Looking More Like A Homestead Every Day

The past few weeks have been busy ones here, and we have a fair amount to show for it. We have 6 garden beds, roughly 4'X8', enriched with peat moss, and I was thrilled to find two whole and lively worms! Before you wonder about my sanity, I was pretty sure we had no worms whatsoever and we had mostly gravel to deal with. I was pleased to find out we actually have silty loam. Better than I expected, so I was pretty happy.
In the garden bed I prepped last year I planted white clover as a cover crop, we now have cabbage and onions. To step back in time a bit, once all the snow melted, I turned over all that clover and let it rest for about three weeks. Yesterday we added peat moss, turned it all in and planted a combination of white onions, red onions and 'Early Jersey Wakefield' cabbage. We did this because the cabbage and onions make good companion plants. Apparently clover helps repel the cabbage aphid, so if any clover does make a return visit, I'll be leaving it alone. We surrounded the whole thing with chicken wire and re-enforced it and I think it's almost rabbit proof. I just need to add some tent stakes to the bottom. For now though, the wire is pretty close to the ground. I think we'll be fine. Photo is above.

We've also dug up, weeded and sifted a bed for potatoes, but now we need another, since we bought both 'Yukon Gold' and 'Red Pontiac' seed potatoes.

The seedlings are all doing pretty well. We've lost some 'Roma' tomatoes along the way, as well as some peppers. But overall I'm pretty pleased with how we're doing!
We purchased a couple of blueberry bushes the other day in town as well. My 5 year plan calls for blueberries, apples, raspberries, strawberries, with a strong yearning towards grapes. As soon as my raspberries that I ordered from Manitoba arrive, I can tell you more about those, but suffice to say I'm pretty stoked about them!

We bought a 10'X10'X6' dog pen, which will reduce the amount of work we need to do this year building things, but now we need to get it home! It turned out to be bigger than I'd expected, so we're hoping a friend can bring it home with him from work sometime this week. Also new is the BBQ, we're trying to get into town to get it. When we went into town to get it, it turned out that there wasn't a model in the store! Now why a company would put an item on sale, $300 cheaper than usual and NOT have any in store is completely beyond me. It was not as productive a day as I would have liked, and I'll be glad when everything is home where it's supposed to be!
Also added to our mini-homestead-wanna-be is a fire bowl. It's our hope that on less bug-infested nights this spring, we can get the boys outside. The fire bowl is a part of that plan. S'Mores anyone?

Because today is cloudy and cool, I think I'll focus on housework today.
Weather:
Cloudy, slight breeze and at the time of this writing, (10:20 am) it's 54 degrees F

The Creative and Colourful

For those of us blanketed in snow and grey mists, color is important. Colour, depth, life....it's missing right now for many of us. I think that's one reason why my Christmas trees are always a riot of colour. So one idea I've been exploring is sketchbook journals. One paints whatever, or draws whatever moves them, and apparently then one writes one's thoughts or observations over top of the dried paint. See the example at the left? That's a great example. I have no idea who did that one, I found it on the web.
I used to paint quite a bit when I was younger. I did it because I enjoyed colour, and watercolors and the transparency of it all. Then I got into acrylics and a Native style, and I pursued that for some time. And then life went weird and it got left along the way somehow, like my sense of impulsiveness and fun. But the Universe has pointed me  back in that direction over and over again these past couple of months, and I have been giving this the barest of acknowledgments. Tonight I ignore it no longer.
I have decided  that I will pick up the brush and the pen again.
How does this tie into homesteading? Oh, very easily.
I can paint nature, the birds in our yard, the feeder they eat from, the trees I
co-habitate with, homesteading ideas and concepts....the possibilities trip over themselves.
I can also use this watercolor journal/sketchbook to prompt new ideas in beadwork. I have been bitching lately that for a time, we weren't making anything new. Whose fault was that? Mine! I remember the snippet of a dream I had not long ago in which I clearly heard a voice say to me "if you want something new to create, dream it"
And so, I will!
Not that I need another reason to, but here's a good reason to plunge into this...
"...this safe haven of personal expression can become for you, if you let it, a source of relaxation. A ready breathing space in a busy way of life. Learn to do relaxation and breathing exercises before and after you draw not only so that you tap into the more intuitive side of your brain but that so that the discipline of drawing and the artistic pathway becomes a source of great personal pleasure. Your journal should never be a chore but something you look forward to as a little breather in the busy pace of life."

