Trellises, Trellises, I Need More Trellises!

As my garden grows, so does my need for trellises.  I only have so much ground space so going vertical as much as possible is the best solution for me.

Over the years I've amassed quite a collection of old windows.  My original intent was to have Nate build me a window greenhouse out of them, but as time passed, it just didn't happen.  Nate finally got so tired of my begging for a window greenhouse that he said he would just buy me one.  Okay, I didn't get the window greenhouse I dreamed of, but I did get a greenhouse.  I choose my battles, and he does so many projects for me anyway, that I can't complain if he doesn't really want to build me a window greenhouse. 

The fallout is that I now have a large collection of windows without a purpose.  I'm not naming any names, but someone says this to me from time to time:  "Either do something with these windows or get rid of them."  "Either do something with these windows or get rid of them."  "Either do something with these windows or get rid of them."  Okay, okay!

Recently I was contemplating the windows and better use of the vertical space along my privacy fence when an idea popped in my head.  Why not use them to make a trellis?  So, after more sanding and painting than I really ever care to do again in the near future, stapling 2x4 hardware cloth to the back and having them mounted to the fence with 10" lengths of scrap 2x4s, I have this lovely window trellis.  I realized after they were hung that I probably should have given myself more space between them to reach behind the middle ones, but I wasn't about to request that they be taken down and rehung.  I'll see how they work this year and possibly separate them a little more next year.  I managed to use six of my windows, and I have room for two more trellises like this along the fence, meaning 12 more windows can eventually be taken from the stash.  I'm not naming any names, but he will be very happy I'm chipping away at my collection!

Happy homesteading,

Candace
 

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun

The "bottom" half of our yard looked like this when we bought our house.  I call it the bottom half because it sits down off the retaining wall that runs along the right side of this photo.  Behind the privacy fence is a glorified ditch that usually has a small stream of water running through it, and our yard extends beyond this ditch.

This space has come a long way with the real transformation being once we decided to turn it into the animal yard.

We now house rabbits and chickens in this yard. It has worked out wonderfully for this purpose because it keeps the chickens out of the top half were the majority of my garden is located. But I'm always looking for ways to utilize our outdoor space to its full potential.

For several years we've talked out taking down the privacy fence to be able to fully see our yard. I would garden there, but the ground slopes down to the creek, it receives shade most of the day, and the oak tree roots are practically throughout the whole area. So, recently we decided the best way to use this area of the yard was to expand the animal yard and give the chickens even more space to free-range since we've denied them access to the top half. We ran fencing and took down the privacy fence that separated these sections. It basically doubled their space, and I think it turned out great!

Our dilemma was how to bridge the "creek" as we call it. We ended up spanning a 2x4 and then buiding the fence across the 2x4. After that, we used some of the old privacy fence boards to run the span of the creek to keep the chickens from running all over the neighborhood. The last thing we did was attach a piece of hardware cloth to let the water flow. Since the flow is never heavy, it won't be hard to keep that flow-through area clean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think the flock likes it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy homesteading,

 

Candace



 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

You Say kee-fur, I Say kuh-feer

Can we just meet in the middle and share a common love for kefir? 

Recently, I had been researching yogurt making and just couldn't take the plunge to start doing it. Working full-time makes my life crazy and I don't have time to add another "need to monitor" project to my list. Some days I wonder how I get what I do done, so monitoring the temperature it takes to make yogurt just seemed too much for me. I considered a yogurt maker, which would certainly simplify the process, but that's another appliance to buy, store and maintain.


So, when a friend offered me some kefir grains in exchange for a jar of honey, I started doing some research.  You can find a multitude of websites that discuss kefir, but by far the most informative website I've found is this one:  http://users.chariot.net.au/~dna/Makekefir.html#washing-grains. 

