Tag Archives: homesteading

Chuck Wagon Triangle Bell (or how to call your kids to dinner)

Chuck Wagon Triangle Bell (or how to call your kids to dinner)

Contrary to popular belief a LOT of kids are still be raised in areas where they can go outside after breakfast and not be seen til they get hungry for lunch. They’re playing in fields and haylofts, snuggling their ducklings, picking up games of softball and hide and seek and doing all the things a lot of us did when we were kids. Whether you see them after lunch might depend on the weather, whose mom or dad has the best afternoon snacks or whether the pool in town is open. And after supper, they’re outside again. But where are they when it’s time to come in for a shower and bedtime?

chuck wagon triangle bell

Kids! Dinner’s ready!

My brother slipped up once after my mother marched around the neighborhood looking for him. “I didn’t hear you the first three times you yelled,” he said. Oh was he ever in troubbbble. Mum didn’t know she needed the Chuck Wagon Triangle Bell.

When we moved out to the woods and 45 acres of land the area our kids played in grew by miles. There’s a stream a third of a mile from the house with great trout fishing, a pond just a hundred miles from the house, thousands of trees to climb…you get the picture. We can yell only so loud for long before we’re hoarse. Save your vocal cords for better things. You need a Chuck Wagon Triangle Bell.

The Chuck Wagon Triangle Bell is loud! Neighbors a quarter mile up the road can hear the bell when I stood on the back porch ringing in the kids. They’re grown and gone now but the bell is still out there from spring through fall. When my husband is out of sight I can ring the bell and he knows it’s time for supper or there’s something he needs to attend to. He rings it when I’m away from the house.

Spring’s here! Try the triangle bell. It’ll carry further than your voice!

Homestead Planning – Water Supply

Water Supply

If you’re homesteading away from a public water supply you’re probably dependent on an electric water pump or people power. I was shocked the first time we didn’t have water after moving to the country. The idea of electricity and water being tied together had not entered my mind. It wasn’t like that back in the city. We had water no matter what when we lived in the city and  small towns. We could flush the toilet no matter what. We might have to suffer through cold water but we could wash up and wash our hair no matter what. It was so easy.

Let’s assume public water and a private well are not options or choices. Wells are a topic in itself. Drilled, pounded, hand dug, lined, blasting – it’s more than I know well enough to talk about intelligently. If you know the topic well enough to write about it we’d love to talk with you!

Our water pump depends upon electricity to work. Sixteen years ago I said we’d install a hand pump “soon” so that we’re never out of water, but it hasn’t been done yet. Our well cap is in the basement (not cellar) so freezing won’t ever be a problem. If we had a pump outdoors it would have to be frost free. Our high daytime temperature later this week (first week of January) is going to be below 0*F and our frost can easily reach four or even six feet deep. If you’re using a frost free pump, also called a hydrant, you’ll need to know how deep to lay the pipe and how to take care of it during especially cold spells.

5 gallon bucket, homestead, water supply

5 gallon bucket

If your water source is close you can carry water in five gallon buckets. Five gallons of water and the bucket weighs just under 45 pounds. You’ll get your exercise and build muscle at the same time. This is best done in a stream or river that will provide water pressure through a hose, or by using a generator. Dipping water can stir up silt, mud and other impurities from the bottom and edge that you don’t want in your water supply.

A small gas powered generator can be used to pump water from bodies of water. Be sure to check local and state ordinances. It isn’t always legal to pump water from ponds, streams, rivers or lakes. We pipe water from a stream into our camp. The pressure from the running water determines the water pressure inside. We use the generator to pump water into a 50 gallon black barrel on the roof to have solar heated hot water from spring through fall. The water gets very hot from late spring until the end of September and has to be mixed with cold for showers and dishes.

water supply, rain barrel, rain water collection, collecting rain water

Collecting rain water is a tried and true method used for years.

Rain water is a well known and popular method collecting water. It’s illegal in some areas so be sure you can do this before you put your barrels and buckets out. Rain barrels can be connected so that fresh water is collected in the barrel farthest from the spout used to drain water out.

