Oh Cajun i m so sorry to hear of the infection is back. Sending healing thoughts to you and DH
rain here today.
lots of hosta to pot up .
better get started
a warm beginning to the February Homestead
Caj, sorry to hear your DH is back in the hospital... sigh.
I stayed at the hospital last night. DH is in isolation so the nurses don't come in often. He can not get up much so he needs me there. I have come home for a few hours to get the feeding done and I will go back to the hospital.
His fever broke so he is feeling a lot better. Sugar is still sky high but that is to be expected with an infection. Talking about taking off another toe. The infection is not in the toe itself but the toe has been dislocate for years and that is causing problems farther up the bone between the toe and the ankle. That is where the infection is. If they take the toe they will also take the bone out closer to the ankle and leave all the soft tissue.
I'm so sorry to hear that, Cajun. This has been such a long journey for the both of you. I hope the doctors get a handle on this so you can both get home quickly.
We got the last of the pork cured and smoked, packaged. The other pig goes this weekend, we are trading him for some angus beef. I'm done raising meat for the year, hopefully. Sold the steers, no more sneaking into the garden for them. Son is taking over chickens, all I have to care for is the dairy cows...happy days. I was getting a bit tried of taking care of this zoo.
Tomatoes are growing well. Lots of needed rain lately, not sure if we''ll get our soil amended in time for early stuff like carrots, but still have some left from fall sowing.
Last night I made saute of onion, garlic, hominy, tomatoes and kale. Wow, it was good! I'm going to try that again soon, next time with chard.
Ouch on the toe and bone. I guess he'll have to learn to walk all over again?
I've been busy playing in the dirt... I cut scions for rooting 2 days ago, and so far have "planted" 16 elderberries, 15 Nanking cherries (for the birds), and 12 filberts. I still have Beach Plums and black currants to cut for rooting when the signs are right again, and then I need to see what else is still viable in the yard. I have Osage Orange and Siberian Pea Shrub seeds stratifying in the fridge (and some ginseng seeds), but those need at least another month in there.
hello everyone
USDA sent me a form that says i have to fill it out and its by LAW that i do ! yea right like i m going to fill that out. ROFLMAO.
something about my farm animals ect. eh. ain't gonna do it.
sunny but chilly today
the GH is full of perennials that need to go out but i need tags first
not much else
darius sounds like a great garden you got going.
Cajun thinking of you and your hubby today , hope he is healing .
wow you did have a bunch of animals cocoa. glad yo got it all done.
well i m cleaning houses for a friend who is ill , she has this lumps all over her body. They grow like beans ? is how she discribed them so i will be busy helping her out . i found muscles i didn't even know i had. LOL
got my tomatos seeds in today.woooohooooo
that sounds fun, Darius. I was just saying on another forum, I haven't rooted any cutting this year. I guess I have time today, but I'm enjoying my computer time too much :0)
Sue, that weird, what kind of questions did ask? I haven't received anything from the USDA, but our county tax accessor can't seem to get it through their heads that we are Ag exempt . They keep sending us the same form over and over again. This last time DH got so frustrated, he photoshopped a map and placed little pictures of farm animals inside our property lines...with a bold heading 'AG EXEMPT'! lol
Cajun, I just watched 2 YouTube videos on something said to be great for MS and Arthritis... They are good for a number of other things too, and I hear nettle soup is quite tasty. Part 2 covers prep.
Wild Gourmet Show "Picking Stinging Nettles" Part 1"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9mYTIB1Tqc
The Wild Gourmet Show "Picking Stinging Nettles Part 2"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_CMmB3I3Ek
I m going to try Nettle around my chicken coops , they love it.
i never thought about soup ? sounds good.
cocoa to funny . sent them a picture with little animals. did they get the message at the county tax accessors ?
not much going on here
Tim is spreading more gravel around the barn.
savannah is sick with a bad cough.
i need to get the GH cleaned up ... lagging on that. LOL
If stinging nettles are nutritious I could feed the world!
Round Up kills them easily.
I will sell healthy roots. Demand will affect price.
Guessing $50 for a nice bunch. (That will cover the itching!)
GH clean up is always a dragggggg. One gh here is 85% clean, one is 75 % clean, two disassembled for reconstruction and relocating, One still has a lot of my stuff packed up and stored in it from moving around while we build.........while germinating seeds in there.