What do you do to be creative?

Almost Deleted and The History of Knitting In Canada At Least

You know, for a while there, I lost sight of why I blog. I didn't think anyone gave a good whoop about whether or not I blogged, but then someone very dear to me reminded me that if I was enjoying it, that's what mattered. So because I enjoy it, I'll carry on.
So, I can't chat too much about gardening and homesteading and living off the land too much in the winter. Around here, it's the season for knitting and crocheting. I don't crochet, although Betty and my mother keep trying to get me to pick up the hook. Once again over the next few months, I'll be knitting for the homeless. We have a soup kitchen in town, and I've been told they'll take all the scarves, mitts, socks and hats I can knit. So you'll be hearing a lot about all sorts of knitterly things over the coming weeks. One thing in particular has caught my attention, the history of knitting here in Canada. We have a few American friends that tease us about living with polar bears, all in good fun of course, but we tend to have a lot of winter in our corner of the north, so I figured there has to be a pretty extensive history of it, right? So I've begun to dig into it. Today I found an archived version of "Canada Knits:Craft and Comfort in A Northern Land", by Shirley Scott. It's fascinating stuff, believe me! Oh, here's some for you to read!

"Despite their excellent needlework skills native Canadians did not knit before Europe an contact. They worked with skins, grasses, and other animal and vege- table fibres; weaving, sewing, embroidering and ornamenting their clothing and
household objects with intricate skill. In fact, one of the reasons why the first intrusive Europeans were not more positively repelled was the native people's interest in the trade goods that the Europeans brought. Their fine metal sewing needles easily replaced the more awkward bone needles and were among the earliest and most prized trade goods.
Native Canadians did, however, have some skill in woolcraft. They made use of the wool of wild animals that was shed in spring and found caught up on twigs or blowing loose across the land. Inuit women today, for example, tuck bits of qtvtuq, the underdown of the musk ox, into their sealskin boots for added
warmth. We may safely assume that such an opportunity for warmer feet would
not have been neglected in past centuries. We know too that the hair of
domesticated dogs was used by Pacific Coast Indian tribes to make clothing and that these people also had spinning skills. Anthropologists tell us that the
Salish people, who have a rich textile tradition, were skillful blenders of dog hair, duck down, and vegetable fibres, which they twisted and spun into
yarns and wove into blankets. Some spinning whorls and blanket pins have
been found that are two thousand years old. The adeptness of native women at needlework, their skill in shaping garments, their love of ornamentation and
their eye for design meant that when they were finally introduced to knitting they seized upon it and became some of the most dedicated practitioners of the art. Knitting skills were passed on to many native people at the same time as religion and the other fundamentals of European culture . The missionaries saw the teaching of knitting as a means of avoiding idleness and of building
character rather than as a form of artistic expression. Nevertheless, the tools that they gave to native people were valuable indeed.
Canada ' s first kni t t e r s did not s t ay. The first Europeans to establish a
settlement in Canada were the Norse, who came from Scandinavia via Iceland
and landed at l'Anse aux Meadows on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland. They did not leave any actual knitting behind them. However, we do know that they worked with wool.
Excavators at the s i t e of l'Anse aux Meadows have uncovered a small number of artefacts that offer a glimpse of the woolcraft of these Norse colonists. A spindle whorl of soapstone, a small needle-hone of quartzite, and an elongated bone needle were found. All of these objects are indisputably Norse and were not known to the local native Canadians of the period. They were part of
a woman's tool kit. Socks and mittens were probably knit using the single-ne edle nalbtndnlng technique, a form of knitting that predates the two-needle method. The yarn used at l'Anse aux Meadows was probably wool, although the Norse occupants did not practice agriculture here as they did in their other colonies where sheep and cattle farming dominated the economy.
The settlement at l'Anse aux Meadows was short lived. Perhaps, as Birgitta Wallace suggests in The Norse Atlantic Saga, it was merely a stopover point for trading voyages. The journey south may have seemed too long, the season too short, and the goods no more exotic than those easily obtained from Europe. For whatever reason, the outpost was abandoned. and with it disappeared
the opportunity of leaving knitting knowledge behind.

