When we were building the house we acquired a wood cook stove. The elderly lady was still using it when it was removed for a remodel. We wanted to incorporate it into the house but insurance and fire code requirements made it to difficult. So for the last 20 years it has sat in the corner as conversation starter, decoration, and storage unit.
I finally gathered all the necessary components and set it up on the side porch that has become our outside kitchen. Now, we have a 3 burner propane stove, a 4 burner BlackStone Grill, a green egg grill, and now the wood cook stove.
The last couple years I have struggled with keeping bees. I entered spring with one very strong hive with plans to harvest honey. That hive box was damaged so I moved the bees into a new hive in the spring. I had another young hive, and added 2 new packages.
Everything was looking up until the rains came. Over the summer the strong hive left. Then the young hive and one of the new ones followed.
Going into winter I have one new hive of Russian Hybrid bees. I have ordered a package of Italians and another package of hybrids for this spring. I may order more but haven’t decided on that yet.
The plan is to baby the new hive through winter and next spring to focus on the bee yard and orchard.
Are you ready for hardships from job loss to global catastrophe? Probably not the latter but what about the former or what might be in between? I have always been a little “Prepper” minded. A job loss in 2008 caused me to start getting serious. The Covid lockdowns and the shortages it caused proved that my efforts were not wrong. For the most part we didn’t skip a beat during covid. It did cause us to ramp up our preps. We are still not where I would like to be but we’re still moving forward.
One of the things I finally pulled the trigger on was in the area of communications. I got my HAM and GMRS licenses. Yes, HAM requires a series of tests to get different levels of access. There are many free study options. I used hamstudy.org to get both Technician and General license. The GMRS license doesn’t require any testing. Just fork over $35 to the FCC and you will get a license and call sign. GMRS radios are short range for the most part but are repeater capable to extend their range. They are easy to use and excellent for community and neighborhood use. They use established channels and are compatible with the FRS walkie-talkies you can pick up at big box stores.
The second thing that I did was Join American Contingency (AmCon). The idea of a “Lone Wolf” going it alone is a fallacy for the majority of the population. We need community and that is what AmCon is all about. AmCon is a nation wide organization that promotes the establishment of local Teams networked to State, Regional, and National support. The recommended teams are 15 members within 30 miles or 30 minutes. We provide local, state and regional meet ups for training and face to face comradery. I have placed two links to the right. Please take a look. The more we train and help now the fewer we have to worry about later. Ideally everyone would be ready for any kind of disruption lasting a week or so at least. You need to be your own first responder. If help is coming it will be delayed.
Lisa has had 4 surgeries. One was a serious cancer that thankfully was successfully removed.
Sebastian is now with his biological mother and sister in Minnesota. I truly regret that things ended the way they did but I have no regrets in all of our efforts. We did the best that we could.
Last summer I reopened the old garden spot and had a very successful crop. This year was a washout. Everything started out great and looked like it would produce better than last year. Then the rain started and then I got sick. Between the rain and the weeds the garden was a bust. Next year…
One of Olives heifers (Sassy) lost her calf. It was a battle but I milked her for about 6 months. At the end she would walk right in and let me milk her with minimal restraints. I recently dried her off when Olive had her calf. A little bull. I now have two milk cows to rotate. I found that while Olive provides more milk, Sassy produced a higher butterfat percentage.
One thing that worked well this year was the incubators. I had two running this spring adding to the duck, goose, guinea, and quail numbers.
Home butchering expanded this last winter. We processed the usual two hogs but then with the help of a fellow homesteader we home butchered our first steer. That was a chore but well worth it.
We added a Frontier Saw Mill to the homestead. I haven’t really put it to use. Mostly cutting up some old logs learning to use it. The first project is to build a smoke house and then expand the milk/feed barn. Eventually I would like to build a pole barn.
Lets start with the end of last year. Olive gave us a little bull in late October 2021.
I’ve been doing a lot of fence work. I was able to rig a way to roll out 2 strands of barbed wire at one time. I took 2 tools used to roll out a single roll of wire and put them on a rod and attached it to the back of the tractor. It wasn’t perfect but it was much better than doing it by hand.
We bought a new Hot Tub and I’m in it nearly every night before bed. The hot tub plus a cold beer or glass of wind and sleep comes quickly.
We lost Tammy and Shelby back in the late summer. Seizures and a stroke. Old age sucks. In November and December we added 3, yes 3, new rescues. The first was The old man Jimmy T. He is almost identical to our Jimmy that we had nearly my entire AF career. Next was Coco. She looks a lot like Tammy. Then there was Copper. He was my sisters dog but she couldn’t keep him so we took him in right before Christmas.