Cajun.....i am sorry that your husband is having so many problems with his foot. I do hope everything gets fixed so he can heal and feel better soon.
I hope everyone and anyone who is sick, gets well soon. Never nice feeling bad.
We took Chad to his doc appt at childrens hospital. Looks like everything is going to be ok with that lesion in his leg bone. Follow ups every 3 months to make sure.
I transplanted 3 of the 3 Northern Giant Cabbage seeds today. I didn't want to until thursday but I was afraid they would be too big and cause deep shock by then. Or maybe I was just impatient. Both sound like good excuses to me.
The one thing I have never tried transplanting before is a Carrot but I am now cause one of my two foot giant red carrot seed has germinated and I have to transplant ASAP. Monday..... I sowed the seed in pure vermiculite so transplant would be less stressful. It gets transplanted to its own square foot. ( 2feet deep) loaded with bone meal and some rabbit manure.
I'll let yall know if my chard dies after I transplant it Monday after our freeze this weekend.
We all have the coughing crud too. We'll live, just makes me feel like the big bad mom, since I won't let the kids go play. Every time they come in to the warm house from the cold, they start hacking fits. Same sentiments here, stay well or get well, please :0)
Off to look up giant red carrots...those sound cool!
Are people really trying to become self sufficient because they think the world is going to end in Dec this year?
I had a decision to make. Watching these goats and rabbits, adding expenses of feeding and the trouble the goats give me, I decided to sell the goats and keep the rabbits.
The man who is buying the goats believes the world will be without food come Dec 21. I will tell him later after he gives me the money for the goats that rabbits are cheaper and easier.
meanwhile...it is an interesting subject and like NASA and other scientist say= Dec 21, 2012 is not the end of the world as we know it, it's just the beginning to a new winter solstice. lol
I don't worry about the apocolypse. I'll either live through it, or I won't. I mean, ya gotta go sometime. If the whole world is circling the drain at the same time then I'll just figure it's time to go to the Lord. What could be wrong with that?
But I get alot of folks thinking I'm some kind of crazy survivalist. I don't worry about them too much.
lol cocoa. I think I am a lady of luxury if I am covered in dirt. Nothing finer than that. Makes great perfume too.
Of course it has to be high class dirt.......don't wont no low class dirt. ; D
We been watching a little of that show on TV called ???"Dooms Day Preppers " ?? or something like that. Our youngest son watches the Survival Man all the time. .
I been playing in dirt / soil all day. I finally emptied a table top garden that was on the old deck, moved the garden box where the others were at, put the soil back in it., Emptied and moved another box garden. Amended the soil. Transplanted chard and carrots. Transplanted two giant carrot seedlings. Constructed a mini hoop over the 4 sfg table top gardens. Hope it stays that way. Filled a few Tomato topsy turvys hangers and transplanted peat pelleted snow peas into those Up right out the top. A bunch of other stuff..... I'm tired.
Im not an apocalyptic prepper. I just want to not be in debt for everything and quite frankly the way the economy is with the cost of everything I figure doing things myself is probably the only way I will ever get them.
I wish I knew how folks lived without power 100 years ago.
No refrigerator.
I like the convenience of electricity. If I could live without power, that would be saying something. Everything around me requires electricity including this darn computer.
I always think about living without it........but...........here i sit......drinking tea with ice and typing on a computer with an electric heater at my feet. @@
I am wanting to minimalize my usage. Combine oil lamps and led lights to save on electric. Hang clothes on the lineto save on drying. Woodstove for heat. I am going to have a firepit in the backyard for entertainment, but I plan on doing some of my summer cooking on it to keep from heating up the house. Also dehydrating and canning food as opposed to freezing everything. I have decided not to have a microwave and at least until next winter will not have a tc. Will use a portable dvd player to watch movies late at night and icky days.
If any of you have other ideas of easing off on power consumption, it would be cool to hear some other ideas or methods.
The Amish around me have propane powered refridgerators. They make their own freezers and power them with their deisels when they charge their battery banks everyday. They use either propane gas lamps or aladin type kerosene lamps. what little electric they use they make themselves. either with solar panels or a diesel generator. They all have a powerhouse with a diesel to run the air compressor which is used to pump water from their wells and for some machinery. It can be done, but it's rather expensive and takes a lot of infrastructure on the farm.
