A Hard Blow

Dear Blogging Friends,

For those of you who know my daughter, if you could go to her blog site,
The Tales of Chicken Mama, Lady Homesteader, and leave her a note, she could use a little love and support today.

Early this morning, she let her beloved little cat, Annie Blue, outside where she was immediately attacked and killed by a fisher (we think it was) right in front of her eyes.

Yes, Annie Blue was only an animal but we do get attached to our pets and they become an integral part of our families.

Chicken Mama is feeling pretty down right now, needless to say, and I know she would appreciate knowing you're thinking of her.

Thanks so much.

Slow Sunday

Or at least hubby and I are trying to make it so. Which is not easy around here as you navigate the land mines of jobs to-be-done (all giving you the evil eye) on ye ol' homestead.

So far I've brewed my morning latte, sat in front of the open wood fire with hubby while he did some recreational reading and I did some knitting.

Then I roused myself enough to make us a good breakfast. Next I set some rice to cooking for Zoey. (Yes, we are continuing to cater to her with a special diet hoping to put some weight on her for winter. Sigh . . . inability to put weight is so NOT one of MY problems.)

I did a batch of dishes.

Put some Christmas carols on the stereo. It's a genetic thing I've passed on to my daughter . . . the playing of Christmas music before the Christmas season. (Like way before. Sometimes in June.) I always felt guilty doing it until she convinced me that Christmas music is simply a GENRE of music meant to be enjoyed at will rather than only during a short, specific time of year. (I can go with that. Doesn't take much to pacify me.)

Then I made myself a second cup of java and came back here to my computer to play. Allowing myself as much time on the computer as I want is not something I frequently do.

Now I'm thinking it would be a great afternoon to do some baking. Fruitcake? I've yet to make my first batch to squirrel away to mellow for the upcoming holidays. Apple pie? Wouldn't want all those wonderful apples from our bountiful harvest to shrivel up and expire, would I? Blueberry-Raspberry Muffins? Using our frozen berries works perfectly because they don't smoosh up when you mix them into the batter.

Can you tell I've been trying to avoid sweets and eliminate eating in between meals? Food may be all I can think of but as long as I just think and don't eat I guess I'm still winning.

Thought I'd throw in this picture of Chicken Mama programming her parents new cell phone that they've had for quite a while but still can't manage to do anything with other than make an outgoing call. She handles her frustration with them very well.

Dinner tonight? Creamed Duck and Garden Peas over Mashed Potatoes, Baked Red Kuri Squash, and Waldorf Salad. Sound good? What time will you be here?

Okay, It Can Snow Now

Yesterday we finished up the last work on putting the garden to bed for the winter. Whew. Even though we had a long, late fall the fates kept getting in the way of the project.

Hubby has spent any spare time he's had for the past week getting all the poultry pens and our little chicken house cleaned out, lined with fresh bedding and ready for winter. He took the composted materials on the floor of each structure out to spread on the raised garden beds and field garden. We'll let it sit there until spring when it will be tilled in.

Each year we wait until after about two good hard frosts to mulch the strawberry plants for the winter. Yesterday morning was the second one (really late for us this year) so we deemed it time to get that job done.

Up here where we usually have lots of sunshine in the winter (although temps can go down to 30 below), not providing a thick covering for the berries means that they experience a surface thawing from the bright daylight sunshine, and then freezing when the sun goes down. This constant freezing and thawing is harmful to the shallow rooted plants so the mulch we provide doesn't give protection from the cold as much as keeping them at a more constant temperature with shade to keep the direct sun off them.

Straw has always been our choice for mulching the strawberries but we've been avoiding purchasing the straw bales we needed this year because it's going for $5.95 a bale in our area. Ouch. We have a good supply of oat straw which is perfect for poultry bedding but it's full of oat seeds which would cause an awful weed problem (in the form of a healthy stand of oats!) in the strawberry patch come spring if we used some of that for mulch.

