Our 2013 Garden and Mini-Experiments (a.k.a. "Really Cool Tips!")

Hello! We have been busy busy little gardeners, doing what we can to coax our little seeds out of their respective shells. Our starts did beautifully in their mini greenhouse, and are now safely tucked in pots and buckets inside our little greenhouse. Speaking of my new greenhouse. I ADORE it! It has become my little, quiet oasis in the midst of summer noise and chaos.  It's nothing fancy;  just one of those little quick-set kits that we got 2 years ago when they were on end-of-season clearance. I paid a whopping $30 for it instead of the original $149 sticker (so very centsible of me, if I do say so myself!), and have been anxious to set it up since.  However, last year with a newborn and a record-setting rainfall, I wasn't feeling my green thumb groove, and the kit stayed in it's box. That's just made me garden with pent-up demand this year!

Farmer Boy has been diligently helping his Mama set up the greenhouse and fill the beds with all sorts of roots and leafy greens! I love that farmhand wanna-be!  :)

Ta-Da! Greenhouse up, ready, and planted! I have since modified it by inserting two patches of window screen just below the point of the roof on the short ends in order to vent the excess heat. I just cut  a rectangle out of the plastic cover and taped in the scraps of window screen using thick plastic tape (and duct tape when I ran out of clear plastic).

Farmer Boy has been anxious to move his pumpkin starts out of the living room and into the greenhouse. We had thought we would put them in a pallet, but the pallet was too wide for the floor of our little structure. So, into some big pots they went, and I'm sure we'll have to thin as they grow. I am thinking I will rest squares of plywood between the pots as they start to vine. I am really trying to keep them up and away from the slugs that always seem to enjoy them before we can. (sigh)

We also planted tomatoes, peppers, yellow squash, zucchini, and strawberries. Now I am left with one empty shelf and pondering how I can fill it?! Maybe more zucc's?

  Yay! I finally got to plant my heirloom tomato seeds that I had saved two seasons ago! At the time I had filed them away, I was a garden newbie and didn't realize that seeds should be planted the following year. I had completely forgotten about them until recently, so we'll see if I get anything! (Fingers crossed)

 One rain gutter on the deck that is sprouting Black Simpson lettuce and green onions.

This one is sporting French Breakfast radishes and more scallions.

Potato buckets on the back deck awaiting planting this weekend. (The spuds are still sprouting in the bathroom cabinet :)

A hazy shot of the beds. This year we added three pallets and removed one swimming pool.

We have spinach and kale in the pallets. Beets, carrots, onion, sugar snap peas, and snow peas are in the beds.

TIP ALERT! We wrapped our unsightly swimming pool garden with a scrap of burlap after finding the idea on-line. It looks SO  much better, and I'm sure the neighbors are thrilled. However, as you can see, I need to go visit my yard with the weed-eater this weekend!

The greenhouse addition! If you look closely under the peak of the roof, you can see the window screen patch I mentioned above. There is one on the opposing wall, as well,  to allow for air flow and venting.

Love Love LOVE my herb garden. Pesto and salsa are definitely on my summer menu!

TIP ALERT #2! What a great way to re-use old jar lids! Thanks Pinterest and Pinners for this handy tip!

I'm actually really pleased with my front door this year. I love the mixed containers and accessories that make up our whimsical fairy garden. You can also see the beautiful rocks that the children in my Farmer Jr's Sunday School class embellished and handed out to the congregation on Easter Sunday.

Well, that's what we've been up to our eyeballs in doing lately. We are pooped, but pleased! I can't wait until the harvest begins!

Blessings to you and your Homestead,
Hillary At Home

We're back in the lab! H.E. #35- New Ways To Start Seeds

First off, a quick note to say "Hi! I've missed you this past 10 months or so! How have you been?" I have been good, but extremely busy! We brought home a new, cuddly (code for extra-high maintenance) baby boy and started a new business while preparing for my DH's retirement from Active Duty military. We've also undergone some MAJOR dietary changes to help with my children's developmental disorders (ADD and ADHD) which you can read about here. This means that I have spent countless more hours in the kitchen and on-line looking for ideas as to what to feed my family, and how to cook with an overload of new ingredients.  And yes, we've also  continued to homeschool during all of these big changes, which I am so thankful for. However, experiments and blogging got left in the dust. I had so many ideas swirling around in my fatigued head, but alas they never made it onto my screen.  I am grateful that (I think) I am tentatively back in a state of life and mind that I can conduct a few more experiments, make an occasional post, and answer those neglected comments that are still sitting in my inbox.  

Okay, so enough about me! Let's get on with the experiments!  Today I decided to get my seeds started for my expanding garden. We are still in the same rental that we've had the past 4 years, so we still haven't found our homestead yet.  However, with some handy ideas that I've gleaned off of Pinterest, we are expanding our growing space with new, portable beds. (More on those later, for now let's get back to the seeds.)

