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

Trailer Transformation: Part 1

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Here’s another of my old posts about our trailer transformation (gosh, I miss that old thing!)

November 2, 2013

We started painting the trailer. So far, we have a coat of primer on most surfaces (even some of those surfaces that did not need paint on them!). It’s interesting painting with a 12 month old hanging around and an almost-eight-year-old helping. Let’s just say that we found out that latex primer does not come out of baby hair very easily. We have another bucket of primer sitting in the house and we’ve chosen colors and bought wood to make the bed frames. And this coming week we should actually have some time to work on these projects. We had a meeting with my parents to hash out some of the logistics in moving to the property: where my handicapped brother who currently lives with us will live while we are in the trailer, if we can use their shower and get water from them, etc, etc, etc.) We also figured out that we are going to put the house we are currently living in on the market this spring. So not only do we need to get our new home ready to live in, but we have to clean, finish projects, and downsize in our current home. Whew! Gonna be a crazy winter!

Beginning Primer
Our big helper
Our beautiful girls
Princess Girl learning to use the driver
She really got the hang of it.
Bye, bye ugly 80’s wallpaper!
Loving that my painting overalls are being put to good use again!
Hubby wanted the inside of the cabinets nice and bright!
It’s inevitable that paint gets everywhere
In process and already looking better!

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…

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…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).

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

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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

“Old News”

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I was reading back through a different blog of mine which I used to use (closed for various reasons) and realized that there were several posts on there which might be interesting to readers of this blog since the posts are all about our transition to the homestead and our trailer transformation. So over the coming weeks (or months, knowing me) I will be copying those posts to this blog. I will try to make it very apparent from beginning of each post that it is an oldie.

For today’s offering, we have our very first announcement that we we making serious plans to move to Castle Rock.

OCTOBER 21, 2013

I’ve been waiting to write this post until our plans were more than a dream. Well, last week we plunked down a large chunk of change to get this ball (or would that be “tire”?) rolling. Here’s a picture of our new home (sitting outside our current home)!

Ok, so it’s not our new home quite yet. But it WILL be, hopefully within the next year.

She’s not much to look at right now. She’s got some issues. But really, considering the thing is 33 years old, she’s been very well taken care of.

The only picture I have of the “living room”.

Learning to live in the trailer already

So, WHY are we eventually moving into a trailer you might ask. Well, that’s the only way we’ll be able to afford to build our house. Yep, we’re building a house. If you are friends with us on Facebook, you’ll have seen where we’ve gone camping at Castle Rock (our property) a couple of times this summer. Here’s some pictures.

Look closely (click on picture and it should enlarge) and you can see the Suburban and a blue EZ-up – they are sitting on the house pad.

Beauty at Castle Rock

On top of “Castle Rock”

The valley (and town) is in top left of pic, house pad just to right of center

Eventual house site

See, with a bit more water, cottonwoods can grow here – this is down in the bottom of the canyon.

Neat crevice down in the bottom of the canyon below Castle Rock

So, no, it’s not lush and green land (which is nearly unheard of here in Nevada) but it’s 40 acres and quiet and secluded AND close to town (see panorama above). And here’s the biggest deal, it’s my family’s land, so it’s already paid for (though there will be some sort of rent/mortgage to Mom). The only thing that’s been improved on the land is a driveway and house pad cut. Which means we will need to have a well dug, bring in power of some sort, improve the driveway, AND build a house. All on a cash basis, so it’s gonna take a while. But that’s why we bought the trailer. By living in the trailer on the land while we are building, we cut out a lot of our current living expenses (minimal rent, no electricity to pay for since we’ll be on solar, etc.)

We’re pretty excited about this next stage of our lives. We’re looking forward to downsizing (some things will go into storage), to living in close quarters with each other, to working hard and accomplishing much in the next several years. We’re also looking forward to getting out of our neighborhood where things are stolen from our front porch and our neighbors are just right there, to having more land and bigger gardens and more animals.

It’s gonna be fun!

Ok, Now I’m excited

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I found this graphic through a Pinterest pin. Now I’m excited. I really could garden year round here in Portland. I need to get some seeds in the ground! 🙂

As a comparison, here’s a graphic for where we lived in Nevada.

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Zone 5 – where we used to live and will again! http://veggieharvest.com/calendars/zone-5.html

Eventually I want a greenhouse on the homestead in Nevada, or at the very least some cold frames so I CAN extend the growing season. There is a small part of me that feels as if it’s cheating to have it so easy up here. On the other hand, there’s a very big part of me that’s happy to not have to deal with all that for just a little while longer. 🙂

Since we don’t have enough south facing window space here and not really any place in the house to start seeds anyway, we’ll be purchasing tomato and pepper starts, but I think most everything else we want to grow can go directly in the ground as seed. And I found out that our last frost date is March 15th, not April 15th like I previously thought. That’s a full two and a half months before the Nevada Homestead! And since even the winters are mild here, things like lettuce and broccoli should be able to survive the full winter weather even without cold frames. Oh, this is exciting!

