Category Archives: Homestead Happenings

Sprucing up the Yard

Sprucing up the yard

I’m still at it! I’m still sprucing up the yard here and there as I get a little time. This weekend I spent time on the perennial gardens. With the garden rototilled and settling, I turned my attention to the perennial gardens. By the time I finished one of them became an expanded perennial garden with room for annual vegetables and flowers.

There’s so much work in setting up a homestead and making it our own that adding beauty can be lost in the shuffle. As good as it felt to have the garden prepared and ready to plant, working in the flower gardens was rewarding. It’s a small start to all that needs to be done to my new plots (remember that I’ve been here just over a year) but looking out the window this morning and seeing flowers that weren’t there 24 hours ago made me smile. Sprucing up the yard has had a fast return in smiles.

sprucing up the homestead, johnny jump ups

Johnny Jump-Ups

I moved Johnny Jump Ups, a self-seeding annual, to the expanded garden, right by the back porch. It was overcast yesterday when I uprooted the clump and divided them. Soon after I put down the shovel for the day, the sky opened up and poured on the newly transplanted flowers. It’s overcast and drizzling today and for the next two days, perfect weather for transplants to settle in.  Before the end of the season I’ll leave a few flowers instead of dead-heading and let them go to seed. Over the years the colors will change as the number of generations grow.

This peony survived transplanting and winter and established its roots well. It will take a few years to grow before it flowers. I divided one plant into three. When they fill in and blossom together they’re be beautiful. When I’m sprucing up the yard next year I’ll probably need to add support for the peonies. Or at least I hope they grow that much in a year.

sprucing up the homestead

Peony

This bleeding heart has been here for a very long time. It might have been one of the original plants in the perennial garden. It was overgrown, its root a massive, woody, hollow mess. There’s only one thing to do when it’s that bad – break it up with a spade, dig holes, amend the soil and split it up. I might have been a little too harsh. This and one tiny other shoot have come back. This is the original plant. So be it. It didn’t bloom last year and it might not this year but next  year, it will be beautiful again. I’ll weed this bed when the rain stops, and I’ll be looking for other plants that might still pop up.

sprucing up the homestead, bleeding heart

Bleeding heart

It was nice to find the chives growing. I use a lot of them in cooking, dips and on baked potatoes. I divided the clump, spread them out and will pass one section on to a friend when she visits later this week. I bought an oregano plant at a garden show but I’m not sure it’s going to survive. It’s out there and now I want to see what happens.

sprucing up the homestead

Pansies, waiting to be planted

I ran out of oomph by the end of the afternoon. These pansies are waiting for me. They’ll be just fine right there for a few days as long as I remember to take them out of the tray.

What’s growing in your perennial gardens? Are you adding annuals to fill space or because you like them?

Hunting Small Game

Hunting Small Game

We’re going to talk about hunting small game this week. We asked followers on Facebook what they’d like to read and/or learn about a while back and hunting small game was one of the suggested topics. Hunting was a given decades ago. If homesteaders wanted meat on the table they hunted because they didn’t have livestock to move with them when they settled on their land.

Hunting small game can provide meat on the table and it’s a means of keeping the pest population in check. Pests can do a lot of damage to a garden. Eliminating a pest, minimizing damage and providing meat is a win-win-win situation. Have you ever considered woodchuck stew? It’s been said that they taste best when they’ve been eating your best vegetable plants.

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hunting small game, hunting game birds, game birds, upland game birds

Red squirrel

Small game is generally considered to be small mammals and birds such as:

  • Squirrel
  • Hare
  • Rabbit
  • Woodchuck
  • Prairie dog
  • Grouse (partridge)
  • Chukar
  • Quail
  • Pheasant
  • Woodcock
  • Dove

Laws vary between states. It’s important to become familiar with your state’s laws to keep yourself out of trouble, keep yourself and others safe, and for the benefit of the animals you’re hunting.

What weapons are you allowed to use? Most hunters use firearms for small mammals. A .22 caliber rifle is large enough to do the job. It’s a small, light weight rifle with little “kick” and fairly quiet. It’s suitable for everyone learning to hunt and young hunters. A .177 air rifle might do the job for small squirrels though it can be tricky. You absolutely must hit your target precisely otherwise you’ll only hurt the animal. Winter is hard time to use a small rifle like the .177. Even when the air pressure is high, the pellet might hit a non-lethal area of the body, bounce off and roll away.

There are exceptions but birds are hunted with shotguns as a general rule. The smallest shotgun we use for bird hunting is the .410. It has a short range and is useful for small birds like dove, partridge and woodcock. It’s a great starter shotgun but will probably be outgrown quickly.

Next up is the .20 gauge shotgun for small birds. For partridge and larger birds we use .12 and .10 gauge. Large birds such as turkey and goose require heavier loads and longer shells to bring the birds down humanely.

