When The Snow Blows...

We are solidly in the midst of an Arctic blast.  It is cold, icy, snowy and windy.  It is not fit for humans outside.  Luckily for Creek Cottage Homestead (and me) we only have chickens to take care of as far as farm chores. The chickens get fed and watered, eggs collected, and checked on twice a day.  Other than that I get to hunker down inside and keep warm.

Besides schooling the kids and general household chores I've been staying busy by browsing seed catalogs and coming up with a must read list for the remaining months of winter.  The list is long but I've found every book but one through the local library system!  I love libraries!  So tomorrow I going to venture out and have my trusty librarian order me some books.

1. Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte (Companion Planting)
2. Gardening When It Counts by Steve Solomon (Survival Gardening)
3. Market Farming Success by Lynn Bycznski (Farming Biz)
4. Flower Farming by Lynn Bycznski (Cut Flower Biz)
5. Great Herb Mixes You Can Make by Jim Long (This is the only book I may have to purchase!)
6. Making Bentwood Furniture by Jim Long (Craft)
7. Making Dream Pillows by Jim Long (Herbal Craft)
8. From the Ground Up by Jeanne Nolan (Memoir and Gardening Advice)
9. Backyard Market Gardening by Andrew Lee (Farming Biz)
10. Chicken Tractors by Andrew Lee (Chicken Housing)
11. Pastured Poultry Profits by Joel Salatin (Chicken Biz)
12. Dairy Goats by Gregory, Diana (Goat Education)
13. Goats, Rabbits & Chickens by Hollis Lee (Animal Education)
14. How To Raise Dairy Goats by Martha Maeda (Goat Education)
15. Raising Goats: The Backyard Dairy Alternative by David Weems (Goat Education)
16. Gathering: Memoir Of A Seed Saver by Diane Ott Whealy (Memoir & Seed Saving)
17. Homegrown Herbs by Tammi Hartung (Herbs)
18. The Holistic Orchard by Michael Phillips (Fruit Trees)

What do you think?  Think it will keep me busy into spring?

You can see from the list what my priorities are for the coming year: Growing and selling produce, growing and selling flowers and herbs, crafting and selling what we can, increasing our egg laying flock and adding broilers, raising a small milk goat herd (after we get fencing accomplished- the actual animals may have to wait until the spring after this coming one), and starting our fruit orchard.  We plan on adding a couple of Heirloom/Heritage fruit trees per year.  This year will be apple trees.

That's not too much to chew off is it?  We shall see!  What have you all been doing this winter?

Pursuing A Family Economy

The Lewis Family learning to butcher chickens last summer

Farmer John and I went on a lunch date earlier this week and I told him I was serious about earning money from our land this year.  Nothing grand- just keeping on top of the garden so I have excess to sell, adding another dozen laying chickens and trying our hand at some broilers for ourselves and a few to sell to friends.

Then, to my surprise, my husband said he really desires to leave his corporate job and come home to make a living on the land. This is the first time he said it as a definite goal not just a pipe dream.  We both shared our desire for a lifestyle of "needing" less and in the process freeing ourselves from modern consumerism and economics.

I laugh because we are both admittedly middle aged (44) and for our mid-life crisis we don't want to go buy hot rods or take early retirement to a tropical island.  We want to need less and provide healthy food and knowledge to our community.  It is a dream different from most.

Now, I don't think it will be easy.  We will probably have to work harder then we ever have. But I do think (if it is within God's will) that it is obtainable.  If we build our customer base slow without incurring debt and let God open doors then I do believe John could come home in three years or less and we'd be working for ourselves not somebody else.

Herrick Kimball over at The Deliberate Agrarian has been doing a series on Family Economies and his last post really captures our desires.  You can read it here.

We will be writing a proper business plan soon but our plans include: selling eggs, broilers, veges, herbs, flowers, bread, jams, and crafts this year.  Michigan has a great cottage food law that allows us to sell up to $25,000 worth of product from a home kitchen without needing any sort of license and because we don't want to be the next "Tyson" and want to keep things on a micro level we also weed out a lot of other government regulation. 

In the future we want to add animal fiber and goods, goat milk caramels and soaps, bramble fruits, and an orchard.  We aren't sure if we want to CSA or Herbal CSA but we will want to add educational classes and a green house for annual flowers and potted veges/herbs.  (The latter will require at least a $40 yearly micro grower state license.)  We want this to be a venture that our kids can add to with their own ideas and talents and I've always wanted to do a magazine and write agrarian non-fiction. (As well as the fiction I have in the works.)  But we aren't doing any of this with a get rich mentality or desire.  Our desire is to be closer as a family, closer to God, closer to the land and the rich, healthy heritage of agrarianism and be blessed with an opportunity to share it with others.

I'd love to hear the stories of others doing the same!

