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coming along since it is built into a slope we are having to put in two courses of concrete blocks along the front to level it out from the northeast corner to the southwest corner there is a 16 inch drop in elevation it s hard to see here but it is quite the drop we now have two and a half walls built hurrah in case you don t remember we re repurposing the concrete blocks that were from the deck foundation that we demolished late last summer there are still some that need dug out of the ground by the house so i m hoping to have enough for another bed the second one won t be on as much of a slope and should be easier to construct while v worked and i made dinner the boys were outside k10 was up to his favorite pastime climbing trees on the way up he can get quite high in this one i just won t look we are approaching the one year mark of owning this property in some ways it seems like forever and in others it seems like just yesterday we ve come a long way but still have so far to go i know this is the marathon race but i so want it to be the sprint i m amazed at how early things are blooming this year the tulips of course we planted last fall since there weren t any here but they are already blooming this spring pretty so bright it almost glows the bleeding hearts are already blooming a full 3 weeks earlier than last year and my red currants are blooming like mad we picked up our new chipper shredder this evening we are becoming quite the small engine poster children but it is our last major tool purchase so this weekend if the weather holds i ll finally have mulch for around my trees and berries we ve got lots to shred i want to play with it tomorrow evening but i m going to be reorganizing the freezer we got the call that our grass fed beef is ready to be picked up from the locker so i ll be playing in the deep freeze tomorrow after work v will pick me up so we can go pick it up and come straight home what fun i have posted by judy t at 8 38 pm 8 comments labels flowers fruit production gardening preparation sunday march 21 2010 grain mill first use i tried my new toy er tool this evening i was hoping to make cornbread for dinner but ran out of time not any fault of the grain mill but mine for not having my waterfowl aligned properly for those of you who are caffeine or alcohol deprived i didn t have my ducks in a row but now i have cornmeal ground for tomorrow night the new machine worked like a dream i opted to use the electric base to start out the heirloom corn we grew last year bloody butcher is really hard and i was a bit nervous about grinding it the instructions state that you can t grind popcorn or anything that is rock hard such as tapioca pearls or saw palmetto berries not that i would have considered grinding any of those it does say to grind flint or dent corn in two passes so that is what i did ready to rock and roll from this after the first coarse grind the machine in action not much to see the end product i think that next time i may grind it one setting finer for the second grind for a finer texture but this is about the same texture that i was getting with the old coffee grinder clean up was easy it disassembles and reassembles quickly the only concern was that it was kind of scary grinding hard corn for the first test as it got down to the end of the hopper it flung a few kernels of corn out across the kitchen and it made terrible noises on occasion i m looking forward to using it for wheat and it also says that it will grind flax seed and mom gave me some so be on the lookout for new experiments i didn t opt for the flaker attachment that lets you make your own oatmeal or other rolled grains i m not that much of a hard core yet oh and before you ask about the bandaid yes i hurt myself taking down the fence this afternoon a miscalculation with the wire cutters resulted in a huge blood blister that popped ick and ouch all in all i give the family grain mill a thumbs up after the first use it was pricey 259 but currently they are throwing in the hand crank base for free and i figure that it will be something that i will be using for years to come and is a great prep purchase now to see if i can find a good source of wheat the wheat berries i have now i got from dad who went out with a bucket while the neighbors were unloading the combine but i guess you can t get much more local than that posted by judy t at 7 59 pm 7 comments labels babbling food preparation saturday march 20 2010 i m still here happy spring it has been a busy week and i m feeling a bit worn out we had snow for the beginning of spring but it has already mostly melted so it wasn t too traumatic things are definitely ramping up for the season seed starting has been going strong with some interesting results a mutant seedling 3 cotyledons i did have a bit of good luck boxes arrived today i ordered a grain mill on thursday night late like 10pm and it arrived already today it s a family grain mill f rom pleasant hill grains in ne they are having a special where you get the hand crank base when you buy the motorized unit i was amazed that it shipped yesterday and arrived today now i can grind my corn from last fall we ve been unable to grind it since the spare coffee mill we were using gave up the ghost a while ago now we are set i ll let you know what i think about it once we use it j15 and i were out and about running errands this afternoon and picked up a bottle of local wine we haven t opened it but it should be fun ms behavin i like that name and now we have another project in the works a goth garden i mentioned the idea at breakfast this morning after having looked at a site for rare and unusual seeds and it has taken off like wildfire even v has been making plans we already had the black hollyhock seeds but j15 and i had fun out today seed shopping at the local shops all black and white flowers or nearly black there aren t any true black flowers but we now have 1o varieties of flowers either black white or both and j15 is in charge she is finally really excited about gardening granted it has nothing to do with sustainable living or food production but it will be fun we plan to put it on the northwest corner of the house west of the garage we have even agreed to let her get the zombie statue it should be fun i did order a few other seeds this afternoon including a black pearl hot pepper that supposedly has black foliage hopefully they will ship quickly so we can get them started we had bad news at work the therapist who is out on maternity leave has decided to not come back well she will work for a few days to fulfill her requirements for benefits but she is essentially gone so we are going to be chronically short staffed until we find a replacement sigh i planted a bunch of flower seeds tonight and now it s family movie night posted by judy t at 8 39 pm 5 comments labels goth garden preparation seed to seed weather work wednesday january 14 2009 odd but okay today was a bizarre day i woke up to the phone ringing well i got up to the phone my alarm had gone off a few minutes earlier it was the automated phone call from the school district announcing that school was cancelled i wandered out of bed and let the dog out and realized that we had probably 6 inches of new snow in the yard and it was still snowing so v and the children were at home and i walked to work at the hospital helping someone get their car unstuck on the way people were late or