The two experiments we began today are 1) Starting seeds in half of a broken egg shell, and 2) Using the clear plastic produce cases from Costco as mini-greenhouses to help them sprout sooner.  

Not the best picture since the sun was shining directly on the table as I snapped it.

The egg shell idea makes so much sense in light of all of the calcium and other nutrients the plants will get to absorb as they sprout. The only downside is that they are small, so I foresee having to re-plant them into either newspaper pots or peat pots again in a few weeks.  Also, they are fragile, so the kiddos didn't get to help me start the seeds today, although I placated them by telling them they can help when we move them to beds later.

The Costco trays seem to work well, but time will tell. Most of the containers already had holes in them for ventilation. The apple ones did not, though, so I just used a steak knife to poke and twist some holes for air flow.  Now they are all just sitting on a folding table in my living room in front of my sunniest windows, and I will be watching and waiting to see what happens next!

Have you gotten your garden groove on yet? If not, happy planting, and if so, I pray that you enjoy a bountiful harvest!

Blessings to you and your homestead,
Hillary At Home

"Living Like The Impoverished"?!! LOLOL

Hello from the land of newborn cuddles and all-night feedings! Yes, I haven't blogged in FOREVER, but with the introduction of our newest bundle into this crazy family, the blog had to be put aside for awhile.  I was planning to gradually wade back into it since I have mentally composed countless entries during those 3 a.m. feedings, but after coming across the following tidbit, I decided to rush back into the blogging world full tilt.

Here is what has motivated me to pick up my virtual pen again. One of the local homeschool groups has a yahoo board for communicating among the local HS community.   The following text is the post that graced my inbox last night:

Our family is tossing around the idea that for the entire upcoming school year we will live as if we are impoverished. Exactly what that that means we haven't nailed down, but some examples might be:

1. Purchase only what is absolutely necessary
2. Purchase used clothing
3. Turn off our cable, maybe even the TV.
4. No cell phones for a year, only the land line
5. Ride bikes whenever possible

It would be great for other families to join us. Perhaps spend the year learning about other impoverished countries and cultures.

Maybe a weekly/bi-weekly get together. Sort of a support group.

Then, as a reward, at least for us, we are going to go to Europe for two weeks.

What in the world??  This person really thinks those 5 bullet points are impoverishment?! 

Okay, in an effort to maintain the positive attitude that I want this blog to exude, let me just tackle two of the many (I feel)  misguided items in this entry.  First off, I am going to re-paste the bullet list below with a comparison of our current lifestyle after each item.

1. Purchase only what is absolutely necessary  (That's what we do for the most part-especially when we have a specific savings goal in mind, i.e. paying off debt, saving to buy a house, retire, etc.)
 

2. Purchase used clothing (YES! The mark-up for new clothing is between 40-700%!  We buy used or heavily discounted.)
 

3. Turn off our cable, maybe even the TV.  (We have Netflix and Hulu for the Fall/Winter, but turn if off for Spring/Summer.)
 

4. No cell phones for a year, only the land line (Well, we do have pre-paid cell phones for those twice a week calls...)

 
5. Ride bikes whenever possible (Okay, you got me there. We live up the side of a mountain next to a busy highway, so we have opted not to send our kids careening downhill into traffic.)

Now I am not sure what the benchmark is for impoverishment according to these criteria, but since we pretty much qualify for 4 out of 5, I'm assuming this woman would consider us to be so -along with the majority of one-income homeschooling families for that matter!  

At one point in our life, I would agree that we were poor. We were so indebted and underwater financially, that we were seriously struggling. We were slaves to many lenders.  Thankfully, we are now free of those chains by choosing to live with such restrictions as listed above. The ironic thing is, that while we could now easily afford to go back to a more luxurious standard of living, we have chosen to keep our modest ways.  We have seen the numerous benefits of restraining our purchases, buying/receiving used goods, spending our time away from the TV screen, and not being assaulted by a constant barrage of phone beeps and rings. And yes, when we can, we like to load up the bikes, head to a bike path or side road, and pedal our hearts out.

Item #2:  "Then, as a reward, at least for us, we are going to go to Europe for two weeks."

This seems so wrong in so many ways! First off, does the family behind this post really see these changes as true impoverishment? Are they so out of touch with what real poverty looks like that they feel they deserve an exotic vacation as a reward for their self-imposed martyrdom? It's no wonder, then, that many peoples in the world view Americans as jaded, greedy pigs.

