Come for a Visit

Welcome to our homestead.  I thought I'd take you on tour.  We're just doing the outside today, we'll save the inside for when we finish remodeling.  That may be a while.

Here are my daughter's horses.  The palamino is for sale:

Around the front of the house I still have some tulips blooming.

Let's go around the side of the house, here are some of the plum bushes in bloom:

Next is the back of the house where we tore off and put on a new addition.   This is the rrof that has to be shingled today:

Now we're on the west edge of my garden.  The small orange object in the distance is my tiller.  I have all of this to plant yet:

Here's a picture of the clothesline.  I don't know- it just looks homesteady:

Here is our Bucyrus Erie 22B.  We use it to load manure.  Bet you wish you had one??-

This is Hatchet, the steer.  He just wanted to say hi:

 

 

 

Next time I'll show you the chickens, donkeys, goats and sheep.  Maybe an update on my garden.

Home you enjoyed your visit.  Y'all come back now, ya hear?

Farming: Work and Blessings

Sitting here this morning with my coffee, the sun shining in through the picture window and..a chicken looking in at me.  She's jumped up on the storm cellar door and is peeking through the spider plant.  She must be done with her "job" of pulling out the onion sets that were planted yesterday.  I really need to finish the garden fence that I started yesterday.  We put in the onion sets and some potatoes, and carrots.  Today I want to get the peas in, lettuce, chard, radishes and anything else I have the energy to do.  I started mowing the lawn and would like to get more of that done.  Today would also be a good day to make dandelion jelly.  The dandelions are out in force.

Spring is sure a busy time, but I love being outside.  Unfortunately, my house suffers for it.  My kitchen is full of items for the rummage sale.  It looks like we're moving out.  My livingroom is so dusty I can write phone numbers on the computer desk with my finger.   My honey needs to roof the new addition before the thunder storms tomorrow.  I hope he can get half of it roofed.  Then he needs to finish my goat fence.  I can't get the wire pulled tight enough.  I have quite the list for the poor man.  He is always doing for others and I feel bad when I have a list for him, too.  The goats are out everyday, but with my garden going in, I really need to get them their own "space".

I also need prayer for resentment.  Our two older, public schooled, children are so busy with their public schooled lives that they haven't been home right after school for over a month.  I need their help and I know that I've allowed them to do this.  It was so much easier than fighting.  Now I would like it if they could be more considerate of the needs of others, but the consideration just isn't there.  I'm resenting all of the things they want to be involved in and that they don't want to be involved with the farm.  The older one says she'll never be a farmer.  I laugh.  I've learned to never say never.  They are "good" girls, but I am troubled because the world and it's approval seem to mean so much to them.    A time of prayer and fasting is perhaps in order.

Time to get going.  It promises to be a lovely day.  Truly God has blessed us.

From Glory Farm,

Rhonda

Save Money on Groceries-

Today's school was out foraging in the field and in the woods.  I wanted to find garlic mustard, wild leeks, new cattails, and morel mushrooms.  Didn't find any of those, but we did find:

White Pine-Ds uses this for tea.  High in vitamin C.

Dandelion greens-use for salad.  Contain beta carotene, iron, calcium, B1,B2, B6, B12, C, P, and D, also potassium, magnesium and zinc.  Wow!

Dandelion flowers- use for jelly.

Stawberry leaves-Tea-contain vitamin C and K, soothes sore throats and can even be used as a rinse for acne.

Violets- Eat flowers and leaves.  Vitamin C

Fiddleheads- Contain carcinogens.  Don't eat too many.  Dd1 boiled some up last night.  Not a favoable report.  Do not eat if starting to uncurl-poisonous.

Nettles-Dry and use in tea, or boil up and use in soups.  High in minerals and vitamin C and B complex.  I also use dried nettles as a feed supplement for my goats and chickens.

We found flowers besides the violets, wood anemones are blooming as are the cowslips.  Dont' eat these.

We also found Labrador Tea:

The leaves can be dried and used in tea.  It's best when there is the rust colored "fuzz" on the underside of the leaves.  Do not use Mountain Labrador Tea as some say it's poisonous.

We scored some birchbark to make baskets, too.  There are a lot of fallen birch trees in our woods.  Ds thinks we could get rich with all of the baskets we could make.  That's a project to start tomorrow.  I hope I remember how, it's been a few years.

I guess you could say that this is another way to cut down on your grocery bill!

Bless God in all you do.

From Glory Farm,

Rhonda

P.S.  I'm off to make some chocolate chip cookies.

Everything

Blessings!  Slowly spring is making it's way here.  The trees are budding, though not blooming, yet.  Dandelions are starting to stick their blossoms up out of the brown and green that should be our lawn.  I watched as Mom and Dad Timberjay taught their young ones how to eat for themselves this morning.  Other signs of spring?  The goats keep finding new and improved ways to get out of the barn.  Our bantees hatched out a couple of batches of chicks.  Unfortunately, only one now survives.  Pastures are greening up and fencelines are in dire need of repair.- which is my assignment for today.  Yard sale signs dot the highway on Fridays.  We are in the process of trying to set one up ourselves.  This requires more organizational skills than I posess.  Hope my honey can make up for what I lack. 

