It's (Gonna Be) the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

This year Larry decided we should be pumpkin ranchers.

In search of a garden goodie that would not take a ton of maintenance yet yield an easily

Yikes!

salable product, he planted all pumpkins in the front garden.  Their leaves have now exploded, literally filling the garden, and blossoms are visible.  

The blueberries out back, after doing squat the last few years and being afflicted by some sort of creeping crud last season, are bearing beautiful fruit.  Larry also planted a few beets, cabbage for his sauerkraut (oh, the humanity) and basil because what’s summer without fresh basil and mozzarella salad?

This past winter’s long, icy grip is a not very distant memory.  When the sweat is running down my back, I remind myself of how I couldn’t get close enough to the woodstove last winter.  I will not complain about the heat this year.  Not once.  It’s become a personal challenge.  Anyone who hears me do so has my permission to slap me.

Our big news is that we’ve put the house on the market in anticipation of Larry getting a job transfer and moving to warmer climes.  In an effort to look more mainstream, we mowed our yard this year.  I admit, it does look nice.  I left a few pockets of wildflowers, where they were actually in greater population than grass or weeds.  They provide pretty bursts of color.  I wouldn’t exactly call what we have a lawn, more like evenly cut green stuff, which, from a distance, could pass for a lawn.  To my dismay, it all grows pretty fast.  I’ve gotten back into the lawnmower groove, which is good exercise.

The front of the house has been power washed, scraped and repainted, and the porch has been reroofed to match the rest of the house (kudos to Larry for working like a dog on all this).  Rehab projects take forever when you’re chipping away at them on weekends.  The painting of the porch seemed like the never ending story and I wouldn’t wish painting lattice on my worst enemy.

When it was done, though, Larry couldn’t stop admiring how much better it all looked.  “We should have done this years ago,” he said, and it was hard to disagree.  We didn’t because we were always too busy working out back on pastures, which have gone by the wayside this year.

And we still have our Final Five chickens.  Tough old broads, they are.  They’ve become fixtures, following us around and gracing us with one to three eggs a day.  

I’m enjoying the yard more this year – futzing with my perennials and doing small yard projects I haven’t had the time to do before.  I don’t have the niggling guilt in the back of my mind that I’m not doing enough with the horses, because they’re out of my equation.  I’m getting the itch to ride again, but it’s not a burning desire.  At least, not yet, not here.  I’m not sure where I’m at with that right now.

Meantime, we’re enjoying our summer immensely – watching the gardens grow, giving the house some long overdue sprucing up, enjoying our time together right here, right now.  And oh yeah, we need to cracking on firewood.  So I can huddle up to the woodstove next winter.

"What Exactly Is It That You Do?"

Someone asked me the other day what it means to homestead. I admit I have bandied the word around a bit in my writing and in relaying to people what Larry and I do on the Hill. It’s subjective; there are as many interpretations of the word as there are people who claim to homestead.

The word "homesteading" tends to conjure up images of pioneers on the frontier.  Yup, that was it, too.  But modern day homesteading is a wonderful combination of getting your hands dirty and, say, indoor plumbing.

I fine-tuned my own definition after reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. This book followed her family's adventure of living solely off food they could produce themselves over the course of one year. In addition to being highly entertaining, it was inspiring and gave me lots of good ideas. Being able to implement them, however, was another story. Or, if I'd want to implement them. No citrus at all? Not sure I could do that.  And I have yet to butcher my own animals, although I think that is on the horizon.

For my purposes, I define homesteading as living as self-sufficiently, off the land, as capably and realistically as possible, given resources and time. What may be totally doable for one family may not be reasonable for another. You could say we practice homesteading lite. For us, it means:

1) Utilizing our gardens as much as possible. Every year the soil gets a little richer and we get better at preserving our bounty before it gets away from us and spoils. Every year we learn more, through good and bad experiments. Larry does a great job of canning and you can always find neighbors to trade vegetables with.

2) Being fuel independent. We heat entirely with our own wood from our property, but we do use propane for the stove. Our hot water heater is electric, but Larry installed a hot water pre-heating system that works off solar in the summer, woodstove in the winter. It made a huge difference in our power bill.

3) We started an off-the-grid project for the barn, but it stalled out a few years ago. We have most of the equipment, we just need to get the rest of the wiring in the barn done and then hook the whole thing together. We moved this project up on our list of 2013 To-Dos as it's low hanging fruit that's foolish to continue putting off.

4) Picking and choosing what to spend our money on. Yes, the horses are an expense and ski passes aren't cheap, but they are passions of ours and we choose to expend our hard earned cash on them. We don't have television and Larry only recently got a cell phone (I'm holding out but his iPhone is pretty darn sweet). We try to limit our entertainment, don't shop a lot and are fairly frugal all the way around. Instead of spending hundreds on a gas barbecue grill, we fixed up the ring of rocks in the backyard, put a used grill over it, and cook on it most summer nights. We call it our Adirondack Weber. Sure it takes a little longer to get the fire going, but that's the perfect time to sit in a chair and have a beer and talk about your day with your spouse. We're talking about quality of life here.

