1st year homestead

Tami and I want to have a house with enough land for a small homestead (not too small though). I am not sure exactly where or when this will happen but I am starting to figure out a plan on the key things that I want to start with. As long as we plan on being at the same house for  at least 5-10 years then one of the first things that I want to do is put in a couple trees. Apple, pecan, definitely a sugar maple, and maybe a couple others. I will definitely have to balance the cost of getting an older tree with the benefit of getting fruit from the trees earlier.

At the same time I would be looking at what animals to start with. A couple mature egg laying chickens would probably be my first choice. It would be a quick start with immediate results. Goats and bees are pretty high on the list too. Bees would be nice because they are not too high maintenance and I love honey. Goats on the other hand would be nice for milk. However that is a whole other level or work and overhead.

Decisions, decisions.

Preparing for Frakenstorm

With Hurricane Sandy on the way and a massive cold storm front moving in from the west the entire east coast is about to get slammed hard. It is predicted that there could be 1 billion dollars of damage. Millions are expected to loose power for at least a couple of days. Many staples and things like D batteries and flats of water have disappeared from store shelves.

Fortunately our cupboards are already full and we have several flats of water.
We are currently in the process of freezing ice cubes and blocks of ice in plastic cups. Before bed tonight I plan on filling all free space with water bottles to increase the thermal mass.

I pulled as much of my garden inside as I could and harvested most of what was left outside. So half of our kitchen is currently filled with plants. Even if the rest doesn't fare well, even though I think it will, it is at least near the end of the season so it is not like I will lose all that much.

Humble enough to learn

So this weekend we went camping with our church. In the morning we took the cub scouts on a short hike. About half way through one of the scouts pointed out that there was something climbing on my jacket. So I decided to show off the spider to the rest of the boys. That is when I was informed that it wasn't a spider.

One of my scouts knows more facts at 10 then I think that I may ever know. He informed me that it was actually a harvestman or more commonly known as a Daddy Longleg. They are an arachnid but not spiders.

I am not above learning from anyone who has something to teach. Even if they weren't born when I started high school.

Fried Chicken Mix

.25 cup flower
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp onion salt
.5 tsp italian seasoning
Enough water to make it like a like a thin pancake batter.
2 chicken breasts cut up into chunks
Enough oil to fry it up

Enjoy!

Frozen Hash Browns

I love hash browns. They are wonderful. Unfortunately they seem to take a lot of time to make so they get relegated to being a weekend only dish. I have thought about just buying the preprocessed stuff from the store but at the same time I like making it myself. So I finally found a recipe that lets me cook up hash browns faster and at the same time make it myself.

Choose your amount of potatoes.

Bake them in the oven for 1-1.5 hours at 350º F.

Take them out and let them cool completely (do not rush this step, I did)

Peel and grate them like normal

Place on a cookie sheet with parchment paper and stick in the freezer.

Cook like you would with any normal frozen hash browns.

I was a little impatient and tried to grate them too soon and found that they just crumbled into little chunks. When they were actually cool I was able to gently grate the potatoes. I think that if I cooked them a little shorter too that they may be less crumbly. I would like to have it so that I could use the kitchen aid grater attachment so that I could do 5-10 pounds all at once with very little effort. Next time I will see if I can make that work.

By the way I tried to turn the half that crumbled into mashed potatoes, it sorta worked.

Re-Learning Biology

So I took Biology twice. Once in middle school and then once again in high school. Neither time did I really enjoy it. There was a lot to memorize, there was very little math for me to excel at, and the idea of dissecting  stuff really just did not appeal to me at all. No here I am ten years later kicking myself for not trying to learn biology a little bit more. As I am starting to garden and have high hopes for having a variety of animals I  figure that it could be important to have at least a little more that a rudimentary understanding of how it all works together.

Thanks to the wonders of technology and libraries I checked out Biology for Dummies and a Basic Biology textbook and have started to teach myself biology again. I am finding that it is still just as hard as it was ten years ago but at least this time I am a little more motivated to learn this time around. I know that I am not retaining about three fourths of it so far but I am hoping to retain more as I go through the second book (and probably a third or fourth book after that).

I guess that this all started when I tried reading a botany textbook at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Botany but found that I could not understand every fifth word or so. I at first tried looking each one up but then I did not understand the definitions much better than the original word. So I decided that I had to back to the basics and start with Biology 100. Sometimes that is what is needed to actually understand something.

PW County Farm Tour

About a week ago Tami and I went on a county farm tour. We visited 6 farms and had a wonderful time meeting lots of different people and learning a little more about the local agriculture and what we want in the future. The tour included Evergreen Acres, Yankey Farm, Blue Top Farm, Clover Meadow Farm, LynnVale Farm and Studio, and Oakwood Farm. Each one was unique in its own way but we loved it all.

Evergreen Acres is primarily a Christmas Tree farm with rows upon rows of White Pine, Norwegian Spruce, and Scotch Pine. They also have pumpkins, corn, tomatoes and squash. It takes around 10-12 years for a Christmas tree to grow to selling size.

Yankey farm is primarily a pick-your-own pumpkin and corn farm. They also had several local beekeepers there with a display hive and a bunch of equipment for people to show. I spent about 20 minutes talking to a relatively new beekeeper. His first season only produced about 5 quarts of honey from his two hives, but this season produced 50+ quarts. Hobby bees are not a cheap way to get honey but it definitely seems very rewarding.

