Sustainable Agriculture Conference?!

I am kind of miffed that I just found out about this conference. And I'm only miffed ( see also; annoyed and/or disappointed) because its happening next weekend and there is no way for me to make arrangements to go such an exciting conference here on the east coast.

The good news is that they have had 31 of these conferences in the past, so I'm confidant that when next year rolls around I will be keeping an eye out for it. For those of you who might see this in time, here is the link to the conference page so you can get more information. (Also here is the PDF brochure of the whole conference if you want to just read that, with all the classes and speakers et cetera.) It's happening in Durham, North Carolina and honestly, just reading about all the food they will be eating is not only making me jealous, but hurting my feelings a little bit.

So! If anyone goes,  I will be keeping an eye out on social media looking for great pictures and all the amazing information everyone will be sharing next weekend! 

Exciting October Zoo Trip

After all the wedding craziness, I was pretty excited to take a break from that and go see the Norfolk Zoo. They have farm animals there and I was really pleased to go sit in the goat pen and scratch some cute little goat faces. But here are just some of my favorite pictures.

This peacock is just beautiful. I love that they freely wandered around the park

My spirit animal. It was hiding. (also like me.)

I looooove this alpaca. How it's name wasn't Skeletor, I do not know. 

This is absolutely the best sign in the park. 

A Whirlwind

A whirlwind is really maybe the only way that I can accurately describe the last few months. I almost can't believe how much has happened in what is relatively a short amount of time! I am so behind in blogging and keeping up with my homestead story, for which I can only say that I'm sorry. So bare with me and I will do some recapping here. 

So, in the months since my last post and video, I have been doing some consulting work on a farm in my area, and am working on getting a secondary consulting job on a farm that might turn into a more permanent management position. I have done so much farm/homesteading work, which is really exciting and I have lots of stories and lessons to share as well as some blog posts coming that are really going to bring some, what I feel like, are really important issues for homesteaders. 

So now I'd like to address why I was so busy. Too busy to blog and get pictures up, but rest assured that homesteading is on my mind pretty much around the clock. 

Now, I know that this was a shocking five months ago, but if anyone here has watched my Youtube video, you would have heard me talk about my going to school for sustainable agriculture from a really great university. Well, that had to be put on hold, and that in and of itself is a really, long story and probably a whole separate blog post. But I still have school plans, and will talk about that later on.

What I didn't talk about in my video was the fact that my husband and I were having a wedding this past October, just in time for Hurricane Matthew. Let me just start off by saying, that I love my husband. So much so that when he said he reaaaaaally wanted a wedding, well, I reluctantly agreed. lol the wedding we had...well that is also another blog post. One that probably wont happen, unless you want my list of why you should skip having a wedding. But hubby and I survived it and now things are starting to move along for our homestead plans. 

If you are in suburbia like we are, transitioning and making your dreams come to fruition is a long and often bumpy road. Unless you have the money to just pick up and move everything, (pssst, we don't & I would assume most don't.) then it is a long process, it's really just two steps forward, one step back, one more step back, one step forward, et cetera. So we are not discouraged, we knew it would be a while before things would be placed on a fast track and feel like they are taking off.

The fast track we are on, or that I think we're on is my husband's career change. He's applying out of state for a job that will put us somewhere in the south and it will be a surprise! So we could end up in Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia or Florida. So I am just really excited for a new change of pace because I feel that this is going to be a huuuuuge step forward for our homesteading lifestyle. I will of course keep you updated on that.

The next few months will be a matter of getting ready to leave the place we live now. 

So for now, I'm going to go get together some of the homestead topics I've been eager to write about, and  I'll definitely start getting those out sooner than later.  

I'd just like to thank everyone for their patience, and I'm really happy to get to be back and reshift my focus back onto homesteading. 

Herding horses on the homestead

More Jellyfish!

I know its only been a few days, but I am so surprised to see that  new scobies have already formed at the top of the kombuchas! They both have lots of bubbles, but the black tea's scoby is a little thinner than the other. I pulled them out just to check, and now that I know they aren't dead, despite that the scobies are floating all dumbly inside their containers. I'm glad to see that they are doing well enough and in a few weeks I'll have some tasty kombucha.  Here are some pictures I've snapped.

Herding Dog

This is Rhys' Dad, Mycroft of Hearthside Farm. He's such a good helper when it comes to herding. 

