Hey, duct tape is like the Force; it holds the Universe together. Before I went to work this morning I borrowed some of Debbie's fingernail polish and put a double layer all around the cut, over the stitches etc. I worked all day without any issue. I'm starting to think Doctors are highly over rated.
Windy as Kansas this evening after recieving almost 3 inches of rain. The Scioto river was almost to the railroad trestle when I left for the day. I hope I'll be able to get to work en la Manana. After all, it's payday at the hatchery on fridays.
Debbie and I decided we are going to get rid of the blue orpingtons, a lot of the Seramas, and the auracaunas. Cut down to the Barred Rocks, the Buff Orpingtons, the Ducks (welsh Harlequins), a couple seramas, and the Gold laced wyandottes. Right now I have over 100 chickens eating my feed, and close to 35 ducks. Going to cut the duck herd down to 12. My feed bill is just outrageous.
Getting colourful on the October Homestead
Wowzer, that's a lotta mouths to feed over the winter!
No kidding, feed prices keep going up here too. If you can find it. My feed supply is out of some things and don't know when they'll get them back in. I need to look for old fridges and start buying from the mill this winter.
Cows are the most expensive, but I've been doing pretty good with the chickens and pigs. I've only bought 3 bags of chicken grower and 2 bags of pig feed in the last two months. The rest of their diet is coming from clabber, last years eggs, kale, weeds, kitchen and grocery store scraps. Chickens go in the freezer next month, that will fee up enough feed to finish the pigs.
I got 5 pounds of OP corn seed from a wonderful DG'er. Planing out next years plot and getting soil samples soon. I need to research how to dry and store corn on a homestead.
wow them is a lot of chickens.
i got 10 eggs today ! woohoo. all the girls are laying but one and she is molting. ? weird time to molt ?
sure wish i could take some of them chickens off your hands.
rain stopped. nice day but cold.
work we did 135 gal of cider.
monday is my last day . so my budget is smaller this fall.
still got 1/ 2 bushel of apples in basement , i think i will make apple jelly with them. I was thinking of adding in some ginger and orange zest .
i will seep the ginger and zest while i boil it . may work ?
still collecting acorns. :)
"research how to dry and store corn on a homestead"
Please post what you discover! (Not that I think I will grow any to dry/store, but ya never know.)
Sue, that;s a lot f cider. How's the hard cider project coming along? Mine from last year wasn't too good, they only used sweet apples for their cider.
RIC is doing the hard cider.
My boss uses many different types
usually what is not pretty applesis cider
Ida Red
Red Delicious
Granny
Whinesap
Cortland
oh he has a bunch of varietys
i will let you know how Rics turns out.
i ordered 5 fig tree's Chicago Hardy. and i have one fig ready here at the house from a DGer
darius them daisys you got me several years ago are still going strong !
Sue, the Chicago Hardy fig interests me. Keep us informed about how they do, please?
I don't know much about cider apples, but there's a difference in regular fall-squeezed "drinkable" fresh cider, and the cider best for hard cider.
Hard cider needs 3 types of apples:
Sweet
Acid
Bitter and Aromatic
Almost no one grows the bitter/aromatic apples anymore.
I sure am behind on this thread.
Really cute goat kid. I play with my kids all the time. It's good to keep them tame in case you need to doctor them. Are you milking the doe? Yo can start latching the kid ( penning it up at night) at two weeks so you can have the milk in the morning then let the kid nurse during the day. That's what I did. It worked out fine. That way if I have a day that I can't or don't want to milk I just leave the kids with the does and no harm done.
I would love to have been able to make that conference. I looked at it on line but it was too far to drive for me. Sounds like a lot of great subjects too. I have wanted to try ramps since I first heard of them. Thanks for that link. I imagine they would do really well along side my creek.
Lots of people "sanging" around here right now but the season is winding down. They have been pretty successful by all accounts. It's a tradition here handed down through the families. The gatherers here always plant the berries they find on the bushes so the stands of ginseng never run out. I'd like to have been able to get out in the woods and see what it looks like. But it's akin to snake hunting in these parts. Lots of copperheads out right now but the cooler temps should run them into their dens soon.
I heard about Morels about the same time as I did ramps and always wanted to find them. I was never successful but last Spring the husband of a friend at church sent me some. They were the best mushrooms I have ever had and he said he would take me next spring to find some more. He hunts a lot and is always prowling the hills. I can hardly wait.