Kefir is SOOOO easy to make.  You put some milk in a clean sterilized jar, add the grains to the milk, cover the jar, leave it on the counter for 24-48 hours, strain the grains from the milk, and you're done.  It's tart, creamy, full of good for you stuff, and very versatile.  And the longer you let it sit, the tarter and thicker it gets, and if you let it sit long enough, the curds will separate from the whey, and you have the perfect opportunity to make a variety of products.  I've stopped buying yogurt, sour cream and cream cheese from the store, and whenever I can eliminate another store bought item off my list, I'm a happy camper.  It means I'm less dependent on the food industry and more self-sufficient.  Unless I do something to kill the culture, my kefir will live indefinitely.

I started out putting it in smoothies, which is fabulous, but the more research I did, the more I realized how versatile it is.  If you drain the whey from the curds, you get a product ranging from a mock sour cream to a soft spreadable cheese.

I recently took a cheese-making class and during the class I started wondering if I could use kefir to make something other than the soft spreadable cheese I had been making.  The teacher led me to this website:  http://users.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefir_cheese.html.  You'll note it is from the same person as above.  I'm looking forward to trying some of the hard cheese recipes.  What I love about these cheese recipes is that the kefir works as the coagulant and you don't have to use rennet.   

I've used kefir in the place of 1/2 of the milk in my favorite pancake recipe.  It gives the pancakes a sour dough flavor and makes them very light and airy.  I now use it in the place of the sour cream called for in my ranch dressing recipe.  I've also made this pudding, subbing coconut milk for the milk:  http://www.runningtothekitchen.com/2012/02/orange-kefir-chia-pudding/.  This was my first experience with chia seeds, and they do remind me of tapioca like the post suggests.  It turned out yummy. 

My most surprising use for kefir is using the whey to tenderize venison cube steak.  I always have venison cube steak in my freezer.  It's my least favorite cut, and though I have tried every recipe and technique known to man, I could never get it to tenderize.  Therefore, the cube steak packages would get relegated to the bottom of the freezer.  In the back of my mind, I had remembered reading that whey is a good tenderizer, but I had never tried it since I never had whey on hand.  One day, I had some leftover kefir whey, so I decided to give it a whirl with some cube steak.  I let the cube steak sit in the whey for a few days because I put off cooking it thinking I was doomed for failure.  Man, am I glad I took the risk.  That cube steak was the most tender I've ever eaten, fork tender I'm telling you.  Even Nate commented on it.  Now, I don't have to fear the cube steak! 

Here are some other recipes to consider, though I haven't tried any of these yet:

Kefir Eggnog

Apple Pie Kefir Ice Cream

Kefir Butter

Kefir Cottage Cheese

Kefir Avocado Soup

Kefir Cheese in Olive Oil

Whey Lemonade

By the way, the chickens love whey, but for all of you dairy farmers and cheese makers out there, you probably already knew that. 

Happy kefir making,

Candace

It's Pinterest's Fault

I remember a time when I told a friend, "I don't have time to add another thing to my list."  This was my response to her question about why I had not joined Pinterest.  I caved and joined and sold my soul to the virtual pinboard.  I recently joked to a friend that if I could knit as quickly as I pinned, I would be AMAZING!  I live in a small house, so Pinterest is a hoarder's dream tucked away in cyberspace.  It doesn't clutter my house with pages torn from magazines never to be looked at again, until I decide to get rid of the clutter in my house.  It feeds my OCD need for organization.  Pre-Pinterest, I would see an idea and think, "I want to do that."  Then I would forget it as soon as I saw the next clever idea.  Much to the chagrin of Nate, the ideas I've pinned have stuck, and I've actually done some of them.  One day, he was loading a pallet into the bed of his truck, and he said a co-worker just looked at him and asked, "Pinterest?"  Nate said he just nodded and threw the pallet into the bed.

A few months ago Nate built a new rabbitry for me.  I know, he just built one for me a year ago, but it didn't work for several reasons.  I hated the cage over cage set-up because of the poop boards, which just did not seem sanitary no matter how often I cleaned them, and the arrangement of the cages, which were either too high or too low for me to reach into comfortably.  Plus the height of the lower cages made cleaning beneath them difficult.  The old rabbitry is now being used for storage, which I desparately needed, so no great loss with some small gain.  I love my new rabbitry, and the cages hang so the poop and urine fall straight to the ground, and I can adjust them to a height that works for me. 