Since I firmly believe that how a person spends their money is simply a matter of what their financial priorities are, I can understand that a person's impression of wealth/poverty stems from a personal perspective. That being said, here is my own list of what words I would substitute for the word "impoverishment" based on my family's experiences and beliefs:

"Living within one's means"

"Living on a budget"

"Living simply"

"Being a wise steward" (Luke 12: 42)

"Not being a slave to a lender" (Proverbs 22:7)

"Being faithful with little to earn responsibility over more" (Luke 16:10, Matthew 25:23)

"Storing up treasure in Heaven" (Matthew 6:19-21)

"Freeing ourselves from the strongholds of materialism" (Mark 10: 17-27)

Rather than feeling impoverished and trapped, we are much more free and flexible than we ever were before. In fact, I would highly encourage this family to take on their project! I have a feeling they would benefit in many more ways than simply a trip to the Eurozone when it was over.

Blessings to you and your homestead,

Hillary At Home

 

100th Post Giveaway-And The Winner Is...

Homestead Holidays-A Jesse Tree

I was first introduced to the concept of a Jesse Tree a few years ago. However, each year I normally don't think about making one until we are already well into Advent. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this tradition, here is a great demo to explain it all.  This year I happened to catch a link on another website and thankfully my memory was jogged in time to get one ready for this year!

Now my problem was that most of the websites I found offered great layouts for the devotions but only gave you ideas for the crafts-as in 'you need to gather all the different materials and construct 30 ornaments for this tree'.  Hmmm, maybe someday but not this year at my homestead!  I then set off on an internet search to find a good devotional with simple printable ornaments that the kids could color, cut, mount on pretty paper, and laminate.  That quest was much harder than I had anticipated! Some sites had great devotions but no ornaments whereas others had altered the devotions by switching out some of the verses and Bible figures, but offered printable ornaments. Ugh! Couldn't I find the best of both?

Eureka! I finally found it! RCA online offers a very straightforward, free devotional guide here along with printable ornaments here!  Yay! This will give the kids something exciting to do while I prepare Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, and the goal is to have them ready to begin hanging on our little tree on Sunday.  For our tree, I chose to purchase a small 18" white artificial tree. I wanted it to be in stark contrast to our traditional tree, and I think the white will really help the ornaments to stand out.

If you choose to implement a Jesse Tree into your Christmas countdown this year, I would LOVE to hear your ideas and see pictures!

Holiday Blessings to you and your homestead,
Hillary At Home

Homestead Giveaway: And the Prize Will Be...

Okay, I have decided what will be included in our "100th Post Giveaway!"  In keeping with the theme of this blog, the winner will recieve:

1 Qt. Homemade Applesauce
1 Qt. Homemade Cranberry Sauce
1 Pt. Fireweed Honey
1 Pt. Salmonberry Jelly
(All products have been canned and processed according to USDA recommendations in my clean, cozy kitchen!)

So, for all of you Non-Alaskans who have never tried the Fireweed Honey or Salmonberry Jelly, now is your chance!  Simply leave a comment on any of my blog entries, or my facebook page. I will be drawing this Friday, November 25th at 5pm Alaska time (9pm Eastern). 

Blessings,
Hillary At Home

Homestead Experiment #29-Homemade Cherry Pitter

One of my  favorite magazines is Seasons At Home published by Joyous Home Publishing.  Each whimsical issue is like a book filled with encouraging insights, and wonderful crafts, handiwork, and woodworking projects.  It helps me to regain perspective in regards to my mothering ministry, and it gives me ideas for developing life-skills in my children.  In the most recent issue there was a recipe for canned cherry pie filling.  When I saw cherries on sale at the store for 1.99 a pound (regularly $5-6), I knew I had to give it a try.

I happily loaded up my grocery cart with bags of cherries and headed over to the household department to pick up a cherry pitter. $15.99!?!  For a utensil I will use once a year?!  I was going to spend more on the pitter than on the cherries!  I dragged my bags back to their home on the produce shelf, but was resolved to research a homemade version of the pitter.  Thankfully I didn't have to look any further than youtube for a variety of options.  I saw everything from knife smashers to paper clips, but the design I settled on is featured in this video:

Just like the guys show in the clip, I was easily able to replicate their pitter with my own cheap forks and pliers.

Then came the test of being able to use it with ease. Sure enough, I was able to pit 6lbs. of cherries during my daughters' 30 minute rest-time.  Not too shabby, eh?

For a cost savings of roughly $15.75, I am extremely happy with the result. Thanks 'handsongourmet'!

Blessings,
Hillary At Home

Homestead Experiment #28-All Alaskans Drop What You're Doing...

...and go get some Fireweed before it's gone!  Seriously. About 8 cups worth of blossoms to be exact.  Why? For amazng Fireweed Jelly of course!  We made a second (much more successful!) attempt at making Fireweed Honey in HE #25, but wanted to try something entirely new.  This jelly was such a victorious event that it may even knock my precious Salmonberry Jelly out of my #1 fave jelly spot. It's that good!  Plus it's much quicker and easier to get/make than Salmonberry.  If you can pick flowers and boil water, you can make this jelly!