One of the best things you can do is eliminate phantom energy users such as anything that uses electricity when it's turned off, like chargers for telephones, cell phones, portable dvd players and vacuums, and other electronic equipment, esp. televisions. Anything that has a "ready light" is drawing energy when it;s plugged in, and together a bunch of them can add up.
I originally thought the compact fluorescent lights were a good idea... and they were cheap. Now I've learned by using them that #1, many last less than 1 year, and over time they diminish in the amount of light they emit; #2, the mercury they contain is toxic, and my county has NO toxic waste program, and #3, they are only cheap because the gov't is subsidizing them. When Australia ended their gov. subsidies for CFL's, the price went to over $10 each.
On the other hand, LED's keep getting better and cheaper. I don't have any (except in flashlights) so I don't know if they will hold up, though. I am buying a bunch of incandescent bulbs to stockpile, before they are off the shelves completely this year. In winter, the heat they give off is welcome in my house which we keep cool to cut heating costs... and in summer, I seldom need them.
There's a really nifty way of bringing daylight into unheated buildings like sheds, using 2 liter clear plastic soda bottles (filled with water) in the ceiling. I'll have to hunt the link and post it here later. I'm thinking about putting half a dozen of them in my old barn that has a very dim interior even on the brightest day.
Here's the soda bottle light link
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/08/01/solar-lights-made-of-plastic-bottles-water/
Read Freedom Sailor's posts. He is off the grid and creates all his own power.
I ordered 100 aronia bushes last week to plant in my old fenceline. The darn things got here yesterday evening so today I am going to plow a furrow and plant them. I wanted to clean a lot more of the fenceline first. oh well. What's everyone else up to?
Cool on getting so many aronias, despite being earlier than you wanted. They make great jelly and wine!
Not much going on here. I uncovered my hoop house yesterday... sure grew a mess of weeds in it all around the veggies!
Morning everyone,
Just passing through and thought I would say Howdy.
Never heard of an aronias, if they make wine and jelly they must be good.
Better soil, better weeds.lol I think every weed in the county landed in our back yard. With so much bare ground from the drought they got a good start.grrr
Animals coming and going, plowing, tiller on blocks, fences coming down, new fence going up, orders to be made, seedlings to water. March is the busy time, but I love it!
Good to see you, Lizard's Keep. How did the winter treat you all, water levels up?
I m trying to figure out how to protect my garden this year ?
deer, rabbits and other critters eat it down to nothing ... sigh.
my azalea's got eatin down :(
don't have much trouble with most stuff but the tomato's just never seem to make it
i may just do 12 plants and do a chicken wire fence around them with a chicken wire roof enclosed like a big box ? add coyote urine. soap tied to fence. and any and all other deterents . i may tie up a dog to protect my tomato's ? ... i m desperate... LOL or maybe a plastic coyote .
or i may just stick to hot and sweet peppers. and herbs.... me is still thinking.
Why a hot wire on the top? Raccoons and hogs aren't that tall...
I got my garden plot picked out. My neighbor is letting me put my garden on his place since mine is nowhere near ready yet. I may have some small beds on my place later on in the season but I am very excited to be able to have more space than I presently have thats useable. I won't be fencing it off so hopefully I can harvest something at least.
There is a small animal swap meet locally this weekend and even though I am not near ready for critters yet I am going to go see what everyone has.
Quote from cocoa_lulu :
Good to see you, Lizard's Keep. How did the winter treat you all, water levels up?
What winter LOL
We are doing good on water now for the most part but I think we are in for another hot dry summer. Calling for a high of 81 tomorrow so the heat is getting an early start.
Sure hope I'm wrong.
we have temps in the 67 today ! ? sure felt good .
MY plants are confused ?
GH is really warm !
lots of storms heading our way but i think we are good.
MO got hit pretty bad with tornado's
Illinois also got hit pretty bad.
not much going on here
just deciding if i want to pot some plants ? im kinda lazy so i may put an add out on craigs list. ?
Yeah, we have been (and still are) under tornado watches from that storm line. We were under a toronado WARNING for about an hour, but that has passed. I'm just across the border between KY and VA...