Wild and plentiful.

As far as fruit goes, just a bit of seasonal planning around here would have us covered for most of the year. The blackberries are so plentiful that we have to cut them back and mow them over to keep them under control. Good fruit May-June. Some of the bushes have gotten attacked by "rust."
I've also discovered a few patches of muscadines for late summer fruit, though I'm not sure what type of muscadines or whether we'll even get any if we are competing with the wildlife. It will be interesting to see what happens this year, anyway. Perhaps in August I can also try to root a few vines and plant them closer to the house. Most of those that are growing are pretty high up in the trees.

Aside from those, I have the figs and I would like to have mayhaw berries and plums but I'm still working on finding some plants. I've considered growing some citrus. Ronnie's kumquats are delicious and he's able to grow lemons and oranges over there, but they have been overtaken by bamboo and aren't doing so well. My mom thinks I should grow bananas! We will see about that...

There was a solitary pink wild morning glory plant growing by the road and I was waiting for it to make some seeds so that I could spread them around, but the city came and mowed down all of the plants and I finally found its mangled remains. No seeds, but perhaps something ate them.

There is good news for the morning glory, though not that one specifically. Over at Ronnie's he had a big pecan tree fall down during a storm and knocked down his power lines. As a result, all of the wild weeds in his front yard had to be bulldozed and the dirt was scraped bare. It was mostly privet and air potato vines over there anyway so he wasn't too heartbroken about it.
I wandered over there today and in the bare dirt has germinated hundreds and hundreds of little morning glories. There are some wild type as well as some cultivated (that Ronnie claims he planted years ago in another part of the yard). I find it quite amazing just how many seedlings are popping up, so I'm planning on transplanting a little patch of them to my part of the property to see how they do.

Funny all those little seeds must have been waiting there for years-- waiting to get a chance to touch the bare Earth.

Good bread and work.

I started a loaf of bread kind of late tonight. Seth is in a bad position and I feel guilty for it. He hates change, it seems. The past year has been full of it. I dragged him to Virginia, married him, made him a father, dragged him back to Louisiana, encouraged him to take jobs, and to leave jobs and now I'm encouraging him to switch jobs again. Something that seems like a really good opportunity has come along. He's happy at his current job and things are going well there so I think he is hesitant to leave.
I can tell it's really getting to him.

He said he wanted bread earlier so I started making bread. I forgot it takes 3 long hours to make so I'll be up until 11:30 or midnight I suppose. Everyone else has already gone to bed.

This time I loosely followed the recipe on the back of my bag of flour. I added too much honey and butter but both of those are delicious so I don't think many problems will be caused. The dough feels exactly the same, but tastes a little better than my previous attempts.


It will be nice to have fresh bread again. It's so wonderful homemade, and so wonderful to make. I haven't done it in awhile. I'd call it laziness, or procrastination.

Sometimes I wonder how people have made it so far with infants around. How does anything get done ever?
I guess it does. I guess it does around here, too, but mentally it all just feels incomplete, in-progress and very scattered.
Thus is life, hm? I'd be feeling the same way without an infant, really.

It's actually no different.

The chickens are big now and I love their soft feathers. They are all pretty sweet and tame. Even though it's a hassle to move them back and forth, morning and night, it's the only time we spend with them besides feeding and watering. It's good that they're so used to us.
I really love those creatures.

Signing off now, as I await a warm slice of bread with butter and honey... or perhaps the sound of a crying child.

Compost follow-up

The compost is too wet and not getting enough oxygen. The too wet thing is because we've recently had some rain, despite the fact that we're in a severe drought. The lack of oxygen... well, I often ignore the compost so that's what's happening there.

As usual.

Slow and steady as usual. I've been putting a lot of energy into helping Seth with a job, getting things around the house to go more smoothly, daily chores, and recently I've been browsing the forums at survivalistboards.com. There are a lot of bright individuals over there with quite a bit of good dialogue. I'm also reading some fiction and listening to audio lectures online. (FYI: I'm "ss834" in the forums)
A lot of intake, not a lot of output.

Okay, I have a big galvanized wash tub to use for outdoor washing... dishes, laundry, whatever. The chickens are doing well. I want to get serious about creating a big run for them and when they are old enough I may recruit Ronnie's rooster to breed and start some new chicks next spring. Ronnie has also been talking about mating the pygmy goats. Seth says he heard that pygmy milk is no good, but I read the opposite, so I think it's worth trying.
We'll get a goat yard set up and maybe take a nanny and her kids. That'll do it for animals for awhile-- goats and chickens were our primary interests. Oh, and the rabbits! We have rabbits and Ronnie has quail.




