Our Homesteading Diary 7, 2004
Oldest entries are at the bottom, newest entries are at the top.
12/18/04: Our Christmas tree is up & decorated. The Christmas village is set up on 14 feet of tables in the living room. I'll be posting photos of our "real-life" Christmas village from the holiday pages. He fleshed out the deer hide from that deer, and we put it in a salt/alum tanning solution. We also left the fur on. The skin side has turned a beautiful bone white. Once we rinse the tanning solution out, we'll hang it up to dry, then work it until it is soft enough to cut & sew. Eventually, the hide will become a new "possibles" bag for his black powder equipment and a new knife sheath for his hunting knife.
12/03/04: First deer is hanging in the tree out front tonight. We have 3 Chihuahua puppies and 7 Pomeranian puppies for sale for this Christmas season. We will have to butcher the hog soon, and we have chickens to butcher also. Will be working on getting the living room rearranged this weekend to get my Christmas village put up.
11/20/04: We are in the middle of deer season now with only a few days left to go. So far, it's still up in the air as to who will take the first deer on the mountain. Everybody has tags, but no deer yet. The weatherman is saying wet snow by Wednesday evening, just in time for Thanksgiving. I have had pneumonia again, but not as bad as last year.
11/12/04: A few days ago, the blower motor on our outdoor wood furnace stopped blowing air. We got in touch with Scott Bradley, the local dealer for Li'l House. We ordered a new one yesterday. It got here today! We are very impressed with the way Scott handled our problem, his prompt phone call to us, and the very fast delivery of the parts we needed. If we had thought to filter the dirt through the cold air return, it probably would not have went out. When Drone took it apart, it was packed with dirt! It just never dawned on us to do that. The service was excellent, and just another reason to go with (or stay with) Li'l House. :) The trip to Columbia went well. We saw our local doc today. Drone's broken foot is on the mend now with the infection cleared up.
11/9/04: We'll be making a trip to Columbia tomorrow, to see a hematologist. Things just on hold right now, as Lee has had a broken foot for the last few weeks. We did bring many of our plants in, to include our mint plants and parsley, comfrey, and a few others. I set some beside the wood furnace in the screen porch, but not sure how they will do out there. The tobacco plants have done well, and should go to seed next year, I guess. I need to get the Jerusalem artichokes moved. I am wondering if my begonias will come back where they are next year, or if I should bring them & the impatiens in and put them in pots for the winter.
10/31/04: Here it is, Halloween again. The campout went well. Lee gave some butchering classes (demonstrating on chickens), and we canned chicken for our canning classes. It's raining steadily here. That might mean no trick-or-treating. Cindy was going to come & pick the munchkin up, but candy has been coming to him here since Friday. So, I don't think he will miss trick-or-treating. Last year, it was cold out, and we just had a party here for the kids.
10/15/04: Grandbaby #14 was born today at 7:23 a.m. Alyssa Ann weighed 6 lbs 6 oz also, and she was 19.25 inches long. Shaleen & Glenn named their son Draven Zane.
10/10/04: We have grandbaby #13, as of 10/09/04! At 5:16 p.m., we welcomed another baby boy into the family. He weighed 6 lbs, 6 oz and was 20 inches long. They have not named him yet, but I will post photos as soon as they do. :)
10/7/04: Jacob's Cave is over again until next spring. We took approximately 280 chickens up and came home with around 40. We also brought home 3 bronze turkeys, 1 tom, 2 hens, to go with our bronze hen. Maybe next June we can take turkeys and geese for sale also. Our next project will be giving a canning class at a campout the weekend of Oct 15th, which will include a lesson in butchering chickens and canning them. That ought to be fun. Have been working on booklets for that and getting the camper ready to go again.
9/28/04: We've been getting ready for Jacob's Cave. That will be this coming weekend, but getting ready has kept us busy. We will be taking around 200 chickens, plus some puppies (a few of Shanna's Sheltie pups, a few of Shawn's Minipin pups, and one of our Chihuahua pups), also books & other miscellaneous stuff. Also can't wait to see all the other stuff for sale. This fall, we are taking the riding mower & wagon up, so I'll be able to see more of all the stuff for sale. That place is huge, and I am just not up to walking it anymore. We are also taking Lexi (our granddaughter) and Isaiah, so they can keep each other entertained. Hope to see you there!
9/17/04: We have sold all our puppies except for 1 Chihuahua male. Shawn still has 3 Minipins left, and Shanna still has 3 sheltie pups left, but we are down to one little pup until new litters are born. Hopefully, we will have some Christmas puppies for sale. We are looking forward to Jacob's Cave in a few weeks. I still have tons of boxes to go through between now & then. We will also be taking all of his incubator chickens up there (approximately 200 chickens) for sale. So, hopefully, that will go over well. Other than that, we will be taking books & rummage sale items up to sell also.