Add caption

Here's the recipe I found:

  

Marylin's Fireweed Jelly Recipe
8 Cups fireweed blossoms

1/4 Cup lemon juice

4 1/2 Cups water

2 pkgs Sure Jell (or other powdered pectin)

5 Cups sugar

Pick,wash, and measure fireweed blossoms (flower part only, no stems). Add lemon juice and 4 1/2c water. Boil 10 minutes and strain. Take the strained juice and heat to lukewarm. (Mine was still very hot after straining, so I just went straight to the pectin. No need to cool it to lukewarm or anything.  I think that step is for if you leave a gap of time in between the straining and pectin and need to reheat the juice.) Add pectin all at once and bring to a boil. Add 5 cups sugar and return to full boil.
Boil hard for 1 minute. Pour into hot clean jars , wipe rims, and seal w/ lids and rings. Process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

My sous chefs assembling the ingredients

7 jars in and ready for a bath!

This is my little 'half-bath' canner that my sister brought me from Oregon. It's actually a vintage pressure canner. (see the flipped up latches on the lid?).  It has a little rack in it, and is perfect for half-pint and pint jars. I can totally understand how people used to have explosions pressure cooking with these, now that I've seen how thin the aluminum is and how there is no way to regulate the pressure. Yikes!  It's great for a non-pressurized water bath, but scary for anything else :S

The result:  it set up immediately and is a beautiful dark violet color.  That struck me as interesting since I was expecting it to be golden or light pink like other floral jellies I have had. Nope, the blossoms leached all their color during boiling.  As to the taste? Well, how do I describe it? It's as if you took cranberry juice from the store shelf and sweetened it a bit and then made jelly from it. It's not super floral-y tasting; more fruity tasting.  It's a little tart but not as tart as local cranberry jelly I have tasted in the past.  it's really just a lovely, full flavor without any bitterness.

Since my kiddos helped me pick the blooms and make the jelly, they were triumphantly parading around the dining room like a bunch of crowing roosters.  in fact they loved it so much (homestead confession here) they were apalled I was going to throw away the foam I'd skimmed off the top! I finally agreed to put it in a jar in the fridge for them to eat like jelly. We promised to only serve the pretty jars to company. :P

Note: 8 cups of blossoms is exactly what I ended up with after picking a large stockpot full of clusters from the top of the stems.  Because I needed the pot, I ended up dumping the contents into a plastic shopping bag. So now I can confidently say that the same amount of clusters tightly filled a Fred Meyer shopping bag as well.  Pick your container of choice, but err on the side of picking too many clusters rather than too few.

So, get out there and quickly get your flowers. I don't know about the rest of the state, but the fireweed in Juneau is about a week shy of going to seed.

Blessings,

Hillary At Home

Homestead Experiment #27-Watermelon PIckles

Here's a tasty tidbit for you. Do you know how to pick a good watermelon?  Well, I got it from my sister-in-law who got it from  a watermelon farmer that the trick is to look for the big yellow spot. The bigger and yellow-er the better.  That means that the melon has sat on the vine to ripen a good long time. She passed that trick along to me a few years ago, and I've never picked a blah melon since!  But I just can't leave well enough alone. I just have to take that juicy melon and do an experiment with it!

I remember reading about watermelon pickles in pioneer-themed books and have seen them referred to in southern magazines, but didn't think about trying to make them myself until I ran across the recipe in one of my homesteading books. I couldn't resist. I HAD to try to make them!  It would be a great project for the whole family to get in on, and if they were good, they could be the ideal pickling recipe since I don't seem to have too many cucumbers growing on my vines...yet... So, where to start?

I got a medium sized watermelon.  I painstakingly cut all the pink meat off the rind and cut the green peel off the outside. All I had left were strips of the white "Don't-eat-that-it-will-give-you-a-stomach ache" rind.  Yep, that's right. You're pickling the taboo part of the melon slice that is normally the stopping point when you're chowing down.  How cool, and yet how odd, to think that someone actually thought of pickling that...

Now the recipe we had calls for 6lbs of rind.  I thought for sure this melon would have that, but my kitchen scale revealed that we ended up with a little more than half of the required amount. Thus, I had to do some tweaking to the recipe and this is what we ended up with:

3lb white watermelon rind
1/3c and 1 Tbsp salt
2 qt water
1 tray ice cubes
4 1/2c sugar
1 1/2c white vinegar
1 1/2 tsp whole cloves
3-1" pieces of cinnamon stick
1 lemon, sliced thin

Cut the rind into 1" squares. I mistakenly thought that if the hard green peel was cut off, it would be easy for my kids to cut the rind with safety or butter knives. Unfortunately that was not the case. We soon had to break out the steak knives for the older two and my younger just kept sawing away with her butter knife.

