Around the Homestead

Lots of little odds and ends and tons of photos to catch up on. Here are my updates plus some random tidbits. Where shall I begin?

Garden. Like so many others, my garden has struggled this year. Nothing has died from our hot, dry weather, but it’s all hunkered down into survival mode. That means slim pickings. Most of what I pick we eat fresh, which means I won’t be breaking any preservation records this year. What has done well, has been my African keyhole garden.

Something that helped, was this…

Dan sank a perforated pipe into the center of the keyhole’s compost bin for pouring water into. It delivers the water deep into the bed, whereas before, some of it was running off the surface of the compost instead of giving it a deep soaking. Compare the sweet potato vines in the above two photos to the sweet potatoes in the garden.

Granted, my sweet potato bed in not one of my hugelkultur swale beds, so it dries out more quickly. You can also see my inverted water bottles, which haven’t been as helpful here as I’d hoped. 

Ollas. Everything planted with an olla has done well! These are my Matt’s Wild Cherry Tomato plants (in need of being tied up again).

It’s loaded with little green tomatoes, but they haven’t ripened yet, I think because it doesn’t get sun until afternoon. The ones in the garden are ripening well, however, which we’ve been eating in salads.

Rain catchment. Next to my front porch tomato trellis there is now another rain tank. We’ve used so much rain water for the garden this summer that he wanted to add more.

It will be used for filling ollas and inverted water bottles, plus anything else in the front yard that needs watering.

Jam & Jelly Making. Although the veggies have struggled, we’ve done pretty well in the fruit department. At least we’ll have plenty of jam and jelly this winter!

Wheat processing is almost done. Dan continues to work on it in between his projects while I try to keep up with canning and dehydrating. Now, we’ll have something to put our jam and jelly on!

Of the several years we’ve grown wheat, this crop is making the most delicious bread! I should have a final weight soon. The straw is being used for mulch and I feed the chaff to the goats.

They love it!

Eggs. Our egg production is down to about one egg per day. We thought it might pick up again after Dan found a black snake coiled cozily in one of the nest boxes, but it hasn’t. Our chickens are five years old, and have averaged four eggs per day until mid-summer. But they’ve never gone broody to replace themselves. We planned to replace them last spring, but then coronavirus. We’re looking to replace the flock in the near future.

Milk. I’m currently getting close to half-a-gallon of milk every day. I make my cheeses by order of “importance.” Mozzarella first, until I’ve frozen several dozen bags of shreds. Then feta; I like to have two or three gallon crocks of it stored in olive oil. Currently, it’s halloumi.

At first, I followed the traditional method of rubbing the slabs with herbs and folding in half. Now I skip all that and just pop them into the brine for three days. Like the mozzarella, I freeze these after they’ve brined. We like them either grilled over a hickory fire, or pan fried. They hold their shape very well and are mighty tasty.

Elderberries. Remember the net bags I used in hopes of saving some elderberries from the birds? They’re working!

Silvopasture. I don’t know if you remember we added silvopasture to our most recent master plan. The last time we had a forecast for rain, Dan seeded an area in hopes we could get something to grow there.

For years, this area has shown nothing but dirt! Lovely to see some grasses growing there.

Hornets. While working in the front pasture, Dan was attacked by hornets. They made a nest in the Leyland cypresses and began attacking the goats too. Drastic steps to eliminate the problem were required

It was either them or us!

5 Acres & A Dream The Sequel is in the print proof stage; the last step before hitting the “publish button!”

I’m getting close to having it done.

Ricotta pastry dough. I liked my dehydrated gnocchi squares so well, that I wondered if the dough could be used for pastry crust. So I experimented. I made a batch of gnocchi dough and rolled it out to make tarts.

Dan liked them but I was hoping for a crispier crust. I think next time I’ll cook the tart shells in a very slow oven to dry and crisp them more than bake them. I’m always up for an experiment.

Rare photo of two archenemies.

These two absolutely refuse to get along! One of them is forever stalking and ambushing the other, and it’s always claws-out serious, never play. I couldn’t believe it when I saw them relaxing so close together. I thought I’d better get a picture to document the occasion!

That’s my busy life these days! Tell me about yours!