Since our bad wind storm a couple of weeks ago, we've been cutting downed trees (many of them evergreens), chunking up the wood that's big enough to burn, and hauling branches to a big pile out in our little hay field to burn after we get a couple of inches of snow on the ground.

My uber-smart husband had a flash of genius yesterday morning. He suggested we use some of our copious quantity of evergreen branches to mulch the strawberries this year. Hmmm. Well, they do like a slightly acidic soil. We grabbed Rodale's Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening off the shelf and sure enough, they even suggested using evergreen boughs for mulch!

Okay, back out to the field where we'd JUST FINISHED HAULING THE LAST OF THE BRANCHES for the burn pile. (Geesh, if only we were just a teensy bit smarter.)

We filled the garden cart as full as we could and I think it took us only four or five (or seven or eight) trips to bring enough boughs back up to the strawberry patch.

Here the berries are about one-half covered.

And here the job is done, completed, finished. Now if we don't get another terrific wind storm that could blow away the boughs before a nice snowfall to weigh the boughs down for the winter, we'll be home free.

Good feeling to have the garden completely ready for winter. Now it can start to snow and pretty up our very drab, gray November landscape.

Cold Enuf for Ya?

We had a low of 19 degrees this morning which meant a hard freeze, for sure. But this was only our second one so we squeaked by much, much longer into fall than we usually do. Our previous low was 29 degrees a couple of weeks ago.

The raised beds first thing this morning.

Frost on the pumpkin . . . I mean Suburban.

The ice on the pond wasn't very thick but definitely the most we've seen so far.

All the wild Mallards are gone except for Mama Mallard and the ten little ones (no longer little) she raised here this summer. They are congregated around the spot where the water flows into the pond through the culvert under our driveway . . . the only place that wasn't frozen this morning.

Minutes before I took the above shot, Mother and Father Goose came waddling down to one side of the pond and Father Goose launched himself into what he thought was water. 'Cept it was ice.

Oh, how I wish I'd had my camera ready for that! His left leg went south and his right leg went north. His wings were going like windmills and he struggled for about 15 seconds trying to make it back to shore. You could almost see the totally bamboozled look on his face. "What the . . . ??"

We hit a high of 40 for the day and with a breeze blowing, I gotta say it was mighty invigorating out there. Sure felt good to come in to the warmth of the wood stove.

As hubby said, "I think we can now assume our long, warm fall is over." Yup.

Good Thing / Bad Thing

Good Thing: The applesauce I canned this year is even better than last year's.

Bad Thing: We are tearing through it. I don't think I made enough. I'm going to have to do some more.

* * * * * * * *

Good Thing: I've made a new daily schedule for myself so I can get some time every day in my quilt studio.

Bad Thing: I don't think I'll be able to stick to it.

* * * * * * * *

Good Thing: For the past week, I've cut out all desserts, goodies and eating in between meals.

Bad Thing: My jeans have yet to acknowledge this extreme sacrifice.

* * * * * * * *

Good Thing: On our last trip to the big city, I finally found a new bra that I though would be comfortable.

Bad Thing: It's not.

* * * * * * * *

Good Thing: I'm nearly finished knitting a surprise pair of socks for a friend. The yarn is a lovely 75% washable wool and 25% nylon.

Bad Thing: I just found out she can't wear anything with even a smidge of wool in it.

* * * * * * * *

Good Thing: Our freezers are stuffed to the brim with wonderful food for the coming year.

Bad Thing: I can't find anything I want without unloading approximately half of the freezer.

* * * * * * * *

Good Thing: My daughter told me three good jokes Tuesday night.

Bad Thing: I can't remember any of them.

* * * * * * * *

Good Thing: My Halloween decorations really looked good this year.

Bad Thing: They're still up.

* * * * * * * *

Good Thing: We ran out of dog food so fed Zoey the Wonder Dog a mixture of rice and ground beef.

Bad Thing: She liked it. Much better than dog food.