The e a r l i e s t known knitted piece found in Canada did not come from
settlers at all but from seasonal workers who probably brought it with
them. It is a fragment of a knitted cap found at the late sixteenth century
Basque whaling site at Red Bay. Labrador. The Basque people harvested our
rich coastal waters for many years before the French and the English
established themselves here. but the Basques were economic opportunists, not empire builders. They were happy to return home when their work was done. Their most lasting legacy is the place names that remain on the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador, not the art of knitting.
What an interesting glimpse back...to me at least! What did you think?

Food Efficiency

These days, it's easy to get overwhelmed and lose track of our goals. Around here, it's as easy for us as anyone else. Usually, this is signified by an upset in blog posts. When this happens, I flip through my "big binder of homesteading knowledge". It reminds me what I want to learn more about, my goals and where I'm headed. Today, I landed on a link I'd written down, with no explanation of why I was writing it down. It led to a very good article on improving efficiency by ten percent on the small farm. In it was a point on food waste that I'd like to share with you...


"According to the David Suzuki Foundation, close to half of all food produced worldwide is wasted; discarded in processing, transport, supermarkets and kitchens. In the U.S. — and we can assume Canadian figures are similar — about $600 worth of food is tossed each year. Therefore, if we can prevent the waste of just five dollars’ worth of food each month, we will have reduced food waste by ten percent.
When buying in bulk consider how much food, teetering near its best before date your family can consume. Freezing extra meat is easy; freezing extra vegetables takes a little effort but what can be done with a case of on-the-verge-of-over ripe mangos? Mango jam? Mango themed party?
Plan ahead, work out your menu for a week and make a shopping list, say the experts. Also try not to shop when tired, hungry or fighting with your spouse, prime triggers for overspending and impulse purchases. Watch those “best before” dates. And know what’s in your fridge.
Wrap bread and baked goods well to keep them fresh but don’t choke the life out of produce with tight plastic wrap. It keeps the moisture in and condenses it into tiny drops of water that dampen and eventually decay the produce. Don’t wash fruit and veggies until just before you use them. Chopping, dicing and even de-stemming gives microorganisms a place to grow.
Organize your menu to eat the most perishable produce first. Berries before apples, fresh fruit and vegetables before frozen, etc.
Ethylene is a colourless, odourless, gaseous hormone that all fruits and veggies release. It hastens the ripening process. High emitters include apples, apricots, avocados, unripe bananas, cantaloupe, figs, honeydews, nectarines, peaches, plums and tomatoes.
On the other hand, ripe bananas, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers, eggplant, kiwi, lettuce (and other leafy greens), parsley, peas, peppers, summer squash, sweet potatoes and water melon are ethylene sensitive. If you use your fridge’s two crispers to keep the emitters away from the ethylene sensitive, you’ll keep the ethylene sensitive in prime condition for a longer time.
Freeze bread crusts and stale cheese and use later for crumbs and sauces. Throw leftover wine into gravies and ripe fruits into smoothies. Make your own stock with leftover meats and vegetables. Make a weekly date to clean out the fridge. And, when you shop, remember that a bargain is not a bargain if half of it rots before you can eat it."
(Taken from http://smallfarmcanada.ca/2012/the-power-of-ten/)

A very good reminder that we have all forgotten from time to time. Especially in this season of holidays and get-togethers.
What ideas do you have for being more efficient with food?