You might choose a shotgun for small game. If I’m partridge hunting with a .20 or .12 gauge and happen to have a good shot at a snowshoe hare I’ll take the shot. I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a squirrel with a .410 as long as I weren’t too close to the squirrel. Place your shots well.

Tip  Read boxes just like you read a food label for ingredients. The box should tell you the gauge, length, FPS (feet per second, or how fast the shot travels), oz (ounce) shot, and shot on shotgun shell boxes.

Tip Bullet boxes for rifles are labeled similarly. Many manufacturers clearly label their boxes with the game the bullet is suited to. Study up. Start with .22 for hunting small game.

 

Injury and Illness on the Homestead

Injury and Illness on the Homestead

You’re fine one moment and the next you find yourself in a heap at the bottom of the cellar stairs. There’s a stomach bug going around and try as you might, the only thing you can accomplish for the next five days is sleep and maybe a shower. One minute you’re stacking hay and the next the hay is stacked onto of you. Injury and illness on the homestead are a fact of life.  Injury and illness on the homestead

Injury and illness on the homestead are scary thoughts . We try to be careful, especially when we live in a remote area or away from people, but accidents happen. We don’t plan on accidents but we can plan ahead of time for how we’ll deal with the consequences of injury and illness.

First Aid

Injury and Illness on the Homestead

Keep at least a basic First Aid Kit

Do you have a first aid kit? Everyone should have a small first aid kit with bandages, tweezers, and antibacterial soap. Please do follow the first aid kit link. It has a long list of items for injuries as well as illness. Adjust your kit accordingly. Injury and illness on the homestead

Frozen Meals

Chicken soup freezes well, and who doesn’t want a bowl of chicken soup when you’re not up to par. Soup, stew, cooked meats and vegetables – they all freeze well and are easy to warm up. Keep these meals simple. Simple allows kids and other busy adults to prepare a meal and eat well. If you’re the healthy person in a house full of sick people you’ll be busy enough without having to cook from scratch. After a while we’re usually willing to make whatever someone is willing to eat as their appetite returns. Having several frozen meals as options is a blessing.

Remember tv dinners? You can make them yourself with leftovers. Pie plates work well. You can freeze the entire meal in a pie plate covered in foil. Pull the meal from the freezer, pop it into the hot oven and rest while the meal warms.

Make sure your meds are refilled before you’re down to your last few doses. If you don’t let yourself get below a week’s worth of meds you’ll likely feel well enough to get to the pharmacy before you run out. Otherwise, give the person who’ll take care of your refills a few days to get to the pharmacy. Injury and illness on the homestead

Keep important phone numbers in an obvious place. Back in the day we kept phone numbers written on a piece of paper and taped to the wall beside the phone. Few of us have a phone on the wall these days. And of course, everyone who is old enough to use a phone (by age four) should know how to dial 911 and know when and when not to call 911.

Keep your cell phone with you if you’re at home alone or working away from people. You don’t want to sit at the bottom of the stairs without help, be unable to call someone when you are seriously ill, or unable to dial 911 when you’ve had an accident. Homesteading tends to push modern conveniences like cell phones off to the side but don’t dismiss this important tool.

Social Media Options – Join Us!

Social Media Options

Hello?  Hello?  Anyone here? Can you hear the echo at Facebook? Oh my gosh, it is quiet there. It’s like walking into an empty room. If you stop in would you please give us a like, forward something (especially blog posts!) or somehow let us know we’re not alone? Facebook is allowing only 4% of our followers to see our posts. Social media should be social, right?

Pinterest is very friendly when it comes to social media. We had a big rush of followers in November and we’re still working to catch up on following back. A good storm and a pot of coffee or tea will give us plenty of time to browse everyone’s boards, pin and follow back. Our community board, Homesteading with Homesteader’s Supply, is growing nicely. Wouldn’t you like to join us? social media

social media, homesteading newsletter

Click on the logo to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter

Our newsletter is sent out every Wednesday. We share tips, recipes and other information you won’t find on our other social media outlets. The latest blogs are linked to in the right sidebar in case you missed them.

We announce new products in the newsletter, answer questions and during the holidays, we shared family traditions sent by subscribers. It’s more than just a few links to blogs. We have great information in our newsletter.

You’ll find us on Google+, though honestly, we aren’t active enough there. Now that winter is here we’ll spend more time developing our circles.

We love Twitter! We’re always looking for new homesteaders, preppers and other like-minded people to follow on Twitter.

And of course, we blog! Homesteader’s Supply Blog. We’re working on a series on homestead planning. If you’re planning to homestead or already homesteading and looking for more information you should be able to find useful information in the series. We share recipes, tips, details on new items, homestead happenings and more. We participate in [NeighborWoods] with other homesteaders on Tuesdays. Would you like to guest blog or reblog? Get in touch! And please leave a link to your blog in our comments. We want to visit your blog, comment and build community.

Homestead Planning – Where Do You Want to Live?

Homestead Planning – Where Do You Want to Live?