Hygiene is King: Preventative Care

This goes hand in hand with my post about quarantine. Hygiene and cleanliness are not only important for you, but for your animals! Now, I'm not talking about getting neurotic here, but I am talking about cleaning up after your animals waste, making sure that things are put away so it's less of a hazard in the space you keep your animals and generally keeping things livable and workable for them and for you. If your animals live in a clean, tidy and healthy environment, you will dramatically lessen the amount of times you're treating your animals for illnesses. This is really important if you are looking at raising organic and antibiotic free livestock. Ask any small farmer and homesteader if they feel like a clean habitat will keep the animals healthier.

The subject matter especially comes to mind is because an acquaintance of mine has been attempting to breed birds for some time. Not farm birds, but pet birds. I've watched this person on Facebook and at first, I didn't really pay much mind to it. They had a couple of love birds, or parakeets something of that nature. Then they were posting pictures of eggs, talking about how they were going to be selling the birds to people as pets. But upon further inspection of what they were posting pictures of and talking about, I could see that while they had good intentions, they did not keep the cages or the environment as clean as they should.

Aside from the pictures that they posted, they also mentioned that they had misplaced the birds in the house. They had let them out to fly around and explore their home, and would often get buried under pillows, papers, clothing, et cetera,  because they were left unmonitored, and the house was not in the condition that you would or should let small animals roam free in. They regularly had lots of hatchlings and young birds that often die within a few days or months of being hatched, the birds demise likely related to what was probably poor health issues. Not to make any assumptions or judgments about why so many of their birds are dying.

If you aren't regularly cleaning, and sanitizing your animals' environment, and the environment you're exposing them to, then you you could have severe issues in the ways of livestock. The example I gave is just one extreme case. I believe that this person has no business trying to breed animals as there is a clear lack of understanding of basic animal care. Sometimes love is not enough if you aren't doing the basic and necessary things your animals need to survive. It's not my place to pass judgment, and that's not what I'm trying to do here. But, when that many animals die, and you don't change what you're doing. Then that is negligence. But I digress.

Keeping a daily, weekly and monthly cleaning schedule, will immensely reduce loss in livestock and improve the quality of the health of your animals. It would take very little effort to make small adjustments in your routine if there is an area you could improve upon in your livestock step up and routine. This could be something like incorporating DE to bedding, animal diet and care, or if you notice that instead of cleaning animal substrate just once a week, that you're still finding a substantial waste build up and you want to increase that to two or three times a week. There are lots of options and ways to do things that could improve your present maintenance system. Especially if you find yourself with a few sick animals here and there. Do some research and see what changes fit your farm or homestead best.

Just remember that you don't want to get set in your ways. Part of what will make you a successful homesteader or farmer is that things are always changing and to keep an open mind about how you're doing things. On the other hand, if people have been doing things are certain way for a long long time, there just might be a good reason for that. So research is another tool for you to embrace. ABL! Always Be Learning!

When it all boils down, you'll want to keep in mind that the health and welfare of your animals is what is at risk. If you've invested money, time or energy, then you're liable to take a loss. If you're having problems with your animals' health, don't hesitate to get a second opinion, a seasoned homesteader/farmer, or your veterinarian. Thanks so much for reading you guys! I'd love to hear about some of your own systems for healthy livestock keeping. What do you do to keep your livestock in good health? What are some of your cleaning routines?

a great way to keep randos out of your fields

deғιnιтely goιng тo υѕe тнιѕ on тнe нoмeѕтead. 

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The Gift of Jellyfish: A Kombucha Story

Oh gosh! So today I was blessed with the gift of 2 scobies, or Jellyfish as I like to call them. One of which was their original Mother and the other was a baby Mother. (you'll see what I mean in a moment) So to be clear, because if you don't know what Kombucha is or what a Scoby or a Mother is, it must be impossible to figure out what I'm talking about.  So just a quick review.

A scoby, sometimes referred to as a 'mother' or 'mushroom' stands for symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. It helps ferment things (tea and such.) to make kombucha tea or vinegar. If you're looking for a more technical understanding, I would want to refer you to the university of YouTube or Google to talk to someone who has been doing it longer than I have. Today is my first day on the job, after all. But stick around. I'll be citing the main sources that I've used.

Kombucha tea is incredibly good for you. Or at least, myself and many others believe as much. You can google it and do some research for yourself. But here are 7 good reasons to drink kombucha right here. Before you decide to grow, buy or acquire a scoby, if you've never tasted kombucha before, I highy reccomend that you go and buy a bottle and taste it first. It's truly an acquired taste.