My diligent rind-cutting crew

Great side benefit of the job: All the watermelon you can eat!

Dissolve salt in 2 qt water.  Add ice and pour over melon. Let stand for 5-6 hours.  Drain and rinse.

Okay, so I missed a little bit of the pink, but overall it's lookin' good

Cover with cold water and simmer until fork tender (about 10 minutes).  Drain and set aside.  In another pot combine sugar, vinegar, and 1 1/2 c water.  Put cloves and cinn. sticks in a spice bag and place in pot. Boil and stir for 5 minutes. Pour over rind. Add lemon slices and marinate overnight.

Babytoes, the syrup maker

Bubba, the syrup ladle-r

Boil rind in syrup until translucent (about 10 minutes). Pack jars leaving 1/2" headspace.  Add cinnamon stick from spice bag (1 in each jar). Process in water bath for 10 minutes.

Looks 'translucent' to me!

3 1/2 pints later...

The Result:  Well, hmmm. It wasn't as family friendly of a cooking process as I had hoped. The rind was tougher and it took awhile to cut, but overall it was a fairly simple project to do.  As to the taste, if you like sweet and sour pickles you should like this recipe. The rind has a nice firm texture like a cuke and it pickled well. My kids all liked them a lot. However I don't care for that flavor of pickle as much, so I just tolerate these. My husband actually detests sweet and sour pickles, so naturally he spit this one out in the grass. LOL  Well, I guess that I will start working on a dill version for an experiment next summer!

I hope you have gotten to enjoy some watermelon in one form or another this summer! I think I will just stick to triangle wedges with pink juice dripping down my chin!  :-)

Blessings,
Hillary At Home

HE#26-Hand Pollinating By A Wanna-be Green Thumb

I wanted to include cucumbers and tomatoes in the indoor portion of our garden this year. I am without a greenhouse, and it is so wet outside, that I figured the best option would be to place them in front of our large picture windows. Thankfully, we are blessed with an abundant amount of summer sunshine (when it occurs!).  The only question was about pollinating them. I knew I'd have to hand pollinate and didn't have any clue how to go about it.  Thankfully I was able to find that it is extremely simple!  I just watched the following youtube videos to explain it:

Cucumbers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAZBSocpDoI

Tomatoes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bueCLH3u7vM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6f-2yP3Gnc&feature=related

In a nutshell, you basically have to find a male cucumber flower and rub the middle parts all across the middle of a female flower. The above video will show you how to distinguish the genders.   Farmer Brent assures me that my odds of success are much better if I make kissing noises while painting the pollen on the female flower.  Bizarre homestead humor!

For tomatoes you gently shake the stalk or flick above the blossoms to release the pollen it has within. They are self pollinating, which means you don't need two separate flowers to make a fruit.

Could I do this?  Well, I did and I am, and (most importantly!) it seems to be working!! I have little "Bob and Larry's" growing in my sunroom! (All you VeggieTales fans know what I mean!)

Baby Cukes!  I can just taste the little pickles now!

Baby tomato!  Here in Alaska, this little baby is precious!

We have about another month of good growing up here before putting the garden to rest for the winter. Hopefully I'll be able to get a good harvest of fresh veggies before we all begin to hibernate.  And here's hoping that your garden is green, abundant, and overflowing with yummy goodness. :)

Blessings,
Hillary At Home

Goldilocks Finds Her Honey! HE#25

Up in my neck of the woods, we have a beautiful flower called Fireweed. It derives its name from being one of the first living things to sprout up after a wildfire. Local lore also heralds it as the 'beginning of the end'-of the summer season, that is. When a fireweed goes to seed in August, the white fluff blowing around is definitely a reminder that snow is only a short time away...However, while it's still in bloom, we can enjoy its beauty as well as its taste!  There are many recipes for fireweed jellies, and wines. What I was after in this experiment was the perfect recipe for fireweed  honey (sometimes called "Homestead Honey").

This is not a true honey in that it is not poured from a honeycomb, and it is cooked. However, the end product is so honey-ish that I completely understand the reasoning behind the name. I cook with it and use it just as regular honey without issue.  When my intrepid niece was here two years ago from the far away land of South Texas, we attempted to make the honey using this recipe:

45 pink clover blossoms

25 white clover blossoms

100 fireweed blossoms

1 tsp. alum

10 Cups sugar

2 Cups water

Wash blooms in cold water. Put all ingredients except water into pan, then add water. Let sit for 10 minutes. Bring to a boil and boil until fireweed turns gray and water is a purple color. Strain through cheesecloth or jelly bag. Put in clean canning jars and water bath process for 10 minutes.