CSGNetwork has a handy water usage calculator that will help you determine how much water you use in a day. You might be surprised and how big a water supply you’ll need, and how much more careful with your water supply you’ll want to be. According to the calculator I use about 70 gallons a day. Wow! That includes one five minute shower, four toilet flushes, five hand washes, hand washing dishes once a day, and a load of laundry a week. The United States Geological Survey estimates 80 to 100 gallons of water per person per day is used in the US. Water can be a lot of work.

water collection, natural spring, homesteading

Crystal clear water but it’s very shallow.

Natural springs might be an option for your water supply. This natural spring over flowed during torrential rain in early November. The tree took enough soil with its roots to make a small area where the water now collects. The water is crystal clear but hasn’t been tested. Be sure your water supply is safe. Deer, bear and smaller wild animals have been drinking here which also means they might be defecating here or very nearby.

Active, bubbling natural springs often stay open in winter. I have one about 200 yards from my back door that is open even when we have five feet of snow on the ground. It will supply water in a pinch but it would be a lot of work to get it to the house.

You probably have options when it comes to your water supply. It’s not something to take lightly when you’re planning your homestead.

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.

Time Management Tips for the Homestead

I love reader questions. Did you know that? I love to open a reader’s email and see what they have to say. I’m going to answer a question here.

“You talk about having a lot to do this time of year but you haven’t told us everything you do. What do you do and how do you fit it all in?” ~Rhonda

Raspberries freeze well

Raspberries freeze well

This time of year feels like it’s busier than others but in reality, I’m probably feeling more rushed. Homesteading can be a full time job and if you’re already working a job, it can be stressful.

The first killing frost is hanging over our heads any time after the first week of September. It might be early or it might not happen until October. The first frost could come early and then we’ll be frost free for weeks. It’s too late for the tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and other warm season crops once they’ve been frost killed no matter how good the weather is after so there’s the rush to force the plants to produce.

The late raspberries are ripening and the wild blackberries are still going gangbusters. Making jam and jelly is simple but it’s time consuming. I have more time in the winter than right now they’re being frozen in a single layer on cookie sheets. I don’t think these berries make the best jam after they’ve been frozen but freezing them makes it easier to make jelly. They skins burst when they’re frozen so they let go of the juice easily as they thaw.

  • Tip: Freezing strawberries saves time during the summer. You’ll make thicker jam with less pectic and sugar and have juice for jelly when the berries thaw.
Deluxe Stainless Steel Food Mill

Deluxe Stainless Steel Food Mill

Apples don’t have to be sauced, jellied, pied or otherwise put up immediately. You have at least a few weeks, and sometimes months, to get them processed. I picked a bushel of apples one day last week. They were roasted another day and then stored in the fridge. On day three I put them through the food mill (if you don’t have a food mill, you need one). I warmed the apples turned applesauce on the stove, added sugar and spices, and hot water bathed the batched. It took a little time on each of three days but I didn’t have enough time in one day to do it all. Do what you can when you can and it will come together. A little time here and there resulted in 18 pints of sauce.

Salsa Verde Ingredients

Salsa Verde Ingredients: tomatillo, Jalepeno pepper, garlic. Missing – onion and cilantro, to be pulled and picked in a few days.

  • Tip: If your tomatoes are not ripening fast enough you can push a spade into the ground around the roots to stress the plants. Cut 12 inches from the base of the plant, severing the roots. A plant’s mission in life is to reproduce. You’ll speed up ripening this way.

The garden is still producing well. Tomatoes, eggplant, tomatillos, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, kale, cabbage – just about everything is still growing. It all has to be weeded, watered when we don’t have enough rain, picked, preserved or stored – you know how it goes with the garden. This morning I picked close to a half bushel of tomatillos for salsa verde. It’s also hunting season. I can’t put hunting in the freezer so move over berries and vegetables, the tomatillos are coming in. Tomatoes can also be frozen. I like having the warmth from the oven early in the morning on a chilly day as the tomatoes or tomatillos roast. An hour or two with the oven on replaces the small, hot, quick burning fire I usually build on a late fall morning.