There are thousands of examples of how people take things much, much farther than this, such as using reclaimed vegetable oil to fuel their vehicles, farming to a much larger degree, having significant livestock and having their entire residence off-grid. Pick up any issue of Countryside magazine, which is largely reader written, and you'll get a real sense of what everyday folks are doing out there to live more independently. The internet is packed with websites and blogs filled with how-tos and what-fors. As extreme as it seems consumerism is, there is just as much happening with folks implementing things to bring themselves back to a more natural state of living.

The important thing is to experiment, try new things, and find what works for you. Even if you put the smallest idea into action, you have still taken a step towards a simpler and more grounded lifestyle. And above all, have fun with the whole process. If you can stand there covered in grime and sweat and bug bites, have something to show for it, and laugh about it, it’s a good day.

6 Take-Aways of Summer

We recently returned from our big vacation on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and one thing always strikes us.  When we leave, usually Labor Day weekend, summer is still in full swing, green and hot.  When we come home, a mere 7 days later, it’s suddenly chilly and leaves are falling off the trees.  Just what happens in that one week we’re away?

As another growing season winds down, it’s time to take note of the most prominent lessons learned:

 

Some of our butternuts

1)   You only need to plant about a fifth of the amount of squash plants that you think you’ll need.  This also applies to zucchini, pumpkins, anything that grows on a vine.  We have zucchini the size of Louisville Sluggers and plenty of them.  Along with the pumpkins, they filled in their fenced-in yard and then proceeded to go over, under and through the mesh to prove their point that they could.  Likewise, the butternut squash in the front garden also took over real estate much like something in a B horror flick, intertwining with cabbage plants and smothering the lettuce.  The way they spread and sprout, a lot of world hunger could be relieved by the planting of a mere three zucchini plants per continent. 


This year's new perennial bed

2)  Newspaper mulching is a winner.  We tried it on the raspberries and basil, with delightfully weedfree success.  It all but eliminated the need for future weeding and is well worth the initial time investment.  I did learn to not attempt to do it on a day with the most remote of breezes, as you will spend equal time chasing newspaper across the yard as putting it around the plants.  The depth of the mulch is important, too, or else the weeds will poke their way to the sunshine and eventually the newspaper will begin to show through, waiting for the first stiff breeze to go for a ride somewhere.  But with a good layer of mulch, it looks great and does the job.  And, in the late fall, it can just be rototilled under.  It sure beats weeding every week.  (Thanks to Annie Gregson for the idea!)

 

3)  Don’t be afraid to improvise.  After lots of searching online for ways to braid onions, and not really understanding any of them, I sat on the porch with some twine and just tied a bunch together, trying to keep them tight so they look neat.  Hey, it works.

 

4)  Trial and error is a good thing and, with a good bottle of wine or two, can actually be fun.  We continue to learn the finer points of canning.  Larry did a quasi-successful and then a successful batch of canning beets.  Personally, I’ve become a fan of blanching veggies and we did about 25 pounds of tomatoes.  You boil them for two minutes, put them in freezer bags and into the chest freezer they go.  Quick, easy, done.

 

Bring on winter!

5)  Never underestimate the power of the right tools for the job.  With our dandy new (to us) tractor and woodsplitter, we were done with all our firewood by our target date of Memorial Day weekend.  There’s nothing like looking at those killer stacks of wood all summer, seasoning beautifully, knowing that you’re  done with the job and you’ll have fantastic heat all winter.

 

Gotta love that man!

6)  Never give up the ghost.  My thoughtful husband just spent two weekends on the outhouse renovation project, accomplishing what I could not – securing the little building in a reasonable modicum of squareness and replacing the roof.  I know there were other projects he would have much rather been working on, as a falling down outhouse is not a high priority (unless you need to utilize it as an outhouse, which we do not).  I pulled it out of the ash tree it had been leaning against several years ago and braced it somewhat, but it was a poor band-aid at best.  Larry knew I’d been wanting to fix it up for years, bracing it and hoping the next winter wasn’t the one that would bring it down, and bless his heart he jumped on it and did a wonderful job.  We’ll put cedar shakes on the roof and somehow finish off the base of it with stones.  Our neighbors, who keep insisting “Ye Olde Crescent Moon” is a historical structure, will be very happy.  And no, we will not be using it as an outhouse.

I’m sure I’ll think of more things but I think I’ve rambled on enough for one post.  Thank you to everyone who has commented on how much they like my blog and ask when I’ll be posting something again.  I promise to be better about keeping all of you in the loop.  Until next time, happy homesteading!

A Year in Review

Here we are in the beginning of November and, as usual, we have a laundry list of things that we didn’t get to/need to do before things freeze.  By the same token, it’s good to look back at the things that we did accomplish this year.  This is the 6th official year of The 30 Acre Wood and it’s nice to no longer be in the life-or-death gotta-get-things-done mode of the first several years.