I feel your pain on the price of chicken feed and you have more birds than I do. Right now I have a pen of 14 mixed layers that have not layed in over a month. I have them seperated because as soon as I get the time I am going to butcher them. I have 6 RSLs and 4 EE layers I am going to keep. The EEs are not laying yet but I get 2 to 5 eggs a day from the RSLs. I also have 1 GC hen and 1 game hen I am keeping. I have a bantam roo and a bantam hen I am keeping and an Ancona duck hen I am keeping. I have 2 EE roos I am keeping and 2 roos I need to butcher. That will leave me with 17 fowl and that is plenty. Feed just keeps going up. I was feeding $30 of feed a week when they were laying heavy but nobody was buying eggs. I have cut them back now and only the active layers get laying pellets. The others just get scratch.
I did not know you were working at an orchard. That sounds interesting. Lots of apple trees around here but no business with them. Just folks who have them planted in their yards. Most folks don't spray them so lots of apples fall with worms. The road is covered in places when they are falling. One lady who buys eggs from me has about 5 different kinds in her yard. She tried to spray them but her DH passed a few years ago and he was the apple farmer. She gives me apples and I am always glad to get them even though I have to cut out bad spots. They are delicious. I dearly love apple cider but only the clear kind. There is a place in OH that has a fabulous cider but it's a long drive from here. There was a couple at our last church that used to drive up there every year and get gallons of it. They would bring me 2 gallons and it sure was good.
What is punk wood? Is it a type of wood or rather a condition of wood?
That's funny about the duct tape. Hope your finger is better. Around here the end all is black electrical tape. It's the great healer. LOL They tell a funny story about a guy from here who went to one of the mines to hire on. When he found out they didn't have a single roll of black tape on the site, he refused to work for them. Said the place was too dangerous. LOL You always see people with black tape around their nuckles. I use it myself now and it really does work. Every winter I always get a split in the left side of my right index finger first nuckle. (say that 3 times fast) It always hurt like the dickens and nothing would help it. Somebody gave me a roll of black tape and said to put that on it. I did and in 3 days it was closed up. Bandaids never helped at all and no medicine or lotion I ever tried would help. Now whenever it opens up I just put a piece of black tape on it and it's closed in 3 days. Whoda thunk it?
Hope your niece and nephew are settling in well. We kept my DH's nephew for a year. It was hard because of his home situation. Nearly lost our own son for a while Finally got the nephew straightened out and on the honor roll. He went home for the summer and went right back to his old ways. Wanted to come back to us for the next school year and we couldn't let him. It was hopeless because of his parents. He is a drug addict and a thief now. Very sad. I pray your niece and nephew have a life changing time with you. I'd not give my kids up for anybody. Is her husband their father?
Gotta quit bending you all's ears. I have sink full of deer meat to get in the freezer and a pot of whey to turn into ricotta cheese.
Caj, punky wood is just any wood that's well past it's prime and on it's way to rotting. Usually feels light, airy and spongy when you heft it.
good morning
Cajun you sure are busy
i have lots of punky wood LOL
i thought one could use any cider for hard cider but .... i don't know hard cider at all. people talk of it .
what would a bitter aromatic apple be ? very interested
my comp is being very slow and i m sure its on its way out :( apparently it has reached its vintage stage :(
sunny but cold this morning
bbl
Sue, this is from some notes I've collected on cider apples, far from complete. Apple tannin is a necessary component in a tasty cider and a "cider apple" is the best place to get it. Sweet cider is very different from hard cider.
bitter sweet apples: Bulmer's Norman and Dabinett,
sweet apples: Sweet Coppin, Worchester Permain or Cox's Orange Pippin,
sharp apples: Kingston Black and Crimson King (not related to the King Crimson as far as I know).
Dessert (sweet) and cooking apples (sharp) are commonly found, but the varieties prized for cider making, which contain a lot of tannin, make poor eating apples and are very rare. European cider apples include: Brown's Apple, Yarlington Mills, Tremblett's Bitter, Stoke Red and Güttingen. There are few substitutes for these varieties but historically Virginia Crab and Geneva Crab apples have been utilized as a source of apple tannin. In Quebec, cider producers have favored tannin containing varieties such as Quinte, Cortland and Golden Russet.
Foggy Ridge Cidery (http://www.foggyridgecider.com/) here in Virginia uses these apples for their many hard cider varieties.