  • Tip: When your pumpkins and winter squash start to get soft spots, clean them up and roast them first thing in the morning, then freeze the flesh. This is usually a mid-winter project when I start checking on vegetables stored in the root cellar.

Firewood is weighing heavily on my mind these days. It was delivered late so I’m rushing to get it split and stacked to dry. Best made plans and all, I couldn’t depend on someone when it came to firewood so I was stuck with making the best of a bad situation. It happens. I’m working on eight cords of beach, ash, maple, yellow birch and white birch. The hydraulic splitter makes the work a lot easier but it’s still not an easy job on a hot, late summer day.

  • Tip: Secure next year’s firewood supply now and ask that it be delivered in spring. We burn up to six cords a year. I buy eight cords a year which means we a year “off” now and then without the expense and work, and won’t run out of wood.

Pigs, ducks and chickens are growing out back. They’re turning grass, insects, weeds, food scraps and a few commercial pellets into meat that will feed my family. Portable fences and chicken tractors need to be moved daily. Two people moving fencing takes me a third of the time it takes when I have to do it alone. Ask for help.

When did the paint start peeling off the hen house? I swear it was fine yesterday. Or I was too busy to notice. I’m not sure it’s going to get painted before the snow flies. If there are a few extra dollars I might hire someone to do it for me. It would take someone who likes to paint less than a day to do it. It takes me more than a day to fumble through scraping and painting. We can’t always do it all. Remember when you first started to daydream of homesteading? It was so idyllic. You’d spend days outdoors in the beautiful weather doing your chores? The mosquitoes weren’t part of my daydream. Neither was heat rash. Rainy days would be spent inside, cooking and ready. Painting the hen house was not in my day dream.

  • Tip: Neighborhood kids are often willing to do some work if you pay fairly, and you might be surprised at how well they work. I pay by the job rather than the hour. I don’t want to pay for the time they spend taking selfies and texting.

Plan to use the oven early in the morning or later in the day to warm up the house. It can do its work while you’re doing something else.

  • Tip: The final muck out of stalls and pens doesn’t have to happen when the animals leave for slaughter. Give your attention to the work that must be done at time and get to the stalls, pens and the hen house before the ground freezes and you’ll be all set.

Do you have a time management tip to share? Please leave them in comments!

Vermicomposting with Worm Factory

Vermicomposting with Worm Factory

Peelings, cores, pea pods, junk mail, leaves – composting worms thrive on your scraps. Vermicomposting with Worm Factory is simple, takes up little space and is odor free. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans send 34 million tons of food waste to  landfills every year. More food is put into our water system and that then has to be cleaned out when food is put down the garbage disposal. That’s a lot of wasted food and a lot of unnecessary waste placed in our landfills and water. We can cut down drastically on what we waste with a little thought, and compost what’s left. “Waste” becomes compost with minimal effort on our part and becomes useful. Your plants with thank you with higher production when you incorporate worm castings into your garden and potting soil. Worm castings tea is a terrific fertilizer and can be used as a foliar spray. Your houseplants will thrive, too. I’ve found a few worms in my houseplants’ pots a year after re-potting. They contribute to keeping the potting soil healthy.

Red wigglers (Eisenia fetida)

Red wigglers (Eisenia fetida)

We’ve been using the Worm Factory 360 for six months. With three full trays of compost so far and a fourth near completion, we’re very happy with this system. It was easy to set up and takes only a couple of minutes a day to tend the worms. You shouldn’t feed your worms dairy, meat and citrus, and we recommend avoiding grass. Grass mats together, heats up quickly, and causes the worms to try to escape, or die.

Each Worm Factory comes with an instructional DVD, bedding and a scraper. The Quick Tips on the lid tells you what you can and can’t feed to your works, and how to manage the bin. It took about an hour to get it set up and add red wigglers (Eisenia fetida), the species of worms most often used for vermicomposting.