Other than that I've got to get the vegetable bed going. I am thinking about starting with intensive potted veggies and a deep raised bed. I know I need to start small for now, since it is only me, and if some people can do it on 1/10 an acre then I should have no problem growing right off the porch.

The rest of the figs will go in the ground this weekend and that'll be it for my trees that have needed planting.

The other plants have suffered from the heat wave of the past 3 weeks. Though the chives, the trees, the mint and the wildflowers are still doing well.

I'm going to start some tomato seed this weekend as well and whatever else I already have. My compost is getting pretty nasty and awful. I think I'm either failing miserable or succeeding. Its got grubs of all sorts in there and tons of fire ants because they are everywhere and they get into everything. They eat about half of what I put out there.

... sigh...

Kitchen and electricity.

Seth keeps telling me that before we do anything, we need to address the basics-- get the "infrastructure" set up and *then* I can worry about the garden. Sounds good, but geez, where to start?
Recently we had a great upset over the sink. We have a shallow, stainless steel standard indoor kitchen sink and I detest it. Dishes pile up over the course of the day, or when we have dinner guests, and it just makes the entire kitchen, and thus the entire house, look awful. Also, since the sink is so shallow, water sprays or spills out of the sink on to the counter when we're washing dishes and the cheap particle board has started to swell and buckle underneath. Its just nasty looking.

The other day the sink drains were clogged from food getting caught down in there. Yes, and easy solution to this would be to get a strainer so the food doesn't go down the drain, but at the time I packed up the dirty dishes and went outside to wash them and it was so much more pleasant.

I had the sun on my face, and the water goes into the ground and waters some of my trees (we use ivory soap, not detergent, so it isn't as nasty for the ground). It reminded me of backcountry camping and it felt good.

We've been talking about having an outdoor kitchen. What we'd start with would be a big, deep basin sink and dish drying rack. We may switch from the ivory soap to something else, and the water could be directed directly to water the plants.
It's kind of silly that we had to put down a treatment plant out here because ultimately I don't know if we will even be using it in the long-run. I'd like to recycle our gray water and have a compost toilet and everything... but... oh well. It was a parish requirement or we couldn't do anything at the time. It does still drain out on the property.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I just got our electricity bill for this month. Last month we were using an average of 31 kWh/day and this month it was closer to 35 kWh/day. ACK!
That may be close to average, or maybe even a little less considering we've just gone through an extensive heat wave with temps in the 100's for the past 3-4 weeks... but still I think that's pretty high. Especially for "homesteaders."

Since we're talking about moving the kitchen, I am looking into the possibility of kerosene cook stoves. There's a great discussion on kerosene cook stoves at endtimesreport.com-- and frankly a decent discussion on a lot of other survival/self-sufficiency related items.
I'm trying to determine now whether that really would be a more efficient option. Better in emergencies or disasters indeed, but is it really more cost-effective?

I will be looking into some of this stuff and plan to come back with some more information to share on my research.

The Snake, and other photos.

We had something of a humbling experience with a snake yesterday. While Seth's dad was moving a pile of old building materials he uncovered a snake. The snake was molting and its behavior was confusing and more aggressive than we would have expected from a non-venomous snake. The human mind can play tricks on you in moments of fear and uncertainty. None of us knew what a young cottonmouth looked like and we misidentified it as a viper... though in retrospect we aren't sure why we did except that we just didn't know.

I snapped a few photos of the snake and came inside to identify it. One of the local lensmasters in my area keeps a great set of lenses about all sorts of creatures, so I found the lens Snakes of Louisiana and quickly realized that this little guy was a Garter snake... not a moccasin!

Great news... except some tragedy had already occurred outside that I won't disclose. It really does save a lot of trouble and grief to be knowledgeable and experienced with your surroundings-- whatever they happen to be but *especially* out in the country.

A few more photos to share...

The building of the chicken run last week.

The three figs growing healthy and ready to be planted.

... and a little bird's nest with a single egg.

Another day on the farm.

I feel like things were going well for about two straight weeks. I managed to have quite a lot of time to update the blog and go on little adventures around the property. Now it seems like everything has changed--

Oh yeah, my husband got another job. Instead of him being home to share the duties of baby-rearing, I'm back to full-time during the days and along with it have come the blues. I started this blog knowing that I was going to have to admit to some setbacks and long periods of no productivity-- but actually admitting to it almost feels like a failure.