9/11/04: Our pantry is very full. We actually had to go buy more new jars this year, which we will use when canning meat later. We will also probably be doing more apples later on. We put up a lot of fruit juice this year, and have Damson plums in the freezer. We'll be making jelly & jam later on when it gets cold. We have dehydrated over 30 lbs of onions to put by. We'll be giving a private class on canning next month at one of our campouts. We'll be talking about food preservation in general, but the class will mostly be about canning by means of water bath or pressure. In the meantime, we've been putting class materials together for that. We will be harvesting our mint pretty soon to dry out and keep for flavoring for this winter. We have had good luck with the mint this year, and it has grown a lot.
8/25/04: We are finally getting all the produce done up from last week. We still have 9 boxes of tomatoes to go yet, though. We have tons of juice, sauce, whole tomatoes, & even made catsup. The catsup has to age for a few months, but all in all, I think it's cheaper to buy. Started out with a 5-gallon pan of peeled & cut tomatoes and ended up with 5 1/2 pints of catsup after it cooked down. We have dehydrated 2 loads in the Excaliburs, trying to get them dry enough to grind into tomato powder. Still working on that, though. When you take them out, they seem dry enough, until you let them cool off. Don't know if they draw moisture back in while they are cooling or what. Have dehydrated several loads of cantaloupe & watermelon also. Mmmm Mmmm. We have been asked to supervise a canning class the end of Sept/beginning of Oct at a campout. That should be fun.
8/9/04: Hectic around here, as usual, in the summer time. We had to make a 2-day trip out of state for a family emergency. Then, when we got back, Gramma was sick, so she is in the hospital now. In between, have been trying to can produce. Whew.. As much as I hate cold and snow, things sure seem to slow down a bit in the winter.
7/23/04: The roses are doing well. My aloe vera plant has gotten huge. It is getting ready to bloom. Planted some sedum on top of the long stump out in the island, and it is growing over the top as we wanted it to. It looks pretty neat that way. He intends to do some chainsaw carving and make the other one into a bench. We had planted 3 tires for Isaiah, one with pumpkin seeds, one with cantaloupe, and one with yellow watermelon. There is a pretty good sized cantaloupe on and more forming. The pumpkin has small pumpkins forming, and the watermelon is starting to form small melons also. I was surprised at how well they have done, as we haven't done much with them, other than water them after we first planted them. The cherry tomato plants in planters have done well also. We go out & pick a handful every so often. They don't usually last long enough to make it to a salad. The flowers in the stone bed out front have really taken off. The ones on the east end have far outgrown the ones on the west end. I wasn't sure if it had to do with the amount of sunlight or he says it is because the cat keeps digging in the west end. I have lost 2 of my stevia plants, but the one that's left seems to be doing well. Don't know what happened to the other two plants. I have some seeds still and may try germinating them in small peat containers to transplant to larger containers this fall and put under the grow lights this winter. We had gotten a very large incubator at Jacobs Cave, and he has been hatching chicks for 3-4 weeks now. By the fall, we should have plenty of chicks to take back to Jacobs Cave.
7/12/04: This year is more than halfway over already. In May, we hosted an OCH campout, which was fun. CL brought us tons of plant starts, seeds, books, and magazines. In April, we went to Bakers Creek Spring Festival, then went to Jacobs Cave in June. Things have been busy and hectic, as usual. I had surgery about 3 weeks ago and feel like I have gotten behind in everything. I did take about 10 days before I went to the hospital to try and make sure paperwork & things were caught up here beforehand. Now, it's all behind again. Our cherry tomatoes are doing well.
We do have our 2 rose beds planted with full-sized rose bushes and miniature roses too. They are all blooming already. We have giant marigolds blooming in the big tire flower and smaller French marigolds in one of the tire beds. Tobacco is growing well. We got those plants at Bakers Creek this spring. Cindy brought me home some yellow lilies and blue lupines from Maine, which we put in pots and they are also doing well. We planted begonias, impatiens, and petunias in the top stone flower bed out front and transplanted 2 kinds of hostas from the puppy pen out to the bottom stone bed. Planted sweet grass out by the cabin and white sage into a planter. Got some Stevia plants at Baker Creek and have those in the house in pots, also blue bugleweed and several other plants from CL during our campout in May. Becky down the road gave me a gorgeous red hot poker. He planted that out in the island for me, then I got some nice dragon's blood sedum plants at Jacobs Cave and planted those in the top of one of the tall tree stumps out in the island. Also got some nice variegated philodendron starts from the doc's office and some spider plant starts at a yard sale. I have those potted too.
We Got some grow lights from Shawn to use in the house this winter on the Stevia and other stuff that needs to be in the house during the cold. We have peppermint, spearmint (from West Virginia), chocolate mint, and mountain parsley absolutely growing like wildfire in plastic tubs outdoors. I put that big aloe plant outdoors too, and it has grown a lot. We sold some raspberry canes up at Jacobs Cave. We have a bunch of pots full of purple wisteria and red trumpet vine also, plus Russian olive, Japanese quince, and forsythia. We also sent home purple lilac starts and white lilac starts home with CL and Taylor.