The result: My family agreed that it was too thick (had to microwave it to get it out of the jar), and too flowery tasting. I was still able to use it in my bread recipes without fail, but it was impossible to drizzle into tea. Bummer.

This year I impulsively decided to give it another go. I happened to be driving on a backroad and found a city lot that contained all three floral ingredients in one small area.   When I saw that, I couldn't resist the urge. I rapidly parked my suburban by the side of the roadway, and the kids and I piled out to gather blossoms.  (I just wish I would have had my camera to take pictures of the fun, but oh well, I was too busy herding and picking anyway!)

I knew I did not want to repeat the previous recipe and hunted the web for another version. I found the following recipe and decided to thin it down by adding an extra 1/2c of water.
 Would it be too runny? Would it still be too floral tasting?  Or would it be "just right"?

50 pink clover blooms

10 white clover blooms

18 - 25 fireweed blooms

3/4 tsp alum

5 pound bag white sugar

3 Cups boiling water  (I made it using 3 1/2 cups)

Wash blooms in cold water (gently rinse) to remove little critters. While rinsing blooms, boil water. Put all ingredients except water in pan, then pour boiling water on. Let sit for 10 minutes. Bring to boil and boil for 10 minutes. Strain through cheesecloth or jelly bag.
Put in clean canning jars and water bath process for 10 min.

The result: Success! It is a great consistency and the taste is not overpowering. It still has a hint of the unique flavor without making me feel like I'm drinking soap. It is thin enough to pour and drizzle while still being a thicker gel.

Three batches later, I am feeling pretty confident about this year's honey supply.  And this is a great recipe in which to involve small children.  There were no squished berries, stains, or scratches from thorny bushes.  Next up:  fireweed jelly!


Blessings to you and your homestead,
Hillary At Home

Homestead Experiment #24-Dehydrating To Save Space?

Pineapples sliced, diced, and ready to dry!

I was so excited when I found my dehydrator last fall at the local Salvation Army for $10 new in the box! It is a Nesco FD-61 with round, stacking trays. It came with four trays but a person can add up to 12 total.  Great!  Except a pack of 2 trays runs another $20-30.  $100 for 8 more trays?!  Not so great.  Thus, you can imagine my prepping exuberance when I found a similar dehydrator at a garage sale for $2 !  It doesn't have the temperature controls, so it's kind of a dumbed-down model of my first one, but I didn't care. It had trays! For $2, I got 4 more trays to add to my original one-plus, I now had a back-up dehydrator that I could use as needed or lend out to friends.  Thank you Lord!  Now I need to keep my eye out for the last 4 trays to reach my limit of 12...

After getting my first dehydrator I had played around with making 'banana gummies' (bananas don't really dry into chips without lots of chemical intervention, or so I've been told), and dried some herbs and bell peppers.  For our food storage I've mainly stuck with canning our own fruits and buying pre-canned from the store, but my pantry is getting a little crowded, and all those jars are crammed in quite snugly.  Now, I knew dehydrating is good for storing food that cannot be canned using conventional methods, but I began to wonder if it was worth dehydrating some food to increase my storage capability.  (This may seem like a no-brainer to many of you seasoned preppers, but remember, I'm still experimenting with these things.) Thus Experiment #23 was born: Could I take a small mountain of fruit and reduce it's storage size to 1/3 of its original size?

This was the fruit I decided to start with.  I mainly chose it because it was a good price when I swung through my local Costco store.  After buying this, I also added in three pineapples and 6 pints of raspberries, so just envision those in that space between the pears and oranges. I wish I would have taken a picture of those so that I could do a little photoshop job in there, but oh well.

With all 8 trays going on the unit, it took me about a week to dry all of the fruit. However, due to our recent scare with a night-time fire at our home, I did not run the dehydrator at night while we were sleeping, or while we were gone.  (Note: The fire had nothing to do with small appliances, but I'm still scarred and do not wish to repeat it in any manner!)  Anyway, back to the fruit. It took a week to dry six bunches of bananas, 8lbs of oranges, 5lbs of pears, 6 pints of raspberries, and 3 pineapples.

When I finished the whole lot, this is what I ended up with:

10 quart jars! That's all! Now I know you're counting this and saying "Wait, I only see 9."  Well, that's because I didn't realize my pineapple jar was already down in the pantry when I took the 'group shot'.  I had dried the pineapple first, and the finished product looks like this:

Can you believe 3 pineapples fit in one quart jar?!

Ten quart jars takes up 2 rows lined up front-to-back on my pantry shelf.  It spans approximately 8" across the width of my shelf. The boxes from the oranges alone measures 10" on it's short end!  The bananas, pears, pineapples, oranges, and raspberries would have taken up the entire 36" shelf in my pantry cupboard if I had placed them in there whole. These jars take up less than a quarter of that space! Wow! I surpassed my goal of 1/3 by a long margin!