I've composted for years, but I've never had a great system.  One day, I was trolling Pinterest and I came across the idea of building compost bins under the rabbit cages.  Compost bins under my rabbit cages?  You don't say?  I do say, and I did!  Operation Compost Bins has been in full force and effect the past two weekends.  The backs and sides are 1/2" hardware cloth and the fronts are boards that fall into the slot with screws in each board to keep it slightly apart from the board below it.  The boards can be stacked close to the bottoms of the cages.  The chickens are already checking it out.  (You can click on any photo for a larger view.)

Another idea I recently found is growing celery from the cut base.  I never buy celery because I don't use much of it, and tf always goes bad before I can use it all.  Well, what do you think appeared in the compost box I get each week from the grocery store?  You got it, celery.  It was pretty limp and old, but I thought what the heck.  After about a week of sitting in a tray of water in the greenhouse, both pieces started growing from the center, and I potted them this weekend.

And, the next time Nate gives me the look when I broach a new project to him, I'm going to say, "It's Pinterest's fault."

Happy homesteading,

Candace

Scratching and Clawing My Way Out

Looking at the date of my last post, I see to my amazement that I've taken a nice LONG winter break.  But spring is in the air, and I am going to claw my way out of my winter blogging den and try to get back on task.  So, I thought the easiest way to do that would be to bring you up-to-date on some of my animals.

Big Boy; A beautiful rooster, and he was great with the girls, but he and I just could not get along.  It got to where I had to carry a small rake with me to fend him off whenever I stepped out the back door.  Big Boy was my first meat chicken.  I got teary-eyed when I did the deed.  It's hard taking a life, and it certainly causes one to take a moment and give reverence to the food on your plate.

I got this motley crew of birds about a month or so ago, and they will be my first intentional venture into meat birds.  Wow, eight whole birds.  Don't go overboard!  Really, I like to start things slow and get used to something before I jump in whole hog.  The girls will be kept for eggs, and the boys will go to freezer camp. 



 

This is Belinda, our new American Chinchilla doe.  She will be one of my breeder rabbits for meat.  I had her bred before the breeder brought her so I would have a separate gene line from her babies.  Well, she had one baby!  She took excellent care of it, and let me tell you, it was fat, fat, fat!  I will be breeding Belinda again soon.  Hopefully she'll give me more than one baby next time.

This is Belinda's Baby.  Can you believe she is only a few months old?  I told you she was a healthy girl.  We're keeping her, which will give me three American Chinchilla does for breeding when she comes of age.  

 

This is Buck Nasty, my new American Chinchilla buck.  Okay, Nate named him after a charactor on Dave Chapelle's Show.  When I first got him and Belinda, I was showing the pedigrees to Nate and I told him that the boy rabbit at the time was only called Buck and that he needed a name.  Well, Buck Nasty has stuck so far, but I told Nate I didn't know if I wanted to put that on a pedigree.  So, we'll see.

 

This is a litter belonging to Bunny and Jack, my other two American Chinchilla rabbits.  They are starting to venture out of the nest box, so it's fun to watch them frolic together.  They are my first meat litter for this year.      

Well, that's it, folks.  Thanks for being patient and sticking around and checking up on me!

Happy homesteading,

Candace

Lucy's Story

I've been hibernating because there hasn't been alot to say lately, and I haven't felt like saying what there is to say until today.

I want to tell you the story of our Lucy.

Lucy came into our lives in 1994 as a wee kitten just after Nate and I started dating.  Her name started out as Lucifer because she used to attack our feet in the dead of night.  It would scare the bejeezus out of us.  While she mellowed over the years, she always retained her devilish nature.   