Leachate, the liquid produced by the worms and food, collects in the bottom tray. It is drawn off through the spigot to be used as fertilizer.

We have four Worm Factory setups on sale. You have a choice of three or four trays and three colors. You’ll want to choose the unit you need according to the amount of food you have to feed the worms. Red wigglers will adjust their reproduction up and down according to the amount of available food. If you have an excess of worms they can be used for fishing, fed to poultry and shared with friends. Even my goldfish get a few worms now and then. The Worm Factory 360 holds up to 12,000 worms. It’s perfect for a large family, people who cook from scratch (lots of peels, carrot tops and other whole food scraps).

Red wigglers migrate between trays.

Red wigglers migrate between trays.

If you’re leaving on vacation you give your worms a little extra food and forget about them. They’ll survive two weeks after their food supply disappears. They’re just that simple.

The worms shown in this photo are migrating between trays. They’ve almost finished off the food in the bottom. A few return to the bottom tray but most have moved to the top. You can see worms in various sizes. They’re reproducing well.

Worm Factory with 3 Trays

 

We offer four Worm Factory setups and they’re currently on sale. Shipping is free to the lower 48 states. For other areas, give Jerri a call and she’ll get the shipping costs for you. (928) 583-0254. Or, fill out the contact form with your shipping address and number of Work Factories you’ll order and we’ll get back to you.

The Worm Factory is made in USA and has a 10 year warranty on parts and manufacturing.

 

You can choose between:

 

 

 

 

The Homestead To Do List

The Homestead To Do List

It’s overwhelming sometimes, isn’t? Seems like the Homestead To Do list grows as fast as the weeds, is as hard to whittle down as it is to muck stalls in spring, and that it has a mind of its own. Leave it sitting on the table unsupervised and someone’s apt to add to it while you’re not looking.

These tips might help you keep the list from taking over every waking moment.

Separate your lists. One list for the homestead work, one for household work, one for kids. But keep control of how many lists you have. Combine what goes together naturally.

Homestead tasks include the garden, putting food up, firewood, livestock, poultry and similar tasks. Household tasks include laundry, dishes, floors, dusting, painting and decorating.

Homesteading To Do List

Control your lists, don’t let your lists control you.

A daily list is a big help to me. I end my day but writing tomorrow’s To Do list on a 3″ x 5″ spiral bound notebook that fits in my back pocket. I have tiny pens that fit in my pocket, too. A fresh list, in the order I should work, keeps me focused. I don’t have to clutter my mind trying to remember what else I need to do, and that helps me concentrate on the task at hand. Anything I didn’t accomplish today goes to tomorrow’s list if it still really needs to be done.

Here’s one for your to do list. Subscribe to Homesteader’s Supply newsletter.

The pen is a big time saver. Write down your additions. Again, if you’re not working to remember everything you’re better able to concentrate.

Be Seasonal. If you’re not going to get to certain tasks until winter don’t clutter your list with them now. I makes your list look and feel longer than it is. Make a note on a master list and forget about it for now.

Accept that your lists will probably never be empty. That’s a hard one. It’s a relief to cross items off the list. It must be a great feeling to not have a To Do list. I’m not familiar with that feeling. Lists evolve. They grow, shrink, change, get crumpled up and thrown away.

Set Time Limits. Set time limits. Be realistic, but aim to get the job done in a certain amount of time. It takes me one hour to weed the beans if I hustle. Keep moving and work efficiently.

Weather. Pay attention to the weather. I can weed the beans today before it gets too hot but I can’t put them on tomorrow’s list because it’s going to rain hard all day.

Do a good job. Doing a good job today means some items won’t be back on your list too soon. It’s worth the extra time and effort now even when it feels like a big burden during an especially busy time of year.

Be Realistic. I had beautiful perennial gardens on my list year after year after year. Weed. Plant. Weed. Prune. Weed. I’ve come to the conclusion that there isn’t time to raise pigs and poultry, have a half-acre garden, put up all this food, cut, split and stack the firewood, and have beautiful perennial gardens.

Control your to do list, don’t let your to do list control you.