Cox's Orange Pippin
Dabinett
Graniwinkle
Harrison
Muscadet de BerneyRoxbury Russett
Virginia Hewe's Crab
Tremlett's Bitter
those all sound like heirloom varietys wow great stuff. thanks for the share. I would love to find some of them apples tree's and grow some in our yard.
i guess the type we make is sweet cider and then one could make it hard ?
still collecting acorns LOL
hoping my fig tree's come next week.
i sure wish i ordered more .
Yes, you can ferment sweet cider to make it alcoholic, but it won't taste like authentic hard cider, just alcoholic sweet cider. That's what I made last fall, before I knew I just had fresh sweet cider. The taste is not very appealing.
Figs... I'm hoping to get about 16 more hay bales to make an outside enclosure to overwinter my figs. They used to go in the root cellar for winter, but with a full-size fridge I converted to a cheese cave, and new shelving in there, it's full-up!
Whatcha gonna do with all those acorns?
Finally got back to catch up. Nothing much going on around here. On my last week for CSA delivery. Had a frost one night last week and 3 frosts this week, so gardening is definitely winding down. Fall crops are all under garden blackets, so still have plenty to delivery.
Kids will do projects for their 4H wtih the acorns. They can do art with nature for a entry.I m thinking of a house of acorns and a Native American style tent with fall leaves and sticks.
raining and some thunder here today
guess i won't be tilling in the garden walk ways :(
tomorrow is getting the chickens ready for winter. Need to get the plastic up over the coop and tape it up good and tight.
still need to get my garlic in. was going to do it this week but with so much rain on the way i m wondering if it would rot ?
today is last day of work.
The acorn project sounds like an interesting thing for kids to do.
I need to plant my garlic and shallots too. Maybe even today! The bed doesn't need much prep, just raking smooth from where I dug the failed sweet potatoes.
darius can you plant garlic in the same spot ? or does it need to be switched around ?
how much garlic are you doing this year ?
i would imagine it could be planted in the same place two or three consecutive seasons in a row ? since there is not disease ?
well we got some sun and tomorrow should be a sunny warm day
need to get lots of stuff done
cider pressing is at a close
msrobin forgot to mention . you sure sound busy still. good to see you posting . always fun to hear what is going on in yer life
Hey Cajun were you be ?
I am about killed out as they say around here but I have had a good day. Didn't get to ride any but I did muck out 4 stalls, put 5 mares out in the riding ring for the night, went through some old tack and did all the regular chores. I spent over an hour this morning trying to make a flyer for the ladies conference at church and the program I was trying to use gave me a migraine. I'll try again tomorrow with a different program.
I planted some garlic and onions. I put them in pots. It's the pots I had tomatoes in this year. I have some 20gallon tubs for my maters for next year so I am repurposing the pots I used this year. My garlic and onions got crowded out of the SFG bed this year by that unknown french squash. Won't have to worry about that happening again.
I am reconfiguring my SFG beds over the winter so I can cover them easier in early spring and get started earlier. Also, 2 ft wide will be lots easier for me to harvest.
I don't know how many cloves of garlic and shallots I can fit/plant in that bed, but more than enough for my use. It's about 12 feet long and maybe 6-8' wide. The top 12-15" is new topsoil I added this spring before planting the sweet potatoes there. If the creek doesn't flood over them next spring I should have a decent garlic harvest since that soil isn't compacted clay.
Dyson gave me half a dozen German White garlic bulbs, and I still have 50 or more of the garlic bulbs I dug this summer, plus 10 pounds of local shallots from the farmer's market, although the shallots are all quite small. Next fall I will have a better planting area uphill above the flood line, and then I hope to get some of the named garlic varieties that do well here to start over with garlic and shallots. They tend to not get disease like tomatoes do, so I don't worry about rotating crops as often.
Caj, I have known several folks who grew onions and garlic just fine in big pots.
I'm making some Bacon Jam sometime in the next few days. The recipe sounds interesting. If I like it, I may make a larger batch next month and can it in half-pint jars for the pantry shelves. I'll also roast maybe a dozen heads of garlic to make pureé for the freezer. Roasted garlic is so good with cheese for a snack, or for cooking because it's so mellow.
bacon jam ! oh that does sound good. please keep me informed on that one darius.
i have elephant garlic and gernam extra hardy. i do like the two as they are my fav .
funny garlic was hard to come by this year for me as i searched for several other varietys and not to mention the cost was waaaay out of my price range yikes. so i stuck with what i had.
well today is a sunny good day so i better get at it
Caj sounds like your busy.
have a good day everyone
I collected about 5-6 lbs of rose heps today. These are the big grape sized heps. I like to half them and scrape out the seeds. then dry them for tea. Rosehep tea has like 15 times the Vitamin C of fresh orange Juice. I chop the bushes down as I collect the fruits. The little button heps I just burn down to the ground. They still come back up in the spring, you can't hardly kill the bloody things.