In spite of this newfound success, I am not going to scrap storing canned fruit.  Eating a reconstituted orange chip is not the same experience as eating a canned mandarin orange. However, these dried goods will be nice for cooking and making jam with should I ever need to tap into my long-term storage , and the dried raspberries and oranges taste kind of like a natural candy.  Yum!  I will keep canning fruit, meat, beans, and potatoes as storage space allows, but I will definitely make a point to add in a large complement of dried produce as well. Heck, a future experiment may include making various kinds of jerky!

So dust off your dehydrator and have fun with all the yummy produce in season right now. Oh-and do you like those cute little labels I am using on my jars? I found those at tipnut.com for free!  Check out their wide assortment of collected templates to embellish your pantry's goodies!

Blessings to you and your homestead,
Hillary At Home

Homestead Experiment #23-Conquering The Camping Gear

Are you heading out camping during this upcoming three day weekend?  Our family loves to go camping and that is how our July 3rd baby opted to spend her birthday. As with most endeavors, we started out with the very basic of camping necessities, and then have added luxuries over the years. This has resulted in a large pile of miscellaneous gear that is consuming our whole back storage room.  I have a lot of things in totes, and we use a master list for packing, but we still somehow end up with things out of place, or things that we've overlooked packing which we discover missing at the campsite.  When this happens-especially when the MIA item is a necessity like the cooking pot and you're 25 miles away from home-it makes for one unhappy Daddy!

The other day I had picked up an old edition of  More Hours In My Day by Emilie Barnes. I remembered that she has a system for storing items where you label your big storage totes, and then on a corresponding index card, you list everything in that particular tote. Then when you need to find, let's say, the Christmas lights, you go to your card box and look for which tote has the lights to get out.  This way, you're not having to rummage through every tote to find them.

I decided to try a modern version of this with my camping gear.  I made a spreadsheet with the list of my totes' contents, and that way it would also double as my packing list.  I printed it out and put it in a couple of sheet protectors so that I can check items off with a dry-erase pen, and then clean it off for the next trip.  I will store it in my master binder with my other household information. Here is a pasted print-screen of my list (sorry for the hack job):

Now I stock the totes at the beginning of the season, and then just do a quick check-off before each trip.  The things we always seemed to overlook were the things that couldn't be packed ahead of time and had to be packed that day.  To help with this, I've labeled one Tote E, and that is the designated tote for those items. In fact, it's still stored with the other totes, but it's completely empty. That way I have a centralized spot to put a lot of those little items that often get overlooked and/or left on the garage floor.  I'm sure I will need to tweak this as we go throughout our camping season, but this is a great place to start. Plus, I have cleared so much floorspace in our storage room by having this heap organized and labeled!

Have a wonderful Independence Day, and while you're roasting hot dogs and watching fireworks, do not forget to thank God for the men and women who gave it all to found this country on the principles of freedom. Also let's all pray for our current leaders to have a mindset of protecting those liberties rather revoking them.

Blessings to you and your homestead,
Hillary At Home

Homestead Experiment #22-Homemade Recycle Bins

I would love to have these stacking bins to hold my recycling in between drop-offs. However, what I have are these:

Pros-We've been using these 18 gallon Sterlite totes for 4 years now, and they work just fine. Plus the three of them fit perfectly across the back hatch of my suburban.

Cons-They take up quite a bit of floorspace in our garage. Since we have the threat of bears digging through our trash in the spring/summer, I have to keep these indoors.

As you can see, the stacking totes make much more sense for indoor storage. However the downside to these is that they run $12.99 each locally! I just cannot bring myself to spend $40 on garbage holders!  Then, the other day as I was staring at my pitiful totes, I had an idea. Could I make my own stacking bins?

I went to the storage shed and dug out the lids to the totes. Yes, these were made of a fairly firm plastic that is not too flexible.  I got a sharpie and the tin-snips and went to work.

1) I put the lid on the tote and drew out an opening that included a few inches of the lid and a large round hole on the tote itself.

2) Using the tin-snips and some good ol' elbow grease, I cut the hole out of the plastic. I tried to make smooth cuts to avoid a jagged edge. I figured if it was too rough, I could wrap duct-tape around the edge. 

But no duct tape was needed! The edge is actually fairly smooth.

3) Repeat with the other totes and stack. I used the first piece I cut as a template to get a fairly uniform shape with the others.  If you perform this highly technical task with great precision you should have something like this:

Actually, it was not hard at all. It took me about 15 minutes, and more importantly, IT WORKED!! I love them! Yes, they aren't as polished as the pretty ones above, but they stack, they hold old soda bottles, and doing this reduced the bin's floorspace usage by 2/3! Woo Hoo!

