October Homesteading

The final push to get the urban plot tamed and planted is wrapping up and I finally had some time to sit and write an update. While the sunsets have been gorgeous at the urban plot, I look forward to having a few more evenings at home. For the next few weeks we hope to just weed and wait for the harvest to begin. The market garden crops are looking amazing! So good, in fact, that a rabbit, rat, or other sort of rodent also decided to sample the goods. The farmer rigged up a short chicken wire fence and we hope to electrify it for maximum repelling power. The greenhouse cherry tomatoes wrapped up this week. I'll miss the colorful harvest baskets, but for everything there is a season.

Radishes and turnips coming along nicely!

Gorgeous sunsets as we work into the dark

We planted most of our family winter garden with greens, carrots, and onions. Come November we plan to put garlic in the ground to over winter. Speaking of our personal homestead, our popcorn has been completely dry for a few weeks and we started shelling the kernels. The Farmer set aside a pint jar of seed corn for us to continue developing our own rainbow popcorn variety...and we also popped up a big bow of popcorn to sample the wares. We were giddy with how beautifully our homegrown popcorn popped! The kernels were so big it almost popped the lid off our pot! Drizzled with a bit of olive oil and salt it was delicious. Might have to pop another round tonight...or make cookies...decisions...

Also from the homestead garden, we have started enjoying more of our own dried beans. Back in the summer I discovered that you can dump dry beans + water in a slow cooker and have perfectly good beans by the evening. Why has no one told me about this magic before?! No forgetting to soak them the night before you have to cook them three days before you actually plan to eat them. I can cook them the same day. Revelation! Just so you're not left out on this secret let me tell you how simple this is. Put dry beans in the crockpot and fill the rest of the way with water. Cook on low for 7-ish hours. It's that easy. This works on all beans (except kidney beans), chickpeas, and lentils. If you need a ratio, 3/4 cup of dried beans per 15oz canned option. My mini slow cooker can do 1.5 cups dried beans. You can add whatever seasoning/flavors you want to cook with the beans. I like some garlic and onion with my black beans. Just don't add salt until the end, otherwise your beans will end up crunchy due to poor water absorption. Lesson learned the hard way.

Our flock continues to molt keeping egg production down. Amelia was looking pretty sorry last week, and this week Mildred is missing butt feathers and Opal is sporting a single tailfeather. As often happens to poor Lucy, she gets halfway through molting and then succumbs to roundworm. You can find your own gross photos elsewhere on google if you want to see how that is diagnosed. We were just a week shy of prepping a natural dewormer of herbs and pumpkin seeds, but her case was bad enough we ended up having to give medicated water to the whole flock. Unfortunately this meant we had to toss their eggs for a whole week. Sad daily chore last week. On the bright side, Lucy looks like she is rallying.

On of our youngest hens has been a super steady layer during the off-season for the older ladies, but a few weeks ago I noticed her eggs weren't in the nesting box. I didn't see them on the ground in the run. Then she disappeared for an hour. I suspected she was hiding them somewhere. I was right! The Farmer stumbled across them while out in the backyard a few days later. Miss Ethel had found a way to crawl under the fence into the no-man's land between my neighbor's lot and mine and found a cozy spot in the ivy to lay a whole week's worth of eggs. Crafty little girl trying to keep us from stealing her eggs. She's back to laying in the nesting box again thankfully, but she wasn't happy that we discovered her scheme.

On the subject of poultry, my sister-out-law showed me how to slaughter quail the other day. The Farmer and I have considered raising some quail for meat (and their super cute eggs), so it was a good way to see if 1. We actually like the taste of their meat and 2. See if we could handle adding slaughter day to our already full schedule. Quail are so much quicker/easier than chickens to eviscerate. Jury is still out on the taste as we accidentally under-cooked them in a hurry the other evening and didn't give them a fair trial. Taste to be determined.

Speaking of homestead education, J & C joined us for dinner and a small carpentry project recently. The Farmer and I started our cold frame construction nearly a month ago and just hadn't had the time to finish. With their help we built the angled box and attached the top we built previously. We only had one big "oops" moment. Our schematic and calculations didn't take into account that the angle would make the top longer...so when we went to attach the window top it was a few inches too short! Ha! We improvised by adding an extra board at the bottom for the window to rest on. Despite the oops, it turned out so awesome! I just need to stain/oil the wood to help it last a bit longer in the weather.

Love it!

Lastly, this month we host a small farmer/homesteader cook out. It was so much fun bringing together other people passionate about alternative/organic, permaculture, and human-scale agriculture. The potluck was naturally delicious with local farm produce and the bonfire was cozy. We hope to do it again in the near future now that the weather is prime.

Before we lit the fire