “easy” way

To-do list

On my walk today…

A Busy, Everyday Day

Makin’ Moolah!

Oops :-/

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