She tolerated Nate, but I was always her first choice.  She always greeted me when I got home, and she would often sit on the buffet by the dining room window watching and listening for my car.  She hated any visitor who took my attention away from her, and she could give them some vicious dirty looks.  Only she was allowed to sit in my lap, and usurpers of her throne (primarily my other cat, Onyx) were not tolerated and were dealt with severely.  She had a vicious punch and anyone who felt like they could just walk up and pet her were quickly put in their place.  We often called her Juicy Lucy because she was so flexible and flowing.  You could bend and twist her in anyway and she just contorted like a yoga master.  We also called her The Turkey Fiend because she took every opportunity to steal food and she didn't apologize for it.  Whatever punishment doled out was worth the prize.  Nate found her one day chewing away on his turkey sandwich and they literally had a tug of war with it.  As you can see from the photo, she loved high places, and whenever I lived in a place with cabinets that had a space above them, she found a way to get there. 

In December 2008, at the age of 14, she was diagnosed with Chronic Renal Failure.  The vet prescribed the typical low protein renal food.  This was around the same time I was learning more about the food industry and we were starting to change the way we ate at home and being more conscious of our food purchases.  I had never had a pet this old, so I had never dealt with any serious animal health issues.  I got online and started researching CRF in cats, and the more I read, the more I knew the prescribed renal food was not right for Lucy.  Animal by-products were the first ingredient, and my research indicated that it's not some much the protein quantity (low protein vs. high protein) as the quality.  While, the goal of this post is not the share my research and say my way should be your way, I will say "The Natural Cat" by Anitra Frazier is a great resource.  After 14 years with Lucy, I knew her better than anyone else, and the decisions I made at that time were as educated as I could make though they were a complete 180 from traditional veterinary medicine. 

After I did a bit of research, I called my vet with questions about his approach vs. what I had read online.  I told him I did not want to feed Lucy the low protein food for many reasons and that I had been reading about a more holistic approach to treating CRF.  He got angry and told me he was the vet, not me, and he didn't believe in that holistic poo poo (Yes, those are the words he used, holistic poo poo.), He also told me that if I chose to follow a holistic approach with Lucy then I was killing my cat.  He said the prescribed cat food was formulated with alot of research behind it, and I was a fool not to follow his advice.  Well, needless to say, after I had been insulted I never took her to him again.  I just thought, "What an ass!"

After that phone conversation, I decided to start with some suggested manufactured foods that were considered CRF friendly that were high quality protein based.  At the same time, I made up a batch of cat food based on a CRF recipe I found online.  Lucy wouldn't have anything to do with the canned cat food, but she did like my homemade food, so homemade cat food it was.  I also supplemented the food with a vitamin and a few herbal blends formulated for CRF cats.   

We bumped along for about a year and a half, and then she had a major crash from dehydration.  In nature, cats get the majority of their moisture from the food they eat, and they really do not rely on water to meet their hydration needs.  Domesticated cats are no different.  (Okay, this is me on my soap box.  Cats should not eat dry cat food as their only source of food.  In my opinion, they should never eat dry cat food period.  It does not have nearly the moisture it should for a healthy hydrated cat.)  CRF cats already have compromised and damaged kidneys, so they have a hard time maintaining their hydration from the moisture in their food.  They drink alot more water than a typical cat because they are trying to flush out the toxins that build up in their damaged kidneys.  As a result, the body is not receiving the hydration it needs resulting in dehydration.

At this point, Lucy was about 15 1/2 years old.  We decided to put her on sub-q fluids at home.  I learned how to monitor her hydration and to manage the fluids we gave her.  Many people thought we were crazy to spend so much money on a cat.  Our motto was if she still had a good quality of life, after 15 1/2 years of companionship and devotion, why wouldn't we?  Should we just desert her now that she's costing us a little more money and time?  I had already spent a year and a half making homemade cat food so what was adding another aspect to her care? 