Marion at the store says he thinks he'll be able to get me the concord grape juice so I can make wine this year, but he hasn't gotten any yet.
i have tried the rose hip tea and its a good tea . i like it too. mine is store bought . doesn't compare to homemade. :)
got lots done today
i cut my lip and its so annoying ? don't ask LOL
got lots done today
got all plants and the displays down and stacked
plants are lined up in little neat rows ( need to make an inventory )
hoop tunnel is up
got the front of the Gh stained . ( excellent work by R&R )
can you believe my MIL Grace did it all ! she is 83 yrs old.
got lots of plants cut down and winter ready.
dug up some astilbe to divide up and get into plug trays
looks like rain coming in .
got savannah's room cleaned. No we didn't find Jimmy Hoffa nor Big Foot. but with all the hair on the floor i m sure we could have made our own pet Big Foot.
I've been wanting to grow the rose that makes those huge hips. Maybe next year.
I have never heard of bacon jam so I will be very interested to learn more about that. I love bacon. We have ate all the bacon from out hogs but we still have a good bit of sausage. We mixed it with some ground venison today and made loose meat sandwiches. Mmmm
I have heard of rose heps but never tried them. I thin that particular rose bush grows wild here.
Taynors, I was dying to try elephant garlic and finally found some last year. It was doing great until the squash crowded it out in the SFG. I dug it up and it had only one big bulb that did not grow into seperate cloves. I was so disappointed. I guess I will just plant that big bulb and hope for the best. What do you think was the problem?
The guy who was supposed to look at Firefly has decided he wants a black horse. Can't help him there. So I'll bring her back to her old barn in a few days. We had brought her to my friend's barn to spiff her up and ride her in the ring. She had not been ridden in 3 years and she did great. I was so glad and veru suprised. I was afraid I was going to have a rodeo on my hands.
I have Tug sold. Wasn't looking to sell him but I found a really nice gaited appy mare that I just love. I have been riding her and she reminds me a lot of Shaq so I am going to buy her. Can't keep them all and if I get her I won't ride Tug much if at all and that would not be fair to him. He is getting a great home with friends who board in the same barn as us so I will still see him everyday!! He will be treated like royalty. They do lots of shows and trailrides and the wife is wanting so bad to learn to ride. She is scared of their taller spirited racking horse so she is so excited about getting Tug. I am very happy for them.
I finally got my first blue egg yesterday from my EEs. I was afraid they would not start laying until Spring with the days getting shorter. Didn't get one today but I got 5 brown eggs from my 6 RSLs.
I have dug out and mucked 6 stalls in 2 days. That's pushing it for me but it needed to be done and I am glad all the horses are dry and comfy tonight.
I also rode a friend's horse today. A big racking horse with a hard mouth. I didn't like the way he pulled. He is a beauty to look at though. A great big black and white paint named Popcorn.
I have done all my other chores today and had my supper. I will watch a bit of TV and then it's off to bed.
The roses that I get my heps from are wild. The USDA encoraged the cultivation of the multiflora roses as hedgerows back in the 30s. Most folks around here still curse them for that. I have 4-5 bushes that I collect from,then chop down to the ground. Any others I try to burn out. That helps to keep them under control. I mix the heps with cinnamon and sasafras. It makes a flavourful evening tea.
I understand the hips are hairy, and the hairs create a big itch. Is it hard to clean them?
Caj, that's great about the appaloosa. I looked at Apps a lot before I decided on Egyptian Arabians. Glad you found a good home for Tug, too.
Caj sounds like a great deal on the new horse and that Tug gets a new home not far from you :)
The rose is a havac !!! oh i hate that multiflora rose. What were they thinking ? in winter when i m out hunting in our woods ... its all over and it will go through my carthart bibs that are lined too ! ouch. nasty rose .
Caj i have a chicken question . My EE layed blue eggs in summer , they are green this week ? normal ?
one chicken is molting. but i m still getting up to 6 eggs a day for 11 hens.
well i started to do my garlic and got distracted with daylilys , weeding, peonies tranporting and mulching LOL
there is always tomorrow
Caj i have no idea what went wrong with the EG ? weird ?