Blue Top Farm is a horse stable. Definitely not the route that I want to go in the long term, but I do love to be around horses. They also had a couple goats and a small pen of chickens. That is exactly what I want. I wouldn't mind having a horse, but if I do have a horse it will be a horse for working on the farm.

Clover Meadow Farm is an Alpaca farm. First of all I had no idea that Alpaca wool was SO SOFT. Alpaca yarn is softer than any baby yarn that I have ever felt. That being said, Alpacas are apparently one of the more expensive farm animals to buy. It is no longer legal to import them so it is necessary to purchase them from the relatively small US herds. Before the market crashed a couple years back, the average breeding female was selling for about $20,000. That is crazy. The prices fortunately have come down quite a bit over the past five years and you can get a small start up heard of 8 for about $10,000 now. I am not sure if I would ever consider getting Alpacas to breed but a couple of the cheaper neutered males for wool production has definitely crossed my mind.

LynnVale Farm and Studio is a flower farm and art studio. They sell their flowers to a variety of local florists and to people for special occasions. It looked like they had also did a lot of photography and some paintings in their studio.

Oakwood Farm was the last place that we visited. It is a small experiment farm funded by a grant from the County Water and Soil department. They are trying to experiment with different ways to improve local farming techniques that could help local farmers. Their focus was on horses and the two main things that they were trying to do is reduce animal waste runoff and build up, and also set up a rotational pasture system that reduces the need for feeding the animals purchased hay.

It was an incredibly educational experience that I would suggest to everyone. I realize that most people cannot come to this farm tour but you would surprised by the number of farmers that are happy to give tours if you just ask. Find a farmer and learn about the world around you.

Balcony Garden

So as fall starts to really sets in here in Virginia I am starting to harvest the last things from my garden. Successes this year include swiss chard, oregano, green onions, seranos, and basil. Our tomatoes did so-so, but I think they did not have enough room or light. I may try to move the strawberries into the baskets next year or maybe some herbs. I am love having a garden and cannot wait till I can have a much much larger garden.

Mac and Cheese

About 8 years ago Kraft decided to make Mac and Cheese even easier to make than it already was. So they included directions on how to make it in the microwave on the classic blue box. Then they realized that this was such a good idea that they started selling it in individual sized portions for about the same cost of the normal boxes and stopped printing the microwave directions on the classic boxes. I am sure that this was intended to force people to buy the more expensive smaller servings if they wanted the convenience of using the microwave. However the joke is on them since I still remember the directions.

In a large microwavable bowl add the noodles and 1 3/4 cups water.  Microwave for 3 minutes and stir. Repeat 2 more times to make total cook time 9 minutes. Then add the usual 4 tablespoons of butter, 1/4 cup milk and cheese powder.

Archery Range

It has been at least 10 years since I actively practiced my archery skills. I decided that it was time to change that. This is why I set up an archery range at Tami's parent's place. Their place is on about an acre (maybe more) and there is nothing but trees behind the property. So I took a couple boxes from our move and piled them up to give a good target.

Unlike the traditional techniques that every scout learns at camp I am trying to learn how to shoot like the bowyer Tom Turgeon. I also plan on making my own bow at some point in the future. It does not seem like that it would be too complicated, but I would want to use the correct tools to make it easier. That means I need to wait a little bit until I can get everything. So until then I will practice shooting while I am out here.

For more info check out http://www.boisebowsandarrows.com/home

Craigslist

I realize that this is something that most people are rather familiar with even if they have not used it. You should seriously consider using it if you have not used it and ever need to make a purchase of something that is a little more expensive but is either durable, or will only will be rarely used. In the past few weeks I have picked up a craftsmen scroll saw, a Ryobi miter saw, and now a router (its out in the car and I have not seen the brand name yet). A new Ryobi miter saw is 120. A Craftsmen scroll saw is also usually 120. Fixed base routers with router tables start around 140 or so. So to get everything new it would cost me about 400 with tax. Now of course everything I have got is used, the scroll saw is old as is the router. And the miter saw is missing it's saw dust bag.  Nonetheless those are rather minor things considering the grand total I have spent so far is $60.

It takes time to grab great deals like this. I spent about 3 months looking at miter saws until I found one that was cheap enough that I could not say no. So it takes a little bit of patience but it can pay off. Be careful of lemons as you search for the diamonds in the rough. Next on the list may be a Kitchen Aid if I can find something for a good deal.

Community Supported Agriculture

CSA's are not a new idea but they have changed over the years. It used to be that a group of people would get together, buy some land, and then hire a farmer to tend the land and provided them with fresh produce. Now it is more often a farmer who owns land already that will sell "Shares" of his or her crop. This way any family can basically pre-purchase all of their vegetables and sometimes fruit, eggs, honey, and on occasion meat.

There are both pros and cons to a system like this. Some of the major pros include being organic, being local, being fresher, and getting to try new veggies. Some of the major cons include having vegetables that you will not eat, having a bad growing year (you are accepting the risk along with the farmer), and having to learn to eat what is locally in season.

We are currently looking at a CSA from a farm about 30 miles from here that has a pretty good variety of food including some fruit, but no honey, eggs, or meat. The thing that is drawing us to them the most is that if you are willing to come to the farm at least 12 out of the 22 weeks and help pick then you get everything at half price. Not only that but we will also get the opportunity to learn some of the tricks of the trade. And by we I mean Tami since it is only on Wednesday and Sunday mornings (but hopefully I will be able to go at least once sometime).

Check it out in your area.
http://www.localharvest.org/
http://www.bountifulbaskets.org/
http://www.eatwild.com/