Walmart dumped all of their garden seeds into the trash. Thankfully a friend of a friend retrieved them. I was told to get what I wanted. I picked out 4 or 5 packets of each variety. Pretty good score to go along with what I already had.
I was out cutting and splitting fire wood and Olives calf and Lilley decided to come see what I was doing. When I sat down to take a break they both got right in my face. Both backed off when I took out the camera. Lilley looks like she is giving me the stink eye.
Patches needs her hooves trimmed badly. The farrier has been swamped so I took a stab at it. It’s not perfect and it’s not a complete job but it’s better than it was. The picture shows before I started and after I finished the first one.
The last post was about the tractor not running right. Well it turns out an algae build up in the fuel lines. I had no idea. The dealer suggested that I add a fuel additive with algaecide to prevent this in the future. Done.
We paid off most of our debts so Lisa suggested that I retire to work the homestead. So, my last day at my previous employment was September 3rd 2021.
We got a call a few weeks ago about some baby squirrels. The nest had fallen out of the tree during a thunderstorm. The people whos yard they fell into were doing all they could to rescue them but they didn’t have the time or knowledge to do it. There were 4 but they lost one right before we got there. They were very dehydrated and it took a couple days of regular feedings before that was fixed. They are now healthy and very feisty little squirrels. We moved them to an outside cage yesterday. Well all but one. Noah escaped and made his way back to the house where we saved him from one of the cats who chased him up the Bell pole. We will reunite him with his sisters today and then open the cage in about a week once they get used to being outside.
It’s been a very wet year so we’ve had a good year for muscadine and scuppernong grapes. I missed most of the muscadine harvest due to back problems but scuppernongs are still falling. I’ve got one gallon of muscadine wine and 2 gallons of scuppernong wine bubbling on the counter. I was able to make 10 pints of jelly with more to come.
I’ve started selectively laying down trees to open up more pasture and increase our firewood pile. Starting with pine and sweetgum trees. Once they are removed I will thin the oaks as needed. I hate cutting anything that produces food and animals love it when the acorns start to fall.
Olives heifer, Sassy, is nearly grown and we are hoping Olive will have another in the near future so we can have fresh milk again.
Violet gave us a little bull calf at the end of July. A good friend of Lisa’s runs a nonprofit Monkey rescue. She wants to add a petting zoo to help raise funds so we donated the little guy to the cause. We didn’t need another bull he will have a good home so it was a Win for all.
I have passed the General HAM radio test. My computer/radio area is nearly organized and I have my antennas up. It’s time to refocus on studying for the Extra Class license.
With all the rain the garden wasn’t what it could have or should have been. A lot of green beans and some purple hull peas but everything else drowned or was choked out by the weeds.
I hate hauling hay by hand and using borrowed equipment but that is where I find myself today. Tractor will not keep running and the John Deer Dealership just came and picked it up. It took them a week to come get it and they say it will be about two weeks before they can get to it. I wish I would have bought an older tractor without all the environmental crap on it. One without all the computer crap on it. One that the average person could work on.
Now that that is out of my system. It has taken some time but Olive is completely mastitis free. I don’t think that would have ever cleared completely up without the calf helping to keep her milked out. I have been and will continue to milk every morning to strip her out even without separating her from the calf. I thought that she had lost the right front quarter. It was still mostly hard as a rock giving very little milk as late as a month ago. Now it is normal. It has been a long battle that is finally won.
Also, an addition to the Homestead and preparedness in general, right before Thanksgiving I got my HAM radio Technician license. Working on the General and maybe if I can dedicate some time to it like I did the Technician it will come sooner than later. Call sign is KO4IPQ. I have a small handheld transceiver and just bought a Kenwood TM-V71 that I will put in the truck for now. Once I get an antenna up I will move it into the house for my base station and get a different one for the truck. Not exactly a cheap project so this will have to be done over several months.
Olive gave us a new little heifer Friday night or early Saturday in the middle of the storms.
Olive has a little mastitis but I think I will be able to clear it up pretty quickly. I don’t think she ever completely dried up and that caused the issue. We should be back in fresh milk in about a week.
Last Friday I found our Buffy down and unable to get up. Buffy was the last of our original four goats. Until recently she was the matriarch of the herd and nearly every goat on the property was from her line. She was Lisa’s favorite. She named her and her brother Buffy and Jody from the old TV show Family Affair. She will be missed. Especially every morning. Who’s going to try to take the feed bucket away from me. RIP old girl.
We always have a few hornworms in the garden and this year was no exception. They usually get tossed to the chickens or turkeys who make short work of them.
This is the first time I have ever actually found one that had been the target of the Barconid Wasp. I’ve seen pictures in books and on the internet but never first hand. That is until last week.
I found this one on a wilted pepper plant. Come to think of it, the few worms that I have found this year have all been on hot pepper plants and not on the tomatoes.