So let's introduce my jellyfish! 🐙

 

 So here they are. The darker one is the older scoby, and the lighter  and smaller one that is also less horrifying to touch is the younger, 'baby' scoby.

So here I am holding the scoby and getting ready to put it in the gallon jar I picked up at the store. I wanted something with a wider mouth so it would be easier to put the scoby in and take it out later also. But  you can still fit a smaller scoby into a jar with a smaller mouth. 

 So, here I am temp checking everything. I've pre-sterilized all of the equipment I'm using. Like the thermometer and the jars have all been cleaned. You'll want the sweet tea (which I made earlier this morning.) to be room temp between 65-85 degrees F. I'm in a safe range here, so I went ahead and got my jellyfish settled into their new habitat. You don't want the tea too hot because you could kill the jellyfish and that would be bad.

a few final pics before the jellyfish go for a swim. 

Oh also, I'm making a large black tea, as well as a slightly smaller green tea.

You can see in the picture to the left, that this is the thicker jellyfish. I found it so cool that you could see all the layers. I think I would probably have separated it since it's so scary thick. But, I may just use this mother to make vinegar with. I'm still a little unclear on that part. But I'll update when I get a better idea. If you're reading this and you happen to know, please don't hesitate to comment so I can pick your brain. c:

 So, as you can see that the jellyfish are safe and sound in their new environment where they will take residence for the next 7-30 days. Because it's warmer out these days, I feel like a week and change will be more than enough time to turn my sweet tea into tasty kombucha.

Also! My green tea had got a shade or two darker, because I had added the kombucha that the scobies came with to kick start my fresh batch. It was just unnoticeable in the black tea batch. This is actually a really important step. ✔

A top view of the green tea and scoby living inside the jar. I would have taken one with the black tea, but it was too dark to see from the top. I suspect once it starts fermenting that they might rise to towards the top a bit more. We'll see.

So because I don't have any cheese cloth handy right now, I went ahead and used some coffee filters which work just fine. You want to let the jellyfish breathe a little without allowing anything unwanted to touch them. I used an elastic hair tie to fasten them on and then sprayed them with a little vinegar to moisten the filter. I'll be keeping it moist for the fermentation process since that is something that was recommended to me.

So it was cloudy out today and I had the blinds closed, but I want to be sure to get my jellies to a safe, dark space out of the way! So they were relocated to our closet shelf where they will remain undisturbed and I can poke my head in and check on them!





I will post updates as I go. I will likely make a video for when I start a second batch once this batch is done. Keep an eye open for that!



The recipe I am using to make a basic kombucha without fun flavors.

1.  You'll want 2.5 cups distilled or chlorine/fluoride free hot water and 1/4 cup white sugar or evaporate cane sugar. Stir to dissolve.

   ✩✩✩ note: You'll want to use one of the two sugars listed. Brown sugar may work also, however,don't take my word on that. If tap water is the only water available to you. You can boil some tap water and let it sit for 5 minutes, this will cause the chlorine to evaporate more quickly. If you're making a larger batch, just double the steps for the ingredient portions. 

2. Combine 1.5 teaspoons of loose tea or 2 tea bags.(Green or Black Tea)  Let steep 7-10 minutes then remove tea/ teabags. If you leave the teabags in, it could make the tea bitter and this bitterness could stay with the kombucha, but if you like bitter tea, let the bags sit in the tea till it cools.

3. Let the tea cool till it reaches 68°-85°F.

4. Add a half cup of starter kombucha tea or apple cider vinegar or distilled white vinegar to your cooled tea of choice.

5. Take your scoby and transfer it to the cooled tea

6. Moisten a coffee filter or cheese cloth with vinegar after it is afixed to the top of your jar. Keep this cover moist with vinegar during the culturing period. 

7. Allow the tea to sit undisturbed at ambient room temperature out of direct sunlight between 7-30 days or to taste. 

8. Pour out the kombucha from the jar for consuming but leave one quarter to one half cup of liquid from the bottom of the jar as starter tea for the next batch of kombucha.

sources:
Kombucha FAQ
http://wellnessmama.com/2673/kombucha-recipe/
http://www.culturesforhealth.com/
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Kombucha-Tea

just some farm humor

some wild plants

plantain

Dandelion

wild onion

wild strawberry

wild violet

Field of Greens

How exciting to have an entire field of wild fodder available to me! Well, not just me, but still, readily available. I haven't yet seen anyone in this enormous field, and that's okay, I don't like to pick my wild greens in front of strangers. hehe.