No Berries For Chickens

My most humble apologies for neglecting the blog for the past couple of weeks. I do have a very good reason though. I've been giving an old enterprise a shot of newness. Cee Cee Native Crafts. It's a family venture, we create native-style beadwork. But lately I've been envisioning all kinds of beadwork that incorporates gemstones. Wild colors, vibrant designs and exciting new designs! So....I sort of got carried away with myself. But!
I am here today to share with you my plan for brambles!
So I might have mentioned a few dozen times my plan for the garden for the summer of 2013... lol
A part of that plan is golden raspberries like these...

So according to "The Backyard Homestead" book, raspberry bushes like nitrogen. And they can produce year after year, if they're cut back in the fall and tended carefully. Hmm, this got me thinking, maybe I don't have to ignore the tired red ones already here. Now the plan is to try and rejuvenate the reds and plant goldens. If I can get more fruit from the reds, woohoo! If I get no more, oh well, I tried.
So, according to the book, I should have cut them back in late summer to ground level. But then it also says that in late fall, cut them back to 4-5 feet. Well, mine are not that big now. Taking the middle ground would tell me to cut them back to a foot then. See, these reds are scattered all over the property, they aren't in a nice bed, all orderly and controlled. But, I do want to cultivate the bunch down the property line. So I'm thinking, mulch those, stake the canes and mark with a piece of twine and posts so I know where I "babied" when the snow melts. In the spring, I'll take up the mulch, top dress with compost and see how they produce fruit. And then compete with the birds... and the bears.....
As I've said, I also want to plant a variety of golden raspberries, such as "Fall Gold". According to all the literature, it prefers drier soil, well, we sure have that! It likes partial sun, we have that, and medium nitrogen. I can do that.
The question is, where in the backyard should it go? I'm thinking the side of the yard that we have a neighbor on. Because the other side will eventually have chickens.
I'm looking into growing forage for my eventual-chickens, but it won't be raspberries!
No berries for chickens!

Stay warm!

It Is The Age of Doing

I read a lot of blogs, but the ones that I tend to return to  time and again are the ones the authors try and live their truth. They DO.  There is much merit in ideas and theories but after a time, we have to get off our behinds and do something with those ideas. Whether it's to "beat the rush and collapse now" as the ArchDruid suggests or to start preserving, recycling and de-cluttering, we need to stop talking about it and start doing.
We here are following my own advice. We are de-cluttering, even though it's frightening, enlightening and blatantly shocking sometimes. (Note to self: de-clutter more often than once every dozen years)
When I first started planning on growing our own food, I learned all I could about season extension. But as I've been comparing the overall weather and temperature of the new homestead to where we live now, I find that I've neglected a very important factor in food production. Drought.

drought |drout|
noun
a prolonged period of abnormally low rainfall; a shortage of water resulting from this.
• [usu. with adj. ] figurative a prolonged absence of something specified : he ended a five-game hitting drought.
• archaic thirst.

One of the ways we'll be dealing with drought is to store water in rain barrels. Over time, my Dad has been gathering the barrels and spouts, next comes the gutters and downspouts and screens to keep out bugs and other nasties. I'll be developing raised beds in which to grow our vegetables, instead of the traditional rows, because this will allow me to grow more intensively, rotate crops, grow green manure crops, grow sprouts for the chickens and even put a temporary chicken pen over temporarily fallow beds. I'll be able to cover the beds in case of frost, marauding birds or excessive sun, as well as keep out the friendly rabbit.

An important element of any homestead, I'm learning, is drainage,  whether it be in the garden or the septic leach field. I mention this because last week, I had an epiphany. The last time I lived on our mini-homestead, I didn't need to worry about the infrastructure of our place, my parents worried about that. But life has changed us and our circumstances. Now I need to know how well our land drains. I need to learn how the septic system works, where it is and how to manage it. I need to learn not only about this but about so many other things, and then I need to make the management of the homestead a working part of every day, while I learn about all the other things I haven't realized that I don't know yet.
I need to learn, to do. I need to do what it takes to build on what is there, do what it takes to build our success year after year, and teach others by demonstration, on both my You Tube channel and this blog and my freelance writing.