Since her CRF diagnosis, Lucy would have a hard time transitioning to winter.  She seemed to have a slight decline in health, but she always bounced back.  She turned 18 this year, and I dreaded the approach of cold weather.  I knew she couldn't live forever, and after 4 years of managing her CRF, I knew she had already exceeded the average time a CRF cat lives.  Mid-October, I came home from work one day to find her face swollen.  This had never happened to her, so this was a new development that deep in my heart I knew wasn't good.  Fluid retention was the most likely cause, which can contribute to fluid in or around the lungs and/or congestive heart failure.  She was back to normal the next day and seemed like her old self though I noticed she was sleeping more than normal. 

At the end of October, I woke one night in a pool of urine.  Lucy had wet the bed, which was also new to us.  We got up, did what we could to soak up the urine, put towels down, remade the bed and I put her on top of the covers instead of under them with me.  When I got up to get ready for work, I noticed she had once again urinated while we were sleeping.  I really started to worry then.  I put a towel down and put her next to Nate while I took a shower.  When I came back into the room and checked on her, I noticed there was a pool of blood next to her.  We immediately took her to the emergency vet.  I suspected a urinary tract infection, which is common with CRF cats.  She was diagnosed with a UTI, and her bloodwork came back with high kidney values, neither of which surprised me.  Being an emergency vet, he had never seen Lucy before that day, and he said for a CRF cat, he was surprised she had lasted as long as she day and that we must be doing something right.  The vet gave her a dose of antibiotics and instructed us to increase her fluids to help flush out the infection and to give her kidneys a good flush. 

While I was worried, I had high hopes the antibx would kick in and she would once again bounce back.  We made a bed for her in front of the fire at home but I soon realized she could barely stand up.  She would just urinate where she was.  That night, we left her by the fire, which was the first time in years she did not sleep with us.  I got up throughout the night to check on her, but about 5:00 the next morning a thump woke me up.  I bolted out of bed and realized she had dragged herself into the doorway of our bedroom to get in the bed with us.  She would take two wobbly steps and fall over.  She had done this all the way to our bedroom.  To me, that was one of the most heart wrenching moments of my life.

The vet said it would take about 3 days for the antibx to really kick in, but it quickly became evident that the increased fluids were causing difficulty of breathing for her.  Without the fluids, she would dehydrate and die, but with fluids, she was most likely retaining fluid causing fluid to accumulate in or around her lungs and/or congestive heart failure.  She was not eating either, and I tried all of her favorite treats.  We couldn't watch her suffer, and it was evident she was not going to recover.  We made the decision that was best for her. 

18 years, 4 months and 2 days was not enough time. 

With Thanksgiving being tomorrow, I want to say how thankful I am to have had such a loving, mischevious, stubborn, opinionated, loyal, beautiful companion in my life.  Nate often says that Lucy and I are just alike, and I consider that the ultimate compliment.  I learned so much from her.   

We love you Lucy, and we miss you terribly.  There is a huge hole in my heart now that will never be filled.

Candace 



 

Farm Name and Logo

A few years ago, Nate built me a bottle tree.  I wrote about it here, and it is by far this blog's most popular post.  I love my bottle tree for the structural beauty it adds to my garden and the love it represents.  I also love that I can't kill it. 

Since that time, I've had a farm name stuck in the back of my head.  I kept thinking one day when I have a farm, I'll have a name ready.  But, I realized one doesn't need acreage to have a farm.  To me, a farm can be anywhere.  My farm is on less than 1/2 an acre.  I raise food for our table and pantry in the form of vegetables, fruits, eggs, honey, and meat.  Farming is hard work, accomplishment, disappointment, satisfaction, sadness, fear, gratification and more.  It's slogging through ankle deep mud to feed and care for animals who depend on you, but it's also, opening your pantry and seeing the canning jars full of food ready to please the taste buds.  Farming is a mindset and a way of life.

We may never move to acreage, so I asked myself why am I waiting on giving our labor of love a name.  My answer was to contact a friend of mine and ask him to create a logo for me. 

I am so pleased to present my farm name and new logo.

 

Happy homesteading,

 

 

Candace