Here we have just a small section. It runs pretty far to the right too. 

So we were having such nice weather, my husband and I decided to take the doggies out for a run, and run they did. My husband was kind enough to take pictures while I spent my time looking around my feet for grasses. There was lots of buttercups, which are not really edible and mostly consider toxic. You don't really want to eat them. But Buttercups aside, there was still lots of wild edibles, and I'm sure there were tons that I don't know! But I did find that I was certain I'd recognize was, wild violet, wild strawberry, dandelion, plantain grass and wild onions. Some of which sounds like something yummy I'd saute with my eggs. 

 My bounty of wild greens! I mostly have plantain leaves since they were more bountiful then the other greens. The dandelion leaves were tiny and hard to find. I saw lots of seed stems, but the leaves were very petite and hidden under a mat of regular grass. Which was really frustrating. I love bitter greens and dandelions are some of my favorite. Admittedly, I have not yet tried plantain greens.

This is how you can tell that they are plantain greens. They have ridges running up the bottom of the leaf.

     

 These are the sad stringy dandelion greens I've collected. I'll keep looking for some more and take pictures of my collection of green finds. I haven't really had much lucking finding purslane or lambs quarter (which is my personal favorite). So next time I go foraging, I'll be studying up to see if I can find anything else. Never eat anything that you aren't 100% sure is what you've picked.

What onions! Look at them! I'm going to chop them up and saute them in some bacon grease with the greens. 💗

Wild strawberries, not yet ripe! And hands covered in paint since that's what we've been up to.

Here I am, digging around in the grass!

So I really wanted to show you guys what the saute would look like, buuuuuut, I left them on the table and went out for a bit. My mother in law thought there was a pile of grass and threw it all out. Which in hindsight is just really funny to me. Can't really be upset because I didn't pay for any of it and it looks So not a big deal, I will go and harvest more and take plenty more pictures and actually show what I cook with it!

So part two is coming. Until then, enjoy the rest of the photos from our day in the field.

                                                 Losing my little dog in the tall grass.

The End!

💝

The Importance of Quarantine

I cannot stress this subject enough. Quarantining animals will save lives, save you money long term, and could possibly even save your farm or homestead. I've seen too many people go buy animals from someone and immediately introduce them to the other animals on their farm. This is such an incredibly bad idea. Even if you've purchased animals from a reputable source, there is still a chance that those new animals could be sick and could introduce any number of contagious illnesses or parasites that could devastate your livestock.

Just because you have bought animals and released them onto your farm with your other animals before, does not mean that it would be far fetched for you to experience an outbreak at some point. There are so many things that could go wrong by carelessly or unknowingly exposing your animals to something that could potentially wipe out every single animal susceptible to that strain of virus/bacteria, et cetera. So just, consider protecting yourself and your animals. Can you even imagine how devastating it would be to have all of your animals die within weeks and there be nothing you can do about it? You'd possibly have start over from scratch.

I'm not bringing this to light to scare anyone. But honestly, I don't see enough people talking about this regularly. Even googling it, I had to look around a little bit more than I normally might to get the information I was looking for.

So some of you may have seen Nat Geo's show, Shear Madness. I really loved this program, and so while it was sad it was canceled, I got to find out about Natalie and be inspired by what a force of nature she is and how empowering it was to watch her do what I want to. So now I follow her on Facebook as well as YouTube ( Natalie's Youtube Channel )

Episode one of Season one just shows how quickly it can happen that you have a possible quarantine issue. One phone call. She was informed that someone who had also purchased livestock from the same breeder she used, that those sheep had just tested positive for Ovine Progressive Pneumonia (O.P.P.) which is a retrovirus. (Read the Full O.P.P Description )

Now, she had kept those animals in quarantine and had released some of them into her flock. But at that point, it could very well be too late. She could have just killed her entire flock. If you read about the disease in the link I posted, you'll see how absolutely horrifying that would be. And if you want to know what happens to Natalie and her flock, you can check the episodes out on Amazon. Such a great show

That all being said, no matter if you have goats, sheep, pigs or fowl, you need to set up quarantine stations! These stations need to be away from all other animals. Whatever tools and supplies are in that area need to be for quarantine only. You don't want to spread disease so this needs to be a very clean area. When you're done using it, you will want to sanitize it thoroughly.