Indeed, it falls to each one of us to learn how to survive the coming decline of our economies as well as society. It is the responsibility of each of us to learn how to lives with less, do more with what we have and pass on our knowledge of these things. In this way lies our best hope.

It is time to do something.
What will you do?

Thrift Store Score!!

I love books. I always have. I blame my mother for this. (Gives a wave to Mom)
I was an early reader apparently, and would read anything I could get my hands on. I never lost that as I grew up. I think I can safely say that I've rarely borrowed any less than 10 books at a time from our local library. After having lived here 11 years, I'm exhausting the library's source of homesteading, gardening and self sufficiency books. So, as much as I hate shopping, I do like to hit the thrift stores in search of classics. Classic farm books, classic knitting books that most knitters would fight one another for, and old Mother Earth News issues.
Yesterday I got sucked into all kinds of possibility with a 50% off sale at our local thrift store, and while I can usually find a mason jar or two, or even a piece of cast iron, this trip yielded some other items that are just as valuable.
I came across quite a few quilting books, but the four pictured above were more along what I needed. From left (the big blue book) is "A Second Quilters Companion". Published in 1981, it has patterns for applique, half-pieced, four patch, nine patch, borders and quilting patterns. Once I get moved and have some room to start quilting, I think this may become a go-to book. A quilting friend up north may find this useful too. I paid $3.99 for this book.

The book to it's right is "Let's Make A Patchwork Quilt", published in 1980 by Farm Journal Press. It was a birthday present to someone, judging by the inscription on the inside. (I love little glimpses like this into a book's history. It makes it feel so much more alive). The book covers a basic history of quilts, basic techniques, shows how do pieced work and then offers a practical small scale working model of those techniques; a pillow. Applique is discussed after that, as is the actual quilting. Advanced work is discussed after that in the form of advanced piecing, curves, and paper piecing. with dozens of patterns and color photos, it seems to be both inspirational and instructional. I paid $3.99 for this one as well.

Shown just below that book is "Trip Around The World Quilt", a glossy-covered book that bears an original price tag of $9.98, but I paid just $1.99 for. Inside, all instructions and patterns are printed in red ink, which I found curious. The premise of this pattern is to choose colours and patterns that appeal to you and sew them together in planned strips. The pattern emerges in how the placement of those colors and patterns are placed. While this particular pattern is not my foremost choice, it is one I want to make one day, and even if I decide to pass this book on, it's still a valuable resource, due to it's simplicity in instructions and diagrams.

To the left of that book is "Celtic Animals Charted Designs". I have been looking for this one for years. It was published in 1996, and it is stuffed with exactly what it says, charted designs. I'm sure one could use these charts in knitting, crochet, needlework or even beadwork. It's one of those resources that the crafty Celt should have on their bookshelf. This one was $1.99 as well.

The little gold book on top is "Celtic Design Maze Patterns", first published in 1993. This was pure indulgence on my part. I love ancient Celtic art, and I've been trying to work up the nerve to put a Celtic maze in my knitting one day. The authors briefly discusses the history and classification of the maze, gives examples, in line drawings and where these can be found and then goes on to include patterns that one can draw or reproduce. It's fascinating, to me at least.
I paid $2.99 for this one.