* * * * * * * *

Good Thing: When we turn our clocks back one hour this weekend, it will get light earlier in the morning.

Bad Thing: It will start to get dark right after lunch.

Let There Be Light

I think I may have related some of this information somewhere in my blog previously but a while ago (sorry I'm a little tardy on this) Susan at e-i-e-i-omg! asked me how long we lived without electricity when we moved up here. So here are the details again. Feel free to travel on to some other more interesting blog if this is old stuff to you.

When we moved from Illinois, we settled on 80 acres we had purchased a number of years previous to the move. The land had originally been homesteaded (in the true sense of the word) in the early 1900s but had then been abandoned since 1917. The original settlers had cleared some land for pasture, hay fields and gardens. They lived in a very small log cabin while they built their house which burned down, sadly, sometime in the 1940s, long after the family had left the land.

This piece of land was almost 20 miles outside of our little town and the first year or so we had NO neighbors anywhere near us. There was also no electrical service available.

But where there's a will there's a way. We started out living in a 10' x 50' mobile home we had had moved up to the property from Illinois. The trailer was nearly 20 years old and had next to no insulation. (Yup, fine structure to live in in a part of the country that gets down to 30 degrees below zero in the winter.) But our living accommodations and the related trials and tribulations could fill many blog posts.

We did this not only with our daughter who had just turned two when we came up here but with a small herd of dairy goats, one donkey, a flock of chickens and 3-4 horses. No, the animals weren't in the trailer with us; the only structure on the piece of property was the original hand-hewn log barn which we fixed for the animals by putting a new roof on it.

Back to our lack of electricity. For light, we started out with Coleman camping lanterns. We had three of them. I can easily recall the hissing sound they made. The fumes probably weren't the best for us to breathe either, but then the trailer had enough gaps and cracks to let in plenty of fresh air.

Next we graduated to good old-fashioned kerosene lamps. At least they were quiet and created a little softer ambiance.

Hubby says we then found some Coleman lanterns that burned kerosene (rather than white gas) but I don't remember those so I don't think we used them for long.

Next? Aladdin lamps. Wow, they gave a lot of light. Wow, the mantles caught fire easily. I can't tell you how many times one of us had to grab a lamp and rush out the door before anything inside caught fire. I am still not fond of Aladdin lamps.

We had an L.P. tank of gas for our combination wood/gas cook stove so when we could afford them, we bought two wall mounted gas lights. They gave off so much heat that we hesitated turning them on when it got dark in the summer time. Our tin can of a house that was so cold in the winter, did a good imitation of an oven in the summer.

Then . . . ta-dah! . . . hi-tech set in. We bought some old, used telephone company batteries and a used (very used) Onan diesel generator that when fired up scared wild animals for miles around. Each Saturday we would start the generator which would then charge up the batteries. This enabled us to run 12 volt fluorescent lights off the batteries for a week. Best of all Saturday was bath day! We filled a galvanized tub with water (by hand with buckets of heated water) and hubby rigged a small motor that would pump the water up and through a shower head. It wasn't pretty but it sure was an improvement over the sponge baths we had to make do with the rest of the week.

We kept refining the system as we could but it wasn't until we had lived there for 12 years that it was possible to get grid power brought down our road. By that time there were two other full time families living within a couple of miles so we all went together to get electrified.

Until we got power brought in we were living without running water, of course. I've always said I'd rather do without running water than without electricity. I had my own efficient system set up for water but now marvel at all I did when each and every drop of water had to be hand carried in from the well. But inadequate lighting was difficult for me to deal with. For much of the year, it was depressing because I couldn't see well enough inside unless it was a very sunny day. Trying to accomplish anything before the sun came up or after it set was nearly impossible.

But we survived and I honestly think it made us stronger. If nothing else, because of what we've done and been through, we're probably better equipped to deal with anything that might come our way. Plus our daughter was raised seeing a family functioning very well and happy, thank you very much, in circumstances that most people today have never even experienced.