Christmas, Canners and Cows!

Merry Christmas!!

One of my favorite gifts this year is my pressure canner from my mom. I've tried my hand at water bath canning- only once- and it went well, but for most veggies a pressure canner is required. I can't wait to try it out. My husband got me the accessory kit, which will make canning much easier!

I also finished a book I was reading called the Family Cow Handbook.

I enjoyed the book immensely, since it mostly centered around keeping a single cow on pasture, which is what we'd like to do. I enjoy reading all livestock books, but so many seem built around monoculture, large herds, and confinement barns, which is not at all how I'd like to raise my animals. It was great to read a book for the small homestead cow-keeper. The book was also full of different ways to use all of the milk a cow can provide. One bit of discordance I found, though, was that while the author promoted the drinking of raw milk, all of the recipes for cheese and yogurt required pasteurizing the milk. I don't know much about cheesemaking yet, but I know that yogurt can be made from raw milk. Here's a great recipe.

Happy Farming!

Seed Packets with the Cricut Cutter

I decided the other day that I really needed to organize my seed packets. They were being stored in baggies in my fridge. The whole organization process will be several posts, but to start, here is how I made my super cute seed packets to replace the leaky white envelopes many of my seeds had been stored in.

I used extra scrapbook paper I had lying around. I cut the sheets into 6" by 7" sheets to minimize waste. I have the older, first generation Cricut, so that limits my cutting size. I used the Wild Card cartridge, using the Booklet envelope (<boklet-s>) at 5.5" with the Real Dial Size on. I liked the look of the cutout leaves on the flap, but you could always cut it in blackout mode if you don't like it. 

Once I had my packets cut out, all I did was assemble them with double sided tape, and add some white sticky labels to the front to write on. To add some interest, I let my 7 year old stamp on the labels before I put them on the packets. It was that simple.

Happy Farming!!

Blacksmithing

The other day, Chris expressed an interest in blacksmithing when we got our farm. So when I went to the library, I picked up a couple of books on the subject.



The first one was The Backyard Blacksmith. Definitely a book for beginners, which was perfect for us! Very thorough with detailed explanations of techniques. The only problem we found with the book was that it tended to focus on decorative projects, rather than the farm-type projects we would find useful. Otherwise, it was an amazing book and a perfect introduction for a beginner.



The other book I grabbed was Farm Blacksmithing. This book was really a collection of articles. Great information. The prices were outdated, but the information wasn't. Not too much has changed about blacksmithing in a couple hundred years, so old information is still useful. The projects were much more useful to us, ranging from hooks and staples to chain and files.

While my mind was mulling blacksmithing, I found this article from Popular Mechanics. Basic blacksmithing, including how to build a forge from recycled or repurposed items. Awesome! Overall, it was a great introduction to the topic and we learned a lot. Mostly that a smithy is something that will definitely have a place on our farm!

Happy Farming!

Seed Catalogs

I LOVE when the seed catalogs start arriving. My garden isn't even winterized yet (I'm very behind), and I'm already thinking about next year! Dreaming about gardening, learning about gardening and planning my garden help keep me sane during the long, cold Wisconsin winter.

I don't need many seeds-if any!-this year, and with the new baby coming, my garden next year will be small or non-existent. But I still pour over the catalogs, reading every description, imagining how each variety will fit in my current garden or my dream garden of someday.

Both of my two favorite catalogs have arrived. I'll probably get a few more throughout the winter, but these two are the ones I wait for. I ordered from Pinetree Garden Seeds the first year we moved into this house. They are a great company and I was very pleased with them. I kept the leftover seeds for several years and had great germination rates. They also have a great selection of gardening-related stuff- from gift sets to fertilizer to harvesting baskets and soap-making supplies. I love using the book section to find new books to read during the winter.

Two years ago, and again last year, several friends and I created a very informal seed co-op, so we wouldn't end up with so many extra seeds and could share costs. We ordered from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I always tried to grow heirlooms before, when I could find them, and now here was a whole catalog of nothing but heirlooms! I loved it. But when we had a problem with our order last year* and discovered how amazing the Baker Street customer service is, I was hooked! Nothing gets my repeat business like amazing customer service.

Happy Farming!


*Some seed packets were missing and my friend didn't know if she had misplaced them or if they hadn't been sent. We decided to call after looking everywhere and the woman we talked to was awesome about it. She looked at our order and what was missing and said since all of the second page of our order was missing, it was probably never sent. The person who picked the order probably missed the second page. We had them within a few days. (We never found any misplaced seeds, so I'm sure now they weren't sent, but how many customer service reps would hear, "We might have misplaced them" and reply with, "No, no, I'm sure this was our mistake" ? Not many!)

Orange Peels

Like most things that catch my interest, today's little moment of learning came from a random observation. I was peeling an orange and noticed that the peel had a LOT of oil in it. It was spraying all over my hands. So I started wondering how one might go about "harvesting" this orange oil for use in soaps, or cleaning products, or whatever.

I love the internet. You can learn so many wonderful things on the internet. Today I learned that there is indeed an easy way to make orange oil from the peels. The best part is that it uses dried peels, so you can save them till you have enough. No need to have loads of fresh peels on hand. And once the oil has been harvested, the ground peels can go into the compost pile.

While I was researching, I found several lists of other ways to use orange peels around the house. I really like the idea of using up everything, somehow. Of creating very little to no trash.  Here's the list of orange peel ideas I liked best:

Due to the high content of flammable oil in orange peel, dried peel makes a great firestarter or kindling
 

It seems that cats don't like the smell of peel, so you can place them around plants where you don't want cats digging
 

Using a "zester", the top layer of an orange peel can be scraped to produce zest. This can then be used to strong flavor to foods, such as sauces, soups and salads. The zest can be dried overnight and then stored in airtight bottles for future use.
 

Dried orange peels can be placed in a cloth bag and placed in closets and cupboards to reduce musty odors
 

A puree blend of orange peel and water can be applied to an area to discourage ants from crossing.
 

Most insects hate limonene - the oil in the peel. Small piles of zest can be placed around an area to keep it free from flies and mosquitos. Some people claim rubbing orange peel on your skin willprevent mosquito bites.
 

To deodorize a garbage disposal unit, throw down a few peels while it's operating
 

While on the topic of garbage, placing orange peel at the bottom of your trash can, before putting the bag or bags in is said to reduce odor and also help discourage insect infestation.

Use the orange skin to scrub and deodorise your kitchen sink.
 

Candied orange peels are a tasty treat that seem very simple to make. Plenty of recipes can be found on the Internet.

Add them to your compost pile


The list above can be found here. And another good one (some overlap, but some different ideas, too) is here. Happy farming!

Welcome to the Farm!

Well, not quite. Right now we are hopeful farmers. Our family is made up of mom Lexi, dad Chris, and our three daughters. Maddie is 7, Emily is 4 and Lauren is 2. We have another baby on the way sometime in May. Our "barnyard" consists of a Holland Lop rabbit named Natalie and a very lazy beagle named Jack.

We live in a suburb of Chicago and Milwaukee that is actually the fourth-largest city in Wisconsin. But we live a suburban life rather than a big city one. We have a nice yard, where we garden every year. That's the closest we get to actual farming.

But, oh, we have big farm dreams. We long for acres of land and a homestead where we can raise or grow our own food and life a self-sufficient life. We don't know if our dream homestead is in God's plan for our lives, but we read, and learn, and prepare just in case. Even if we never get our farm, there are lots of things we can do in our suburban house to become more self sufficient. We're trying to learn to do those things as we wait on the Lord.

We'd love to have you join us on our journey. Welcome to the Farm!!