In Vain

"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. This is widely misunderstood. I believe this has nothing to do with vocabulary; it has to do with ambassadorship. If you take the name of the King, you have a responsibility to represent Him accurately. And that's what it's really talking about. But many people assume it's talking about swearing. No, it goes far beyond that." Chuck Missler Chew on that for awhile.

A Fishin' and a Cannin'

About a week or so ago, J, my Pops, and I drove down to the Kenai for some dipnetting/camping. After about 16 hours driving time (which included an early am car accident, a two hour delay at Turnagain Pass, and about a 45 min wait at Walmart Customer Service...ahhh!!) we ended up getting a grand total of 44 fish! Last year was our first time canning salmon, and we only ended up getting 27 fish. So we were pretty excited that we doubled our fish count. This year we decided to can all of it, instead of freezing some. We are planning on smoking the frozen filets that we didn't use from last year. Anyway, after about 3+days of canning, we totaled out at about 132 pint jars and around three cases of quart size jars. That roughly equals out to about 2-3 jars a week for the rest of the year!! Woohoo! J and I are really wanting to limit our meat supply to things that we can hunt or fish. Commercial/industry meat is so absolutely abhorrent, and I want to steer clear of it as much as possible... Do your RESEARCH and you will understand what I mean! This month has gone by so incredibly fast with a wedding, bachelorette party (not in that order), friends coming and going, CCC meetings, a barbeque, and finally getting a taste of garden harvests. Kale, chard, spinach, lettuce, zucchini, arugula, basil, dill, parsley, sage, catnip, thyme, bok choy, broccoli are abundant and I love it! I set out some herbs to dry and I couldn't help but do a little happy dance inside myself because I can't wait to begin to harvesting and putting up process. I will try to get some pictures up soon. The potatoes are doing well... J and I mulched over half of them, and will finish up the rest soon. They are just beginning to flower, which means that they are starting to produce potatoes. It will be so exciting to finally be able to dig those up! The bees have faked us out twice now by "pretending" to swarm. For those of you who don't know what swarming is, I will explain... When a hive starts getting to large for the space they are in, they will create another queen, split the population and one half will fly to another location with one of the queens. Now it is absolutely essential to have another hive ready way in advance, so that you can "catch" or keep the swarming hive, or you will miss out on a lot more honey. It was pretty crazy the first day they swarmed, because they flew up into a tree directly above the hive...they formed this gigantic mass of bees and it was NUTS! (I will post a picture later) Anyway, they ended up flying right back into the hive. And a few weeks later, they did it again. I cannot wait to harvest the honey next month! I think we will be getting a good harvest this year. A neighbor brought over a small jar of her honey and I can't even begin to describe how utterly delightful it was. Store bought honey isn't even a drop in the bucket compared to the real raw stuff. By the way, did you know that honey is the most adulterated food product out there? Most of it is basically honey-flavored sugar water. We all decided that the honey will be reserved for toast, biscuits, and other things that you can actually taste the honey on. It will not be used for any sort of cooking/baking, I was also told that I am not allowed to use it in my tea :(, since I am probably one of the greatest honey consumers, with the amount of tea I drink. It depends on the season and my mood, but I think I have maxed out at around ten cups a day... maybe that's not a lot, but it seems like a lot to me! Anyway, I have also been spending my days decorating my sweet little home. I will post pictures soon! It is not technically finished, but it's good enough for me, and it is kind of nice to have an ongoing project. I cannot wait for the coming winter months filled with days cozying up in my rocking chair near the woodstove with a good book or a knitting project, a cup of tea, and a candle going...oooo it just makes me happy thinking about it! I am thankful for the summer days, and it makes me happy to think about all the pretty mason jars that will sit on my pantry shelf filled with the beautiful harvest from the garden, the river, and the land. Alrighty, well that's all for now... here are the pictures from our fishing trip and canning!

Love the process! Hannah

The Garden, Lately, and Things We Do in Our Spare Time

Hey everyone! I thought I would give you all a little update on the garden stuff... Wednesday, J and I went into town to pick up some more potatoes (I am a tad obsessed) and 2000lbs. of cow hay. No, we did not get a cow... the hay is for mulching and animal bedding, and it was a whole lot cheaper than straw. We bought an additional 15 pounds of potatoes, which now makes 45 lbs of potatoes planted! The varieties we used were Cherry Red, Russet, Yellow Finn, German Butterball, and Pimpernel. Today we mulched the potatoes with the hay we bought.