Of course there is no true failure here. I'm taking care of my baby and everything else around here as best I can-- absolutely worth it. It's just that in the process I've had to neglect a few things that would otherwise help to keep me motivated and keep my spirits up. It will take awhile to balance it all out again.

Callum is teething. Over the weekend he also had a low fever and seemed a little ill, then a doctor's appointment on Tuesday (regular checkup) and last night he broke out in a rash. Now he's miserable and teething.
Also over the weekend Seth and I were *both* sick. Seth more sick than I was, so I tried to help him and care for the restless little baby all day (I think it was Sunday.. or Monday).

Perhaps I'm getting used to it again. I wish I could take Cal outside and walk around but it's been in the mid- to upper- 90's here all week and it's just miserable. Early mornings are okay because we can find a few spots of shade at times. For the most part it's like walking out into an oven and just not pleasant.

Anyway, Seth is working! We aren't living off of our savings anymore so we might afford to spend a bit on some of our projects (yeah, or finish paying the bill for some of our old projects...).

We still have to finish the chicken house. We haven't lost anymore hens, and what we have works for now but it could definitely be better. It seems like we've hit a wall with this project. I suppose its because we've been trying to work out the cheapest way to do it. There are still some materials available around the property for us to use so maybe we can get it done without spending anymore... We will see.

Some rosemary that I started from seed are coming up. I only started a few because I didn't think it was a good time to start them, but there are two precious little seedlings now. All of the other plants are doing well. I'm looking to mulch everything soon because the heat is getting bad and I didn't have enough mulch to begin with.

All things coming along slowly... I hope to get some time for a very thorough update soon.

Business Plants, Homestead updates

What's been going on around here the past couple of days?
We've made a more permanent chicken coop by tying a tarp over the hay ring that we were already using. Then we fastened the wire around the ring to make it more secure. It's a good little run area for the 4 hens we have now and it will be easy to move. We had planned on constructing a chicken tractor but I'm actually more pleased with this because it was essentially free.
We are still moving them from the run to the little chicken house at night. Soon we are planning on fastening some nesting and laying boxes to the run so they'll have somewhere safe to go at night.

In the next few days we will probably be cutting down some of the Tallow trees. I think it's important that we cut them down before they go to seed. Some already have little green seeds forming.
Callum and I walked around yesterday morning pulling up dozens of little seedlings near the fenceline. They come up very easily when they are young.

I planted two longleaf pines that I had dug up from another area of the property. They are so tiny right now. One is about 4 inches tall and the other is maybe 7-8 inches.

I also have 3 figs I'm going to be planting soon, now that they've got some healthy leaves. These were given to me a few months ago as root cuttings. I thought two of them were going to die but they are doing great now.

Hm... other news is that we are looking into business options, such as becoming an LLC. It was Andrew's idea and I'm exploring that idea. I think it would be a great thing to get started. Not sure what all we would produce but I have QUITE a few ideas.

Abrupt end.

Squidoo broadcast.

I've been doing quite a bit of work over at Squidoo building my pages which focus on the homestead, the property and different aspects of the whole project.

Please go over and take a look at what I've been up to...

Okay, this first one is just about the blog, but there's so much more! My lens sort of "fleshes out" the whole idea behind the blog and shows the big picture. I'm quite proud of this one and I've been working at it for a couple of weeks now.
The Wild Homestead Blog

A new lens about the old farmhouse that I hope will serve to document the idea Seth and I had of turning that into an "art project." This one is a work in progress, but we'll see where it goes.
The Art of Preserving an Old House

Tallow trees! If you don't know about Tallow Trees, you should learn :)
Controlling the Spread of Chinese Tallow.

And a little Bio I put together that's kind of silly, in my opinion, but whatever....
The Wild Homestead- Who Writes It?".

Little Ladies'-Tresses

Well, there's been another identification, and this one I'm quite excited about. The ID was made by naturegirl7 at squidoo (she has a lot of great 'lenses', so be sure to check them out!).

This little flower is a member of the orchid family. I think the species we have is Spiranthes tuberosa, also called Little Ladies'-tresses.


If you want to see how gorgeous this flower is when it's actually in bloom, the Connecticut Botanical Society has some great pictures.

I've spotted the flowers in 3 different places right around our house but I think they've been mowed now :-\ Next time I find an interesting little plant like this I'm going to mark its location so it can grow and bloom in peace.