As far as accomplishments, I’d have to say getting the riding ring in was one of the biggies.  We’d been talking about it and planning it for the last several years, but this was the year we finally corralled Bill and his trackhoe and turned him loose in the ring.  Like most things here, it didn’t turn out quite like we thought.  It turned out much more fabulous.  The rocks, prolific as they are here, ended up forming a beautiful wall/edging around the entire ring, thanks to Bill’s skilled placement, and there were some big honkers.  That damn pine that Larry just had to keep (“You never should have brought me to the St. Clement’s horse show!” was his defense) stands between the two house-sized boulders that are permanent ride-arounds.  It’s a true Adirondack riding ring.  Next year we hope to start bringing in fill for footing.  In the meantime, it’s quite useable and a joy to have.

The second biggest accomplishment was getting the center beam of the house replaced.  Well, it couldn’t quite be replaced (for reasons that I’ll elaborate on in a future post), but once again, Bill and his trackhoe and team of Doug and Bill Jr. brought in a 26’ beam through a hole in the back of the house, slid it through the exterior and an interior wall, secured it underneath the old beam, and jacked up the 1st floor ceiling/2nd floor floor.  The goal wasn’t to get it perfectly level, but to get it shored up and more stable, and in that regard it turned out great.  Again, it wasn’t quite what we envisioned, but even better.  We were able to take the cob-job supports off the exposed beams in the living room that we like so much, Bill did a great job framing in the new beam, and we gained an extra support in the living room, which blends in perfectly and the cats love to claw and climb on (it’s rough cut wood, so who cares).  Just to have the ceiling not quite so swayed – you could see the polite, unspoken fear in the eyes of people who walked into the house for the first time – made the whole thing worthwhile.  Bill, Doug and Bill Jr. did a fantastic job on what had to be a challenging project.  If you look at the back of the house, you can’t even tell where they went in, and Doug skillfully replaced the sheetrock with my beloved ancient wallpaper in the kitchen.  A little red paint and her scars were well hidden.

Our biggest setback ended with a big capital purchase.  The 1950 8N tractor, which served us well and was used for applications it was never intended for, gave Larry fits all year.  He was spending more time working on it than using it, and as a result we got way behind the curve on getting in our firewood (the wet spring didn’t help, either).  Antique farm equipment is fun when you aren’t counting on it.  Unfortunately, it just wasn’t working for us anymore.  After much consideration, swearing and wrench throwing, we decided to sell it and find a new tractor.  We were fortunate to find a Ford enthusiast who was thrilled with his purchase, and the 8N went to its new home in Jay.  Two weeks later, we bought our 2004 John Deere 790 with bucket, backhoe, york rake and flail mower (that last one sounds good and dangerous, doesn’t it?).  It drives like a dream, starts right up (what a concept), and I can’t wait to go popping stumps with it in the spring.  We have started scraping the mud out behind the barn in anticipation of putting down a new surface soon, and while it’s still hard work it would be a nightmare without the tractor attachments.  We are very excited about having this new piece of hard working equipment in our arsenal.

I also bought a woodsplitter this year, and it’s probably one of the greatest things I’ve ever bought in my life.  Nothing against my industrious and hardworking husband, who has been uncharacteristically stubborn about his insistence on splitting wood by hand.  That’s all fine and good, when you have the time for that kind of crap.  Normally Larry skids the logs out, we stage them, he cuts them into lengths, then splits, and I stack.  My point was, I could be splitting the wood myself, saving him lots of effort and time so he could concentrate on other things, and I wouldn’t have to be waiting for him to split a huge pile of logs to get the job done.  I had been making this argument for the last couple of years, to no avail.  This summer our friend Bob bought a splitter and showed it to us at his camp, extolling its virtues.  I told Bob my quandary with my husband and his good friend.  Out of the blue Bob brought the splitter over to our house and left it with us for a few weeks.  Sheer brilliance.  I had a field day with it and it didn’t take long to sell Larry on the idea.  Within a week of Bob picking his splitter up, I bought ours, a good used model.   Another excellent, hard-working piece of equipment.

So we continue to move forward towards self-sufficiency (of sorts).  It’s satisfying to look back at the end of each year and see what we’ve accomplished.  We’ve also done other things like get the gardens going, I built an adorable little “pioneer fence” in the front yard and did some perennial planting, Larry built a bridge out back for the tractor to cross the stream, and we fine tuned the pasture fencing.  We put a gate in next to the barn, acquired and rehabbed a 16’ utility trailer, and did some major hauling with it.  Out of sheer necessity, I managed to back the truck and trailer away from the barn and all the way out to the road, then backed the trailer into its storage spot (despite Larry’s attempts at coaching me on this whole process, in the end I had to do it my own and by myself, and I was pleased as punch when, 20 minutes later, I had successfully navigated about 70 feet of truck and trailer backwards down a path lined with trees and rocks, then back it back up the same path and got the trailer in its spot between two trees and a pile of rocks.  Talk about empowering!).

I can only imagine what the winter brings.