The easy part of homesteading is deciding it’s the lifestyle right for you. The definition of homesteading has changed over the years. The first homesteaders had fewer choices and different decisions than most of us. Where do you want to live? What you need to live the lifestyle you desire has a lot to do with that decision.

What kind of area are you considering?

  • Remote
  • Small town
  • Tiny town
  • Just outside the city limits

Remote living is great if you don’t want to be near a lot of people. What’s your definition of a small town? Is it 1000 people? 400 people? 20,000 people? Be sure your real estate agent knows what you’re thinking. Do you want to live in town on a larger than normal lot? Maybe you’d be more comfortable on a small lot just outside the city limits. What you from the experience and as your lifestyle will help you decide where you want to live.

If you decide to settle in town you’ll want to know ahead of time that your lifestyle is acceptable in the community. If you want to garden, have laying hens and hang your clothes on the line to dry you probably don’t want to live in a community with a home owners association that forbids these activities. You’ll probably be able to find a town that allows these “old fashioned” activities.

suburban garden

You can grow food in a suburban garden by getting creative in where you plant.

What public services do you need? A few things to consider:

  • Schools
  • Fire department
  • Ambulance
  • Trash pickup
  • Recycling
  • Public transportation
  • Groceries and hardware
  • Gas

How close do you need to be to health care? That includes dentist, eye doctor, primary care provider, hospital, clinic, lab and specialist. Everyone tries to be safe and not get hurt but life happens. If you need stitches or heaven forbid, more than stitches, how far are you willing to travel? How quickly can an ambulance get to you?

Living remotely

How remote is too remote? Hundreds of thousands of acres of forest and a few houses – remote living.

Personally, I live 30 miles from a hospital in one direction, 50 miles in the other. The ambulance service could take 20 minutes to get here. If you’re going to live some distance from heath care you should at least take CPR and First Aid training.

Cell phone reception and internet service are something the first homesteaders never had to consider but being a huge part of every day life for  most people these days, do you want it? Need it? Are you going to be a hard core homesteader who disconnects? I’ve helped friends look for land many times and every single time, cell phone reception and the ability to not only get online but the need for high speed internet has been first or second on the list of necessities. Many homesteaders work from home now and really can’t do without dependable high speed access. If you don’t need it at your house but want access to it you can look into availability at the local library or small town mom ‘n pop store.

It’s a lot to think about. Make a list. What do you need? What do you want? What can you do without?

firewood

Homestead Planning – Cooking & Heat

Homestead Planning – Cooking & Heat

A young couple asked me the other day what we thought about in our homestead planning. I had to admit we hadn’t done enough homestead planning because we didn’t know what we were in for. It wasn’t long after we moved out here to the woods that an ice storm hit. We were fortunate to lose our power for only 12 hours while parts of the state were down for three weeks. We quickly learned that life is a lot easier when you have a way to cook a hot meal,  make coffee or heat water for tea and hot chocolate, and have water.

You’ll want to be able to stay warm. Electric heat is useless when the power goes out. We have a propane furnace (similar to natural gas) for backup if we’re away but it doesn’t work without electricity to start it. Our heat source is a wood stove. The power can go out all winter and we’ll still be warm.

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If you’re going to burn wood you’ll need a solid supply of firewood. As a general rule of thumb a well managed woodlot in the northeast will provide a cord of firewood per acre per year without over harvesting. That doesn’t mean you’ll cut one cord on each acre. Overall the amount will work out to that amount. If you don’t have a woodlot or don’t have time to put up your own wood you’ll need to secure it some other way. You might find deals on Craig’s List or local barter boards. Tree length wood in my area this year was $185 a cord in tree length. Wood that was cut and split and ready to stack was as high as $240 per cord. And advantage of wood stoves is their flat top. You can heat water and cook if necessary.

Starting a new homestead, firewood
Propane and natural gas heaters are popular. They are convenient and do a good job of heating a home if you an appropriate sized heater. Unlike firewood, they are clean. Pellet stoves provide the nice, warm, cozy heat of a wood fire without the mess and extra work. You might need a battery to run the blower on a pellet stove while the power is out.

We’re warm and have water now. A hot meal is a wonderful thing during a storm. One of our favorite meals during short outages is grilled cheese sandwiches cooked on the woodstove. If you need a good meal after shoveling snow, removing trees that have blown over or just plain want a good meal during a storm, you need to be able to cook properly. A propane or natural gas stove and oven will keep you well fed. Modern stoves and ovens usually light with an electric spark. You can light the burners with a match but the oven would have to be lit every time the temperature dropped. If you can’t or don’t want to do without an oven you should buy a stove with pilot lights, small flames that burn from the fuel source and ignite the oven and burners.

There are plenty of other things you need on a new homestead. These things will help you be less dependent on the grid and more comfortable when the lights go out. Losing our water was an eye opener and we spent the rest of the winter tightening up our homestead planning.