I would send you some but for the shipping cost i don't know if it would be worth it for you ?
would have to go in a med flat rate . bulbs are big ! LOL LMK. i can spare up to 3 or 4 bulbs.
Hooray, I finally finished wiring the freezer/storage room on the back of the house yesterday! Only had one open ground (out of 5 new wiring boxes) when I turned the circuit breaker back on (LOUD pop!) but that was easily fixed... and fortunately it wasn't in the wiring connection boxes I installed UNDER the house!!!! Also got the window installed, except for the outside trim.
I may be able to get back to cooking again soon... my sis has promised to help me today to sort, containerize (as much as possible) and make a list of what's in the 2 freezers. She only shares my upright freezer and it gets to be a jumbled mess quickly; most of all the "lost and/or forgotten" foods are in the bottom of my chest freezer.
So I now have just one more nasty job to do under the house... close up the openings I cut in the skirting between the house and front porch to run the washer drain line for greywater... a crawl of about 20+ feet. Have to do it soon because there was an opossum on the porch last night, in the stuff set out to go in the compost bin. They get under the house where it's warm for winter, and tear up the fiberglass heat ducts. Cost us a thousand bucks last year to replace the damaged heat/AC ducts.
What a week!! I was out checking my heirloom tomatoes and slipped and fell. Injured my left knee and right foot. I could not help myself up. Geesh! I sat out in the sun, being eaten alive by fire-ants and mosquitoes for almost 5 and 1/2 hours, until my husband came home. Needless to say, I haven't gotten much done this week. lol
Yesterday I started planting a new flowerbed. Added a few bulbs to it, along with a few flowering shrubs. Made a mistake and left the box of bonemeal on the back porch last night. Darn raccoon got into it, and scattered it all over the place. lol Not much left to use for the rest of the bulbs. Sure wish I could figure out how to make my place a critter free zone. lol Let me know if any of you would like any wild hogs, armadillos, squirrels, possums, raccoons, or assorted Texas sized insects?!!
Fall garden is doing really good so far, with the exception of all spinach, which was eaten down to a nub by something. In anticipation of other seedlings being eaten, I covered each of them up after planting them. Got a large amount of 2 liter soda bottles from my children, cut the bottoms off and used them to cover each plant. I was afraid it might make them burn up in the hot sun, so covered each bottle with the end of a nylon stocking. Seems to be working. When I can get into town, I want to get a couple of cattle panels to do a hoop house over part of the garden before Winter gets here. Might even do one with 3 panels, so I have room for my garbage can with potatoes growing in it. Need to harvest a lot of basil soon. It's been a really good year for it here.
Husband used up all of his vacation time, thinking he wanted to do that before he retired. Now they have given him another 40 hours of it, so he still hasn't quit. What does it take to get a man to retire? lol That 3:30 AM alarm might be doing the trick. He's still working in Houston, which is an hours drive each way. I know he hates that, so maybe when he uses up the new vacation pay he will quit?!!
Gosh, how dreadful to have to be incapacitated for hours like that! Glad you are okay, but maybe you need one of those alert buttons?
Yes, I'll admit I probably do need one of those. Either that, or another cell phone. My balance hasn't been good for a few years. But that has never slowed me down. Messing up my knee sure did though. Thankfully it is almost like new again. The older grandchildren have already ordered something I'm told. Our family hates that we moved so far out. But Ray and I love it out here. And since we are not quite senile yet, family has no say in the matter. lol
I got no clue about the egg color. These are the first EEs I have ever had though I have wanted them for a long time. Finally got my second blue egg today. It's darker blue than the first or it may be a bit dirty. LOL
Wouldn't the garlic cloves fit in one of those small "if it fits it ships" boxes from the PO? I'd be more than glad to pay the postage. LMK
Glad you got that work done under the porch. I know it was preying on your mind. And I know what damage critters can do to the heating ducts. We had a big weimerainer once that pulled the duct work loose from one side of the double wide leading to the other side. Heating bill kept going up but we stayed cold until we got under the house and found out what the big galoot had done. He was sleeping in the warm air we were paying for. Grrr
Being stuck in the sun and ants is a scarey proposition. Glad it wasn't a worse outcome. That could have been bad. Good to know you are mending quick and you sound really busy.
I have taken over the evening feedings at the barn now. 16 horses to water, feed and hay. I only pick my own stalls. It just takes about an hour and it's not hard work. I enjoy it. Makes me feel useful.