Chard planted in containers...

A few days ago, Shannon and I planted 60+ starts of sweet corn, and fashioned a "greenhouse" of sorts to keep the corn happy and warm. Today, Shannon checked the soil and at the bottom it was 86 degrees! Even within a few days, the starts have grown so much. I told J that my babies are growing up way too fast! Anyway, at this point, we have planted sweet corn, Painted Mountain corn, kohlrabi, kale, bok choy, lettuce, arugula, romaine, spinach, Contender and Provider beans, Swiss and Rainbow Chard, cabbage, zucchini, squash, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, garlic, onions, tomatoes, dill, basil, parsley, lavender, cilantro, sage, catnip, oregano, thyme, lemon basil, chives, rosemary, strawberry, and horseradish. We have yet to plant beets, turnips, pumpkin, some remaining brussel sprouts, collard and mustard greens, and peas. Life has swept us up in a whirlwind, but I am enjoying every moment of this season! Every night I come home exhausted, and I love it! I love the feeling of coming home, feeling like something huge was accomplished (even though it is small in the grand scheme), sitting down in my rocking chair in front of the wood stove, with a cup of tea, reading by candlelight, and feeling totally overwhelmed with contentedness, and joy. Every day is an opportunity to find love and joy in everything you do. I will be the first to admit, I am not very good at this. Often times, I will wake up, and set my mind to be content and joyful, but throughout the day, things can ambush you and distract you from that goal. Something I have been working on is actively searching out Father's love in things. Whether it's the smell of the forest after a good hardy rain, or anticipating the arrival of fiddlehead ferns and devil's club, or even the annoying-ness of the roosters crow it is all beautiful. It is all created to be enjoyed and to ultimately turn our awesome wonder back to its Creator. Okay, so here is the rest of the intended post. There were several rodents gorging themselves on the compost pile, so I happily obliged in assisting them on the journey to meet their maker. I truly hope this doesn't come across anyone involved in animal rights or somesuch, or I/we might be in trouble! You can just copy and paste these into your search engine. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFbA3K4L1hw) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDHP-9rT2-8) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a27PELxutGY) Enjoy your life!

Potato Farmin', The Trench Method

Hey y'all! Okay, so I don't really talk like that normally (although, the other day when we were all having supper, I was asking a question to everyone and unintentionally used the "word" jy-all- pronounced jawl, J just looked at me and said, "Did you really just say jy'all?" I guess that's what happens when your in-laws are from the south) Anyway, I felt since I live in the "country" I should use this sort of lingo. Alright, now to the point of this post. For the past few days, J and I have been working tirelessly on planting our taters, and last night we finally finished planting some via the trench method. Now if you don't know what the trench method is, I will explain. First, obviously, you must dig trenches. The width should be about 30 inches (we just measured two lengths of J's shoe) and the length just depends on how many potatoes you are wanting to plant. For us, our trenches were just under 40 feet long. For the depth, we just measured one shoe length down.

You want to dig two trenches and then pile the dirt up in the middle. The purpose of the trench method is to allow water to fill the trenches. You may ask, "Won't the trenches fill with water and soak the potatoes?" No, they won't. This is because you fill the trenches with well drained soil and materials. For example, after we dug our trenches, we filled ours about halfway full with dried horse manure. Horse manure is excellent for drainage and will keep the potatoes from drowning. Next, we put a thin layer of dirt back on top of the horse manure. The purpose of this is so that the potatoes can root into the ground more quickly. After that, you can then plant them taters! Spacing is about one foot apart. (We just used one shoe length.) Make sure that the sprouts coming off the potatoes are facing upwards- the sprouts are what produce the foliage and flowers. Excited to finally plant the potatoes (I tell ya, digging trenches is exhausting!) Oh, and please excuse my crazy hair, it's just how I roll...out of bed, without ever really "doing" my hair.

After you plant the potatoes, you should water them lightly. Next, cover them with dirt, and water again. We are fortunate to have a creek right behind the garden, where we can "harvest" water for the garden. Ma and Pa Wilder...

We are going to mulch our potatoes with more horse manure and straw. And it's as easy as that! Okay, so it's not super easy, but it is one of the better methods. If you do any research on planting potatoes, you will soon realize that there are a TON of different ways to plant potatoes. From planting in five gallon buckets, to trash cans, to just throwing them on the ground, there are a lot of options out there. J and I are going to plant the rest of our potatoes via the ground method. Meaning, you just plant them on the ground and mulch on top of them. Well, I am getting pretty anxious sitting here, thinking about what I need to get done today... planting the rest of the potatoes,harvesting straw for mulching, building a raised bed for our corn, and planting it. Anyone wanna join me? Oh, and here's the pictures I couldn't load the other day... Wild dandelion and fireweed salad. YUM!

