Tag Archives: Homestead

Honest labor

Yesterday, we had some additional labor on the ranch. Today, we did not – not much of a surprise, as the sheer physicality of much of what we do is not something that most people enjoy or can do, even if there is money involved. That’s fine: never underestimate girl power in the realm of Getting Things Done. Today we finished laying down the rest of the plastic around the front garden, reset the fence (and I added three more gates while we did this), started trenching for the edging around that, did finish the edging around the herb garden, weeded, hauled trash out, mowed, watered, cleaned up all the detritus and tools from our work, and generally worked from sunrise, took a break during the high temp hours, and continued until sunset. The moon rose as we put up the last of the tools.

It reminded me quite a bit of this.

Why? Because the females of the hive are the worker bees. That’s how it turned out for us today.

Speaking of bees, my sister and I will be taking a beekeeping course this Saturday, as I want to get things in motion to have bees next spring. I don’t each much honey straight off – I don’t drink tea any longer, and honey alone is a bit too acidic for my mouth – but I do a lot of cooking with honey, and other members of the family use honey on a regular basis, so I thought it would be cool to add that to the list of things we produce (or gather, as it may be) on the homestead. We would get the added benefit of having pollinators on the ranch so as not to have to rely so much on the incidental pollinators we get around here.

Butternut squash soup tonight for dinner, with onions and garlic right from the ranch. It will be just as good tomorrow for breakfast before diving back into the work that never ends.

No vampires here

Last October – after recovering quite a bit from having a chunk of lung removed during the summer – my sister and I planted out 35 pounds of garlic. This July, I pulled up two of the type we had put in.

This is the Lorz Italian variety. It’s a milder garlic, one we use more for roasting. We won’t be planting this one again this season, as we really do prefer the stronger garlics.

This is the Inchelium Red garlic, one we like quite a bit. It’s a stronger garlic, and around here, that’s what we like.

The third variety, Chesnok Red, is also a strong garlic with a bite, and that one was pulled in late August. It’s currently curing in the garage, awaiting processing.

The other two, though, are cleaned and in storage.

Why yes, we do go through a lot of garlic around here. Tonight’s use was in a batch of guacamole whipped up for taco night. Unfortunately, yours truly was at the dentist for three and a half hours for two crown preps and was unable to partake in dinner. Ow.

Work funnies: one guy saying he was going to “rethink his relationship” with us, because the application he installed once upon a time and apparently hasn’t updated at any point has a component that doesn’t like one of the usual and routine updates run for security reasons. After over seven years with us. Interesting method of dealing with it, instead of simply taking care of your site maintenance, something with which we could certainly assist. Another guy insisting that the server where his site is located is down constantly, when a review of the firewall shows he’s locked himself out via login failures to a password protected area. Under his own site. Aren’t you glad you don’t work in tech?

How the season flies

Spring was fleeting. Summer was long, and hot, and humid, and sweaty, and buggy. And vulture-y.

This guy was sitting quite calmly on top of one of the compost piles during one of the hottest days in the season. I suspect he was waiting for me to keel over from heat exhaustion, but I outlasted him.

More stuff to come about the summer season. There was a lot of weeding, lots of pickling, and the tragedy of tomatoes.

Banner day around here today in “real” work, as well: this morning, someone telling us to fix a problem at their ISP. This evening, someone calling us incompetent  – on facebook, no less, where naturally we can’t respond – and accusing us in a ticket of “deceiving” him because we didn’t read his mind about using a nonstandard mail format. Nice bookends to the day. Fortunately, not all of our clients are like that.

The first of many

This is a tomato variety called Stupice, started from seed on Jan 28, transplanted to the garden on March 5, first fruit April 4.

There are about 65 of this type of plant out there, some of which are already fruiting, which is about on track with its 56-60 day cycle from transplant. The next varieties we’ll be looking toward fruit (and which are already transplanted) are Glacier, Amish Paste, and an experimental variety sent to me courtesy of Shumway, seeded Feb 10, and transplanted on March 16. The next transplants to go in will be the Cherokee Purples, seeded on Mar 5, but already outgrowing their flat.

Early morning visitor

He is much less innocent than he looks.

This is why I overseed when I’m putting down pasture seed. In the patch this guy was grazing, there is buckwheat, clover, and alfalfa. Since he can’t possibly eat it all without bursting like Mr. Creosote, I’m hopeful that this will begin the rebuilding of the soil in that location. Once the growth is established in this area, I’ll be able to move along to the next area, put up my portable fence, and begin again. This is much the same process as I used to develop what was once the wild area at the rear of the property to turn it into the beginnings of our orchard (although since the dogs were not allowed back there, no fencing required). Pictures of then and now in that area to come.

Take Back Urban Homesteading: Video Action Day

Today is the latest Action Day for the Take Back Urban Homesteading group on Facebook. This time around, the action centers around videos created and posted by (sub)urban/rural homesteaders. There are a variety of topics, as there always will be when you get a large group of people together. Here’s the roundup, which will be updated periodically throughout the day as more people chime in. NOTE: I’m going with first names only here, even if someone’s full name appears on their Facebook post, and with blog or company names where appropriate. There is also a playlist helpfully created here.