Going to be in the low 30s in the morning. I put extra hay in the dog houses and covered my peppers.
Planting garlic was on my list for today too, since other projects have delayed it. However, we have rain that's coming up and across from KY all day, turning to snow later. Yuck.
Yuck, indeed!
brrrr darius , i don't want to think snow yet
got all 225 garlic seed in ground, whew. felt good . i just need straw and i will get that tomorrow to cover them all up for they're little winter nap
next is the elephant garlic. i only have maybe 10 bulbs ? so about 35 seed cloves.
i need to dig up them daisy you gave me darius and get them moved over to a more sunny area.
still dividing up my astilbe like crazy ... ack :P
ran out of room in the shade garden.
going to take my tractor and dump some soil i have . its a mix of compost , topsoil, leaf crumbles and mulch .
i think the shade plants will like it
Sue, my daisy like that moves itself all over the place! Occasionally I divide the original mother plant and offspring to give some away, but it still multiplies like rabbits. I love it though.
Good show on getting all that garlic planted! All I managed in the rain today was a temp cover to the end of my row-cover hoop structure that's been in process for weeks, and a blanket with a tarp over it to cover my potted figs and other tenders.
I spent a lot of the day working on a new canned goods shelving unit for my pantry; I probably still have about a dozen cases of newly canned stuff with NO place to put it. No wall space left either, so I'm building out from some existing shelving, which will leave a narrower walkway in the pantry. I still have gobs of stuff I froze to can later, but most of the stores are out of jars now.
Next summer I will go through all the canned stuff and trash the oldest year of each kind (if there's any left). I hate to do it now because one never knows what the winter and the economy will do. I trashed a lot of stuff yesterday when my sis helped me in the pantry, but some of it was herbs and spices, or out of date store-bought canned goods. If push comes to shove, I'll eat for many months even if it's not a very balanced diet. My sis could eat for maybe 2 weeks on what she has, and then I'll have to feed her from my groceries.
One thing in very short supply in my stash is saturated fats, which are SO essential in our diets. In a crisis, and without meats or a cow in the barn for milk, we lose ground fast... the brain runs on saturated fats. I have several half pints of ghee I made last year but that won't go far if there's no power and I lose the meat in my freezer. Guess I need to put making butter higher on the list, and cook some of it into ghee to can.
A DG friend is giving me a box or two of sweet potatoes for winter storage since mine failed... and I just put around 75 pounds or maybe more of winter squash in my cold storage area. Last year I discovered I could keep oranges (and eggs) for months in the root cellar, so when the schools/churches have their citrus sales for Christmas, I'll stock up on oranges. Sure wish I had chickens for eggs.
Remind me in the spring, and I'll send you a few chicks.
I am out of the hospital. They made me stay overnight. I ripped a muscle in my chest and they thought I severed the cartilage and had a free floating rib in there near a lung. But I have some really neat happy pills to help me sleep at night, and I'm off work til tuesday. So, I reckon I'll live.
My rose heps aren't hairy at all. I half them, rub the seeds and pitch them down the septic tank then dry the pulp in the dehydrator. I use a screen, rather than a teaball when I make my tea. I just pour the boiling water through it into the cup.
I found a biodegradable rust remover. Evaporust, $21.99 a gal at Tractor Supply. And it's reusable. I filled a cast iron skiller with it this morning and after 3 hours it was cleaner than when it was first cast. It is seasoning in the oven right now.
Tonight my Ladyfriend is coming over and we are going to make piecrusts to freeze for the holidays. I make 20-30 pies between Thanksgiving and christmas. Last year I bought a bunch of tinfoil pie pans and pre made the crusts and it worked out pretty good. So, I am repeating the process this year.
I found wild garlic growing here on the place this past spring. I made sure I got a lot of scapes planted in a good area for next year. I should have a huge crop next year, But of course, there's no such thing as too much garlic.
Nik, hospital stay? My, my. Glad it isn't serious!
I never thought about a biodegradable rust remover, maybe because I mostly use a wire brush and elbow grease. Interesting. Shoe (Horseshoe here on DG) throws cast iron pans he's salvaged into a hot fire to burn all the detritus off, then seasons them for use. I personally like my homemade tallow for seasoning cast iron.
Pre-freezing pie shells sounds ambitious, but well worth the time!
Getting chicks would be nice.. but can you come over and build a pen and install fencing too? That's what prevents me having chicks now, not the chicks themselves. Although you really have a nice chick variety!