Birch tap. Next year, J and I plan to use our harvest for Birch Sap Wine!

Delicious purple sauerkraut from friends as "payment" for farm sitting

. That's all for now folks!

An Aside

I wanted to make sure that all of you know that you can subscribe to my blog via email. (The link is on the left sidebar.) When you subscribe, you will get a notification whenever I post something... that way you don't have to check in. Just wanted to let y'all know!

The Homestead, Lately

I think just about every entry that I post starts with some variation of the phrase, "Busy, busy, busy." At the risk of sounding repetitious, I will simply say that we have been swept up into the hustle and bustle of summer farm life. I will try to catch you all up on our activities starting from about January on... Jordan and I spent a great deal of time cross-country skiing around the property. We scouted out a pretty ideal spot for our future large-scale garden, permanent community root cellar, barn, and possibly a pond for animals. It was so surreal skiing through the woods, hearing nothing but the slide of our skis and the hooting of an owl. About mid-March to early April, we started our starts for our garden. Jordan fashioned up a make-shift soil block maker, which turned out great! We started cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, bok choy, herbs, brussel sprouts, pumpkin, and squash. Spinach, kohlrabi, turnips, beets, arugula, lettuce, green onions, peas, carrots, corn, and potatoes will be directly seeded. Now, to more recent events... Yesterday, Shannon and I planted all of our starts, except for the pumpkin and squash. I also decided to direct seed the kohlrabi (we will see if it works out.) A friend of Shannon's gave us some spare horseradish root from her garden, and J and I planted it the other day in a spare water trough. We also decided to dig up some of the strawberries (that normally get eaten by the moose) and transplanted them into individual pots. Last night, after dinner J and I decided to start digging our trenches for potatoes. (My back is so sore!) Today we will hopefully get those planted and mulched. Other than garden things, we have been super busy getting Taproot Farms ready to launch. Hopefully, we will have some products to sell within the next couple of months. (So keep your eyes peeled for a website link soon!) The goats are doing well, and are loving being outside in their fenced in pasture. The chickens are doing well too, even though I am told that the roosters are now starting to crow at 4:30am! Hopefully soon we will have all of our animals (and hopefully +1 cow) over at our place soon. Oh, I almost forgot the most exciting news... J and I are moved into our home!!! We are both so relieved to finally be able to have a place of our own. We spend most of our evenings sitting by the wood stove, reading and talking about how we love having our own place. Well, I better get out there and finish those trenches! I will leave you with some of the pictures that have been sitting idle in my camera since January... Happy to be skiing on the tree farm. That's King Mountain behind me.

Beautiful eggs as "payment" from farm sitting for some friends. Yes, that is a green egg on the top row!

Little egg, big egg... from when the Wyandotte hen first started laying.

Turning the steaming compost piles. We should have good compost in about six weeks.They have been getting up to 150 degrees in the center. That's a hot pile of poo!

There are a couple of other pictures I want to share, but I can't get the dang computer to load 'em! Oh well, I've got a couple of ticked off goats calling my name... I am a tad late on the milkin' and the girls get pretty irritated when I am off schedule! That's all for now folks.

My Desk, Lately

Life has swept me up in whirlwind! I am not even going to apologize for the lack of posts for the last two months. I felt somewhat guilty for awhile for neglecting my blog, but now I am fully contented that I have allowed myself a time of rest. But now, I am totally ready to get back into the swing of things. As I mentioned before, life has been rather jumbled lately, with the miscarriage, my 20th birthday, a baby shower, then the holidays, a birthday, and working on Taproot, I feel that I have been able to stay busy. I have been a crafting/sewing/knitting maniac and I am completely okay with the fact that I am addicted! From knitting scarves, sewing baby items, ear warmers, socks, purses, candy-making, and my latest project (which shall remain a secret until it is finished), I am now OBSESSED! I love the awesome satisfaction I get out of being able to create something out of, let's say, an old thrifted sweater, or perhaps a wadded up ball of yarn. It is wonderful to be able to discover and create new things out of the old or unusable. I encourage all of you ladies out there to try and get into some kind of craft. It is great for the mind, and soul, to create.


The current state of my desk...