Blessings to you and your homestead,
Hillary At Home

Homestead Revelation-Putting The Brakes On Self-Reliance?

We've been trucking right along here at the homestead. The chicken coop is built. Jelly making is underway, and I have a few experiments in process.  My food storage is reaching pre I-thought-we-were-going-to-transfer levels, and we are still debt-free.  You would think we'd be rejoicing and full of peace. But no.  We have been frustrated, short-tempered, angry, and overly vocal with our children. Rather than having a peaceful homestead like I had envisioned, we have become a home of hostility. We were happier before attempting to simplify! What has happened?!

The other day I received the new Duggar book A Love That Multiplies in the mail.  That day was one of the worst I had with my children in a long time! In fact my sister called me from another state and instead of "Hello?" I answered with "How would you like to have 3 children shipped to you overnight?"  I was at my wit's end and about to cry. I felt like I had been yelling all day and the children were not only ignoring my instructions, but at points were completely rebelling against it. I wasn't having them do backbreaking labor, either. It was simple stuff like "Please go put this in the basket....please don't go in the chicken coop....clean up your doll clothes...please bring me your math book, etc."  You know, the mundane stuff. Anyway EVERYHING was a huge, fighting battle. It had been going on for several days but this was the day that I was about to lose my mind!

We made it through bed-time and then I sat down with this book. As I read the first several chapters I saw a theme. Here is a peacefully chaotic family that doesn't yell and scream and has loving, obedient children.  No matter how much character training I'm doing, I cannot seem to emulate this atmosphere in my own home.  Michelle Duggar is a peace-filled, calm mother, even in the midst of extreme pain, anxiety, and hospitality.  As I put the book down and asked the Lord what was wrong with me, I suddenly remembered another calm woman that I had learned about last summer. I had listened to Susan Conroy when she came to our local Catholic church to talk about her time spent working with Mother Theresa in Calcutta. The one thing she expounded on repeatedly was that Mother Theresa was a peaceful, joy-filled woman (even in the midst of death, disease, and other grotesque circumstances) who bathed each day in constant prayer.  As I read the Duggar's new book, I realized that's what was missing in my daily life, too. The Duggar family, and more specifically Jim Bob and Michelle, bathe each day and each decision in prayer.

I realized that in my quest for a simplified life in which we were more self-reliant for home-education and food sources, I had carried that mentality across to all areas of my life.  Suddenly I was only praying lukewarm prayers during an occasional early-morning quiet time, meal blessings, and bed-time prayers with my children.  I definitely was not "Pray[ing] without ceasing" like the Apostle Paul instructs us.  As a result, we were making choices that seemed logical (and even trivial)  at the time but were adding to the overall stress level in the home.  Sure, it seemed logical and trivial to get our kids guinea pigs, so we did. Now, though, we found out one is a male so we may have baby guinea pigs to deal with, not to mention that we need to work out a feeding/cleaning system my young children can deal with because I am barely getting my normal chores done as it is!  One of the pigs has a sore on it's mouth, so I will have to budget a vet appointment into our time and money.  These things sound silly, but I know now that we should have stopped and prayed about this. We had no idea how much more in-depth three guinea pigs would be as compared to the hamster I had growing up!

Another area that needed prayer covering was in how I discipline and talk to my children.  Rather than shoot up the 'arrow' prayers like I used to ("Lord, please tell me how to respond to this right now")  I was just reacting in my flesh. This led to harsh words and overzealous,irrational consequences.  I am so thankful that the Holy Spirit got a hold of me before I damaged any relationships with my children!

Why am I dumping all of my dirty laundry out here in a public blog? Am I done with the homesteading life? Have I suddenly decided that it's not okay to store food?  No.  I will still argue that it is being a wise steward to have food on hand for times of emergency. In fact, I firmly believe it's biblical (Genesis 41) and will allow us to be a blessing to our own families and others.  I just realized that just like anything else in this fleshly world, good pursuits can become dangerous idols. In my case I had traded God-reliance for self-reliance. As my daughter used to say when she was three, "Not good!" Ashamed, I immediately repented and purposed to bathe each day in prayer.  As I did, I felt a dark cloud lift from my soul.  Yesterday, I made a point to stop and pray throughout the day, being sure to do this in front of my children to reset that example in their minds. We all agreed that we noticed a considerable change in the atmosphere of our home.

Now considering I come from a pretty vocal, Irish-Italian family, I may never be the soft-spoken type that resembles Mother Theresa or Michelle Duggar, but I know that living my day in constant communion with my Heavenly Father makes it possible to live by Ephesians 4:29  :

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, 

but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, 
that it may benefit those who listen.

-NIV, emphasis mine

Peaceful blessings to you and your homestead,

Hillary At Home