What about you? Can you garden in the winter where you live?

I’m not ready for this!

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It’s February 2nd. And Spring is starting in the Pacific Northwest. Shoots are popping up all over the place.

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Grocery stores are selling blooming tulips, buttercups, hyacinths, primrose, and pansies. The trees are starting to put out buds.

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And this is completely normal. Back home in Nevada, the same thing is happening, but everyone there knows that the temps will dip again and everything will die back and wait for real Spring. Here in the Portland area, Spring really is on it’s way.

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It’s exciting, knowing that  our growing season is starting. My father-in-law and I were comparing seeds today. Later this week, we are going to break out the graphing paper and start plotting the garden. I may actually, finally, get a good pea harvest by starting early. But it’s a daunting task to be learning everything new. The climate here is completely different, and I have to learn a new plot of land: what’s the soil like, where does the sun hit in different seasons, where’s the best place for certain veggies, etc.

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I want to take advantage of the extended growing season here. If we were planning to stay long term, I would look into learning to grow year-round. In fact, I want to do that back in Nevada, too, it would just be easier here in Oregon. But we’re hoping this is our only winter here. So, as we head into spring, I want to take advantage of living here, get some things planted early, grow things that have a hard time growing back home because of the climate. But it’s only February 2nd and I already feel like I’m behind the curve. I’m not sure I’m ready for this. But I’m sure gonna try! 🙂

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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 🙂

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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

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

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How about this one? Pretty much pure blonde.

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Silly girl! (And well behaved chick 😉 )

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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.

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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

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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

Chicken Run

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If you follow us on facebook, you might have seen  a comment about our chickens. Yep, we have chickens again!

Actually, we have one of our old chickens back. When we moved up to Castle Rock, we gave our chickens to my parents since we were not prepared to have them on the homestead yet. The deal was that since they lived just a few miles away, they would still be partially our chickens, we still got eggs, Princess Girl cleaned the coop, and we’d care for them when Mom and Pops were out of town (which is often). And then we moved to Portland, OR unexpectedly.  And mom found another home for the chickens since they travel so much. When Princess Girl heard that her pet chicken, Scaredy, had been given away, she was very distraught. So, my mom called up the lady to whom she had given the chickens and asked for Scaredy back. The lady was very obliging, and when the girls and I were in Nevada recently, we picked up Scaredy and brought her back to Mom’s house. But you can’t have just one chicken. There’s some law against it, right? I mean, they are social creatures. It was just sad to see her all alone in the run. So, we found another hen on Craigslist. The owner assured me that she’s only 3 years old and is still laying, but we have yet to get an egg out of her. But, hey, she was cheap and is providing good company for Scaredy.

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She is a White Leghorn and of course Princess Girl named her Snow (and Flower Girl calls her “No-man” 🙂 ). After a very brief period of deciding who rules the roost, they are now devoted sisters. So much so that on the 13 hour drive home, there wasn’t a single squable out of them.

So anyway, I brought two chickens back from Nevada with me. And we had no place to put them. We had discused the possibility of chickens with the in-laws, but it was still hypothetical. Until suddenly it wasn’t. Well, we found a box they could roost and nest in and they ran about in the back yard for a few days as we decided the best place to put them. What better use of a small (and I mean tiny) unused side yard than as a chicken run?

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I found some free wood in the form of fence panels on Freecycle. We decided to use that wood to build the chicken run.

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With a little bit of work, we had a pile of wood to use for various projects.

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We got some half rolls of chicken wire given to us (my parents are amazing like that!) and we used that and the fence wood to put up the supports to enclose the run.

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The Princess even put a few staples in. And yes, I realized after taking the pictures that she didn’t have on proper safety gear. We put up the tarp because…well…because we live in the Pacific Northwest and don’t want our chickens cold and wet ALL the time! The tarp gives their run a dry area which they can hang out in.

We got one door (which we built out of fence wood and chicken wire) put on this evening but still need to hang the other (which was a screen door for a sliding glass door). We’re pretty proud of the fact that other than the nails and staples, we didn’t have to buy anything for the run. Tomorrow I finish closing up a few more holes with chicken wire, then we need to build them a proper roost. Right now, we just have one box which they roost and nest in. Not ideal.

At any rate, that’s our current goings-on. I’ll try to  post some more pictures of the run and coop as we finish it.

Oh, and here’s a picture of The Princess and her latest fire she and her daddy made using a magnesium rod fire starter. They report that those things are hard to use!

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Part of Princess’ schooling is taught by her daddy and is all about outdoor skills. Sure, we may live on a tiny lot in the middle of suburbia, but eventually we’ll be back on the homestead and she will need those skills then, if not before. Besides, they are just good, basic skills to have.

What skills do you think every kid should learn as they grow up?

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