Garden-The garlic is growing so well that I may make it my main crop next year.  I received 150 pounds of onion sets.  This may be an overblessing if there is such a thing.  My asparagus is up and should be picked in a day or two.  I have been tilling and my husband has been pulling the digger through the garden.  It'll be ready for planting soon, but I need a fence to keep out the chickens and the goats.  I need a fence to put those goats in.  Another project I should be working at today. 

Homeschool-This has become more of an on again off agan thing.  We do math and English everyday, but I remember how it was when I was going to school and the last couple of weeks we hardly got anything done.  Too bad, I carried that mentality on in teaching my own children.  We played "Are You Smarter Than  a Fifth Grader" today.  I guess that's learning.

Crafts-I've been spinning some fleece that I dyed yellow.  I'm going to make a purse and then "full" (or felt) it.  I'll post a pic if it turns out.  If not, you'll never see it.  I'm washing up the mohair that I sheared off of my goats.  I have a dress to sew for dd3 and one to sew for ME!  I bought a couple of wool sweaters at Goodwill and shrunk them down.  They'll become mittens. 

Farm-We still have fence to pull and new fence to put up.  Need to finish the horse pasture and the goat pasture.  They are getting closer, though.  Also have to clean out the old milkhouse (full of stuff for that rummage sale) and put in pens for goats.  Then there won't be any draft for them this winter.  We have sheep to pick up in a month and a couple of steers to ship.  I think Minnesota now requires all animals to be TB tested before shipping.  There was a case or two northwest of here.  We'd like to plant oats and alfalfa, but need to put some siding and shingles on the house.  We are also required to get a new septic system in by October. 

I know that this has been a long post and if you've made it this far-Good Job.

It's out to work on those fences I keep complaining about. 

 

Just another day...Praise God

Good Morning.  We're back after a couple of days of running.  Wednesday it was to Wisconsin to visit family and yesterday up North to an auction to pick up cattle panels-which weren't there, it was another auction I was thinking of.  So... today it's catchup time.

Clean the bathroom, do the laundry, start more herbs, weed the flower beds, homeschool, grease the tiller and get it ready, clean some barn (everyday), finish the horsepasture, make a couple of phone calls and then stir-fry for dinner.  I don't usually list my to dos, but it feels good to be able to cross them off one by one. 

Tomorrow our 4-H club is having a craft and bake sale.  We've never done this for a fund raiser, I hope it goes okay.  Tomorrow is also fishing opener in our state and some of the lakes still have ice!  I can't remember that ever happening before.  Maybe we can still ice fish?  Pastor said for Mother's Day we could go sledding!   Okay, so it's not that bad.  We've had some nice days lately.  Today it's 60 for a high. 

Okay, I guess if I'm going to get this stuff done, I'd better get going.  Have a blessed day.

5:30 p.m.-

Okay, I did clean the bathroom, laundry room, livingroom and kitchen floors, homeschool,laundry, make a couple of phone calls.  I did not get the tiller ready, work on the pasture, clean the barn.  I did  dye some yarn, dye some fleece and I'm still going to make that stir-fry and plant some herbs.  I worked a bit in the flower beds.  The best part is my honey is home and he's taking the skidsteer and leveling off the new ground to expand our garden.  Then he's going to ditch around it and help me put up the new goat pasture. I'm so excited to put in the garden.  We're doubling the size so it's just about an acre.  Also...I'm getting Icelandic sheep in six weeks!  This is going to be a great summer.  (Remind me of that when it hits 90 and I have a garden full of weeds and goats.)  My husband is the best.

 

Dandelion Recipes

As the school year winds down, it  gets harder and harder to sit and study.  I'd much prefer to be outside working on the yard, barn, pasture, anything.  So would my children.  So we've been slackers.

Yesterday we went lookin for morels and wild leeks.  I think we're still too early.  Our dandelions aren't even  up yet.  Things are growing slow this spring.  Farmers are running out of hay and the pastures aren't producing yet.  I found a site with dandelion and wild leek (ramps) recipes if anyone is interested.

http://www.mountain-breeze.com/kitchen/dandelions/

My family loves dandelion jelly and is actually looking forward to picking and cleaning the blossoms again this year.  My son likes dandelion greens in a salad.  He's a born forager.

Tomorrow is a special treat-we get a trip to Wisconsin to visit family.  Then Thursday it's the first auction of the year.  It's a two hour drive, but they have cattle panels and round pen panels that I'm hoping will go for a price that I can afford.  I want to have a good fence for my goats and my daughter would love to finish her round pen for training her horses.

Today the temp is supposed to hit 67!  Dd3 will probably come down in shorts.  She's been rushing the season.  Sundresses at 50 degrees and flip flops on ice! 

Well, the cattle are calling.  Mooooove it.  Time for feeding.

Have a blessed day.