Summer has so far been fairly cool and wet, but this week it has finally gotten hot. So, the landscaping is coming along nicely. Fencing projects are in the works. Remodeling is in progress. We got some more nice new kennels for the puppy pen. The jungle is coming along slowly but surely. We also have new Chihuahua and Pomeranian puppy litters (1 of each).
4/18/04: We have tomatoes planted in containers. We have some of our watermelon planted. We have put 3 peach tree starts (kindly given to us by a nice friend) into individual pots. We used his hints to try and start an apple tree using the same method, so we'll see if that works for apples as well. We also took 4 starts off the plum trees to root in the same way. Lee filled up pots and started grape vines to rooting in new pots too. AND he cleaned up the whole front yard, filled the huge flower pot with dirt for me. Now, I just have to figure out what to plant in it. He weeded flower beds, raked leaves, and in general made a very nice day of hard work for himself. It sure looks good, though. Have figure out where to plant our new rose garden, so now we are just waiting on the rose bushes to arrive. :) Also trying to figure out spots for Jerusalem artichokes (also a gift from the same friend). I also repotted a huge aloe plant (gift from another friend) and took some starts off that for the kids. We have definitely been busy, but having fun. I got the "before" photos of the jungle posted too.
04/13/04: Ah, the folks of Bumblebee Acres have finally made their move! Last Thursday, they finally spent the night on their new homestead! Will be posting photos as soon as is humanly possible. They are busily squaring away fencing and arranging critters, etc. Soon, they will be coming after their Pyrenees in training that they have named "Tiny" (who is not very tiny at all). Life has been very hectic, as usual. We attended a 3-day campout over last weekend and had an absolutely wonderful time! We have been working on our terraces, reclaiming the jungle, and deciding what to keep and what has to go. It is starting to shape up, though. Also, on Old McCarroll's Farm, Shanna and Jessie have a brand-new well. We have photos of that to post too. Shanna has new Sheltie puppies too with new photos posted on the kennel pages.
The fruit trees are all in bloom, except the darned cherry trees, which once again did not make it through the winter. Most of our grape vines are doing well. We only lost one over the winter. Both of the gooseberry bushes did not make it, but we won't order from Mellengers again. They substituted different bushes than what we ordered without consulting us.. and those did not make it. But, Lee found a bunch of wild gooseberry bushes along the lake road, and we are just going to transplant some of those to where we want them. We have windflowers blooming out front right now, along with purple, yellow, and white violets, lilacs, and gorgeous tulips. We also have lilacs in back blooming and some very nice lilies, although the daffodils are done. The naked ladies or surprise lilies have not bloomed yet, though. The yellow forsythia, red Japanese quince (also known as fire bush or burning bush), and Russian olive are all colorful down the hedge row too.
03/28/04: Bumblebee Acres should be making their scheduled move on April 5th or 6th. YAY! We have several new projects for this year, in addition to the remodeling project underway now. We will be building a greenhouse, and starting our raised bed/landscaping project, using some existing terracing, and adding some new stuff, incorporating intensive gardening areas with pretty stuff too. We bought chicks yesterday, assorted bantam chicks and some goslings. It has been so nice out all week, it's hard to realize that we will still be having more cold weather.
02/27/04: It has been pretty nice out and fairly warm during the day here all week. Taxes are done for this year. We are getting prepared for the big remodeling job. We are replacing 4 ceilings, 2 floors, and some walls in one room, along with finishing up the plumbing. We actually went and picked out flooring for the 2 new floors (very pretty). The doe kids were all moved to the bigger pen today along with the Pyrenees pup in training. :) We have been changing and rearranging again, now that warmer weather has been creeping up on us. Time to go through closets and bins.. getting rid of all kinds of old STUFF. I am ready for spring, I guess.
02/15/04: We've had more snow, ice, and cold, but we are managing. The house is coming along. Lee is working on the plumbing this weekend. I have been working on the taxes and the website. Paul and Dianna have been working on their mobile, and plans continue for their move in April. It is coming along nicely. We have had 7 baby goat kids, 6 of them does! We finally got a doe out of Polly (our star milker), and we will be keeping her for sure. The buck kid went to our daughter, and 2 of the doe kids will be going to Paul and Dianna for Bumblebee Acres.
January 27, 2004: It has been an unusual winter so far. We had unseasonably warm temperatures, right up till Saturday, when it dumped ice, then snow on top of the ice. We have had more snow and ice since then also. It's nice to have plenty of dry firewood, a warm wood furnace, and plenty of food stocked up so we don't have to go anywhere in this weather if we choose not to. About time to start dreaming over the seed catalogues also.