That's the bookish highlights of that trip. We also got a piece of blue and white Corelle-ware, as well as an a lid that fits another piece of Corelle-ware. What made me nearly squeal though, and I don't normally squeal, was a heavy stone fruit bowl; sand colored with red apples glazed on the outside. It is the typical fruit bowl one thinks of on a country table. Did I mention it was heavy? I've been looking for one of these for years. I was thrilled to find one and only pay $2.99 for it. Also in the "cool score" department, knitting needles! I got a bag of knitting needles, four pairs in all. For $4.99, we got sizes 5.5mm, 5 mm, 4.5 mm and 5mm. All sizes we didn't already have. We also picked up a bag of circular needles, 3 in total for $2.99. 4 mm with a 9" cable, 3.5 mm with a 21" cable, and a 6mm with a 10.5" cable. Although we've made trips to that store before, it never occured to me to see if they had any knitting supplies. But this time, I was drawn to that wall. With my freaky-shadow-person of course. Oh, haven't I mentioned her yet?
I had taken my iPod with intent to film the cooler parts of our little expedition, but I was being shadowed by a woman who scooped anything I looked twice at. No kidding. This is why I hate shopping. She was literally scooping whole shelves of books into a cart, scooping armloads of any material I looked at, dishes I stopped in front of were snatched off the shelf...I kid you not. When her cart was full, she grabbed a basket-pullalong that the store supplies, and she filled that! Even when we went to find pajama bottoms for the boys she followed us! I wanted to go all warrior on her, but my gentle, patient partner was of the opinion that we would lose freaky-shadow-person soon enough.  Well, not soon enough for my liking, but eventually she found someone else to stalk.

So, thrift stores can be a great resource if you have the patience, the time and a list of the things you'd like to find. On our list is always cast iron, a bread box, mason jars, homesteading books, knitting supplies...you get the idea. Make your own list of things you'd like to find for your home, raw materials such as piping, cloth, tools, whatever it is you'd like to lay hands on but are not comfortable paying top dollar, add it to your list. Don't forget resources like books too. Toys, games, craft items...the list could be endless.

Evolve & Change

I don't think of myself as an extremist. I try not to shout "the end is coming" from the rooftops.
But I do believe it's coming. Not the end of the owrld, but the end of our age of convenience, luxury and laziness.
The end of taking a hummer to the grocery store and spending more on gas than we do on food for our families. The end of sports figures who earn in one year what I will not see in ten; to play a game. A game.
There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people playing baseball who get paid enormous amounts of money...to play a game. Same with football and basketball. Take a guess at what Michael Jordan earned in his prime.
$31.3 million. That's before his $47 million in endorsements.
I see the end of that kind of income for a basketball player. Even a really good one.

The price of gas being what it is, we have already seen a huge number of people start to examine the way they get around. There are a growing number of people who have no choice but to use public transportation because they cannot afford a vehicle. The maintenence, insurance, and repairs are all more than the monthly income; and that is BEFORE the gas is pumped into it!

There are folks who see the way the world is "progressing". Some of us are learning how to be a little more self-reliant. We're learning how to make our own bread so that when it costs more than is reasonable, we have an option. We're learning how to make jam so that we no longer need to run to the grocery store across town where it is cheapest. We are re-learning the fine art of family fun night, we are teaching ourselves the crafts that may one day prove useful. Why pay $20.00 for a scarf when you can knit one for a $10.00 investment in needles and yarn? (Remember, those needles will pay for themselves again with the next project.) Some of us are learning how to grow lettuce, carrots and radishes in an apartment so we are not forced to pay $10 for produce from the grocery store the next time we want a salad.
Some of us have gone even further and are learning how to survive.

How to build a fire and keep it going. How to build our own homes. How to grow fruits and veggies that we can put by and ensure our families will eat during the winter. Some are even learning how to raise chickens so they have fresh eggs. Some are learning how to build with what nature gives them, like trees and stone. We are learning how to install solar panels so that our families experience little discomfort when the power goes out as it did on August 14th, 2003. I can tell you that many of my neighbours had no way of cooking their dinner that night, and many were lured to my patio by the smelling of cooking bacon. More than a few were shocked to see me happily making bacon, eggs and toast for dinner! An investment in a barbeque two years before and cast iron pans changed our menu possibilites dramatically. Because I knew that anything can happen.

Our world might not end anytime soon, but I do know that it's changing. I see it in our weather patterns, our rising cost of living, and the many ways we are dependent on someone else to provide our food.
It's time to change that while we still can.