didn t make it in and there was just an off feel to the day things didn t go as planned but i made it through and v offered to come pick me up after work which was nice as the temperature had started to drop it was already 1 f when i left work and it has continued to fall we are predicted to have near record lows tonight near 20 f with windchills nearing 45 brrrr in better news the new lid for my canner arrived today sent with an invoice that said no charge and a note of apology for any inconvenience wow what great service now we just need to figure out what to do with the old lid they didn t tell us to ship it back but i don t know what i d do with it v is going to email them tomorrow and ask them if they want us to return it so they can recycle it melt it down and recast it i have calmed down a bit about the beef i think i just wasn t expecting them to call quite so soon for those who don t remember we ordered a side of grass fed beef from a local amish farmer at the last winter market in early december i knew he was taking it to the processor the first week of january and that it would be ready mid month i just hadn t made the connection that it is in fact mid january okay i knew this intellectually i m not totally out of touch with reality but the significance snuck up on me i am excited to get the beef it will mean many many months of food security with v s job situation still up in the air right now we can easily afford it and have been saving the money for it but with no work steady work in sight for v it will be great to have almost better than money in the bank i m actually looking forward to figuring out what to do with some of the more uncommon cuts of meat we will be receiving ah a food challenge so all in all today was odd but good i had a day working at a job i enjoy then came home to my loving family a warm house and good food what more could i want oh yeah the acreage with room to expand the homestead posted by judy t at 7 50 pm 5 comments labels food preparation weather work tuesday october 21 2008 slippers warm feet for the winter just don t look a how dirty the floor is you wouldn t think it would be too much trouble to find house slippers for two boys ages 8 and 11 would you it s getting chilly in the house 64 tonight we haven t turned on the furnace yet but it s only set for 65 while we re home anyway the boys have a habit of kicking off their shoes as soon as they get home i think they picked that one up from me i really don t like wearing shoes but they are starting to complain that their feet are cold so tonight while i was out picking up a few other things i thought i d look for slippers wow not much selection out there for boys oh i could have gotten the silly character slippers dora the explorer or spiderman but they re beyond that there are thousands of slippers for little girls pink sparkly ones but the few for boys didn t seem very good quality or didn t seem that they would be comfortable moccasins with little insulation and really stiff fabric outers so i ended up shelling out the money for the expensive collegiate wear ones with the iowa hawkeyes tigerhawk emblem they were the only ones in a size that would fit that they would be willing to wear i know i could have looked around more at different stores but it was late and i was in a hurry so much for frugality this time but the boys are both hawkeye fans they don t get that from either parent so they thought they were great posted by judy t at 7 19 pm no comments labels family home preparation monday october 20 2008 inventory ok did an inventory of the canned goods not the freezer yet i got that reorganized a few weeks ago but do you think i thought to do a count while i was at it of course not that would have made too much sense i need to get to that so i m sure what we ve got but not this week my mil is coming later this week and i m still trying to get out from under the mountain of laundry in the basement here s the inventory as it stands now whole tomatoes 11 qt tomato sauce 9 qt 4 pt salsa 8 pt enchilada sauce 4 pt pickled jalapeno relish 5 pt spiced apples 6 pt green tomato apple chutney 7 half pt plus one open in the fridge sweet pickles 1 qt thanks mom spicy mixed pickles 1 qt thanks again mom ginger pear jam 3 pt raspberry jam 3 pt plus one open in fridge apple jelly 2 pt not a bad list but not what i would have liked unfortunately we had a bad year with the garden i would have liked to put up more tomatoes but with all the rain we had early roger and i had a difficult time keeping up with all that needed done and it was a disappointing year especially with the tomatoes peppers we ve got plenty of for a while during the worst of the flooding here i had to drive way out of the way to even get to the garden which is usually only a 5 minute drive oh i m hoping for the day when i have enough land to be able to walk out my door to the garden at any time peace j posted by judy t at 7 48 pm 1 comment labels food preservation preparation pioneer week oh oh oh hitch up the wagon pioneer week is arriving the first week of november time to live like little house on the prairie i may need to talk the family into this one j14 i know should be an easy sell v maybe a little harder but the boys no tv or video games for a week what kind of mother will they think i am well they know what kind we ve done no tv week before and they have survived what exactly is involved in pioneer week you may ask here is how i envision it at our house 1 food the rules call for making everything from scratch that shouldn t be too bad i already do a lot of cooking from scratch i know i need to bake bread for the bread for the world service at church on nov 2 so i will just make enough to get us through the week as long as i don t need to make my own cheese yogurt i can do although learning to make cheese could be interesting i m willing to go to the cheese factory in kalona to pick up some more cheese to make sure it s local if it becomes necessary but i will need to do that before the week starts 2 energy use i already reset the thermostat to get ready for the freeze yer buns challenge v lit the pilot light over the weekend but we haven t had to use the furnace yet hopefully the weather will hold and we can get through awhile without using it as far as lighting goes we ve got lots of candles and oil lamps that we can use we also use the lamps as auxiliary heaters to add a degree or two to the temp in the house 3 conserve water this will probably be the most difficult i can be pretty quick in the shower i learned to be one summer when i was one of 20 dirty archaeologists using the water from a 80 gallon oil barrel that we used for hot water that s efficiency j14 will need the most work on this one she tends to take a long time in the shower we have a dishwasher but frequently hand wash dishes anyway 4 transportation walk as much as you can this one shouldn t be too bad i have walked to work for the past 14 years j14 and the boys walk to school v is the only one who drives to work and that only since he started his new job in august i think he should be able to ride the bus but he likes to have the car to be able to get to the children quickly in case one of them gets sick or something i have a 25 minute walk home his previous walk was about 10 minutes now he drives about 4 miles the only driving i do during the week is to take j14 to orchestra rehearsal on mondays and to pick up i11 from band practice on wednesdays their after ...