So, if you know that  you are going to be buying multiple animals from multiple people at the same time, it is going to be important to have multiple quarantine pens. Because if Animal A comes from farm A, and Animal B comes from farm B and you put them in the same pen, Animal A could get Animal B sick. So that is truly something to consider. Your quarantine pens don't have to be expensive either. There are tons of options for a cheap but reliable set up. You just want to make sure that those animals couldn't break free or get loose.

There are still preventative measures you can take to lessen the chance of bringing illness onto your farm or homestead. Before you purchase animals and bring them onto your farm, careful examination of animals is needed. A visual inspection is a good place to start. Typically you won't be buying a sick animal. Most people won't sell you one, but before you go to purchase an animal, do your best to know what to look for. Lethargy, runny noses, eye gunk, et cetera, all stuff you don't want. Don't buy an animal that's sick!

What I'd really recommend is having your veterinarian contact the breeder's veterinarian to get information regarding overall herd health. A reputable seller of livestock should have a vet who at least occasionally works with the animals on the farm. I would probably consider it a red flag if the seller does not use any kind of veterinary services ever. (This is likely less true with poultry and fowl.) What you really are looking for the status determine the vaccination and health status not just of the individuals you are buying, but also of the herd of origin.

Here is a site I found that had some pretty good quarantine protocols. University of Vermont: Animal Biosecurity. I would love to outline it here, but I feel as though I've already been talking for quite some time! Finally, I would just say use common sense and precaution and you will minimize the chances of losing any animals to disease. Thanks for reading! I'm sure that I'll be posting more on this matter later, but if you have questions, I'll do my best to help you find an answer!

Just a shot of my lovely little corgi, Rhys. He loves being on the farm with his paws in the dirt. This is from a few summers back when I moved into a trailer on a friend's homestead temporarily.

And this is a shot of the homestead I worked on for a few years. Absolutely one of my favorite places.

Camera Update!

So! My Camera, a Fujifilm Finepix S8200, is not taking videos. Rather, it's not consistently taking videos. It takes great pictures, but I'm getting crazy static and grey screens and absolute nonsense from it. Which is crazy, because I spent more money than I've ever spent on a camera before, and part of that was that it was supposed to take pretty good videos for its price point. Well, at least it's still taking really nice pictures!

But, when I bought it 2 years ago, I used it once and put it away. So I know that it's unwillingness to work isn't because I've dropped it 1000 times or accidentally dunked it in water. I digress, it's all up to date on its firmware and was reformatted by my gracious husband, who is much better at that stuff than I am. But still, nothing is working to correct that issue. Which means a trip to Geek Squad is in order to see if they'll know whats wrong. I really don't want to have to buy a new camera. So wish me luck! I'm taking it down to the store tomorrow.

If this doesn't pan out, I'm going to have to return the tripod I just bought for it. But that was thankfully only $20.

I hope everyone is enjoying their April!

My First Youtube Video!

I am way too critical of myself to be making videos, lol. But seriously, I made this quick introduction and was so freaked out by messing up, I quite literally recorded 50 or so before I settled with this one. My video editing skills are SO weak. So sorry about that too!

An Introduction

I am about to embark on an exciting adventure. This isn't something that is about to instantly materialize for me, not unless I hit the lottery of course. It will be hard work, both physical and for the time being now, mostly mental and emotional. So at 28 years old, I am making the push to start my journey to the homestead. I feel like I'm starting a little late in life, but I've had so many hurdles up until now, I don't want to give myself too hard a time about it.

For now, this blog is a journal of life experiences that will lead me to my homestead life. I already have a bit of garden, farm and homesteading experience. Which I am so grateful to have as it will give me an edge going into all of this. So I'll be writing posts and making videos and tutorials to explain things that I feel bring value to those who are looking to homestead as well as document my own journey.

One thing that is another huge advantage is that during this year, I'll be attending school to get my associates degree in sustainable food and farming. This means that I'll be able to share many of those lessons (ones that I'm paying for! $$$) here on my blog, and on Youtube, so I can better educate those who are looking for more in depth reasoning into all areas of what makes a homestead successfully function.

I know that attending school for homesteading isn't a necessity, and I've really weighed a lot of the pros and cons to going for a degree, and truly, its taken me a long time to come to this decision. But I think that for me, it'll answer a lot of questions and give me some background to the science behind a lot of what I'll be doing.
So for now, I'll leave you with this. I suppose sometime soon, I'll type up an 'About Me' so you guys can check out my qualifications. Thanks for reading!