Successful Gardens Start in the Deep Freeze

Successful Gardens Start in the Deep Freeze

Jan 21, 2021 | |

Many successful gardens start in late winter. If you are serious about gardening, you know that the garden catalogs arrive in the dead of winter for our planning pleasure. While I like several well-established garden seed companies, you need to watch out for the hidden costs of their shipping and handling. It never fails, when I am the busiest or when we have a late bout of cold weather, that is just when the shipment of tender plants arrives. I have lost my share of plants that had to sit in water until the late freeze passed. I like...

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Common Homesteading Mistakes

Common Homesteading Mistakes

Jan 14, 2021 | |

Every homestead needs an orchard, right? I want to share what Jim and I learned during our first 10 years of homesteading. I can laugh about this debacle now, but it was a “hard row to hoe” when it was happening. Let’s talk about common mistakes beginning urban or rural homesteaders make when it comes to fruit trees. I am an expert on tree mistakes. This is probably the area that we wasted the most resources during our first attempts at homesteading. I couldn’t wait to start an orchard at our present location, as I had acres of open...

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Butchering

Butchering

Jan 7, 2021 | |

The only good thing in my mind about cold weather is that it means it is time to butcher! For you urban dwellers who read this blog, you need cold weather to process the all-natural pastured pigs that the farmers have raised all year into amazing sausages. Do you know what this breakfast treat is called? It starts out greasy so I drain it on lots of paper towels to eliminate most of the statured fats. Butchering has been a culinary art for centuries. When food was scarce, whether the meat was harvested from a forest or raised in a pigpen, nothing...

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Brooding Chicks in Winter, Part 2

Brooding Chicks in Winter, Part 2

Dec 17, 2020 | |

The ISA Brown chicks are now close to three months old and they are doing great! It has gotten down into the 20s but thanks to the heat lamps they are thriving.  I couldn’t resist adding some ISA Browns to my flock after I “chick-sat” for an urban homesteader who was imploring her city to pass an ordinance to allow Urban Chicken. Those girls laid an egg a day consistently and they were gentle, calm hens. The genetic composition of the ISA Brown is a closely guarded secret made up of genes from a complex group of breeds that includes the Rhode...

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Brooding Chicks in Winter, Part 1

Brooding Chicks in Winter, Part 1

Dec 10, 2020 | |

Guess what I brought at the Buchheit Ladies’ Night sale? Chickens! It was love at first sight so five pullets came home with me. They are ISA Brown, which is a hybrid type of sex link which means that when you buy pullets (female chicks) you will consistently get pullets. Sex link means when the chicks hatch, the roosters and pullets are easy to identify. But brooding chickens in October, are you nuts? NO! Fall and early winter are excellent times to brood chicks if you have the space and proper housing needed to maintain the correct temperatures for young chicks.  Many...

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