Homesteading Means Staying At Home

Just a couple of nights ago I was sighing and feeling extremely stressed out and unhappy because all I seem to be doing lately is running around.  An errand here, the library there, this child here, that child there... Frustrating! I just want to be at home doing the things that need to be done.

Well, today the Lord gave me a nudge to remind me that He is in control.  The brakes on my car are failing and Farmer John deemed the car unsafe to drive.  BOOM!  Just like that I don't have to run around anymore.  I get to stay home.  Now, it actually is kinda inconvenient (Had to put my son's guitar lessons on hold and when do I grocery shop?) but really it is a blessing in disguise.

My husband's work schedule is such that he will be home so that I can have the car for Wed. evening church services, and city girl's theater lessons  (for 10 weeks) and he will be off most Sunday's as well. Those are the important things. Everything else will work itself out.

We currently don't have the funds to get the car fixed so we are going to be living life as a one car family for a while but I really don't mind. The Lord never works in ways that I expect but he knows what is best for me.  The Homestead is where my heart is!  Thank you, Lord Jesus!

Family Time & The Family Economy

With our new school schedule we have added an evening "family time".  Our first family time together last week was met with mixed reviews.  Farmer John wanted to get everyone involved with his future business, Bamboo On The Fly (tentative name), and so we all tumbled out to the garage to work on his current Bamboo Fly Fishing Rod.  I must admit only John and our two littlest (Reagan and Taylor) were overly excited to do this.  Later I realized that I had to confess sin because I was less than championing my husband's vision at the time. (Which is really silly because I very much want him to leave his "corporate" job for a home-based, family biz.)

Yes, we put a blowtorch in the hands of our 13 year-old son!

 

 And our 15 year-old daughter

 Not our 4 year-old- she was content to make up her own games with balls and badmitton birdies!

 

Here I am with the torch.  The pieces of bamboo for the rod are slid into the copper pipe and then the pipe is heated with the torch.  This dries the bamboo.  You could see the steam being released at the tube ends.

 

 

As you can see the garage is highly unkempt.  Farmer John is on vacation this week and so one of our projects (practical arts for school) will be cleaning the garage.  By mid-October we'll be getting heavy frosts/freezes and the cars will need to be parked inside overnight. (Farmer John does not want to scrape ice at 3:30 in the morning!)

 

Leave me a comment if you are interested in a Handcrafted Bamboo Fly Rod!

 

If you are wondering about family economies check out Kevin Swanson's Generations Radio show (search the archived shows for "family economies) and Herrick Kimball over at The Deliberate Agrarian writes frequently on this topic too!

 

Cottage Industry: Back Yard Blueberry U-Pick

Blueberries are currently in season in my neck of the woods!  They are one of my favorite fruits to u-pick.  When we lived in our rental place there were two blueberry u-picks in biking distance. This year I was wondering what I was going to do because I really didn't want to drive the 1/2 hour to go pick.  Low and behold, thanks to the sharp eyes of my parents, when they were visiting, a little sign advertising u-pick blueberries went up only a couple of miles away from home.

I went to investigate and was pleasantly surprised to find a little quaint family farm.  I'm guessing they maybe had 5 acres of land and only maybe 1/2 acre to 1 acre was blueberries.  I didn't get to talk to the owners but it seemed a pretty simple operation and an excellent way to make some $$ from your land. Here's their set up:

 Little sign on the corner of the main road. Not even big or fancy. (Sorry it's not the best picture but we had an impatient driver behind us and didn't have much time to snap a picture.)

 Another sign at the corner of their road.  Pretty simple.

 

Sign with hours and phone number in front of their property.  Again not big or fancy.  Their hours are Monday thru Saturday, 8 to 8.

 

Next they had a simple place for cars to park, marked with another simple sign.

 

 

On their back porch they had their main set up:  A sign with instructions, buckets, scale, money box etc.  Some of the buckets were buckets I've seen at other u-pick operations and others were simple recycled ice cream buckets.

 

 

They've done a really excellent job of "cuting up" the property, making it atmospheric and a visual treat.  Red, white and blue are the décor scheme and every where you look there are festive decorative touches.

 

 

 They had amenities to make the experience a little more pleasant too: A shady spot to sit and rest and a bathroom!

It was just a hop, skip and a jump to the picking field from parking and we were greeted by a friendly farm cat.

 

 

In hindsight the cat may or may not be a good idea.  It was cute and my kept my littles occupied but they were supposed to be picking the fruit, not petting the cat.  The farm would have made another buck or so out of us if Reagan had been picking.

 

 

We had a great time.  The bushes were full, the fruit was easy to pick, the price was wonderful,  $1 per pound, and it is so close to home that we can go back and pick any time during the season.  We ended up with five pounds of berries for freezing and using fresh.  There is nothing better then getting great quality local food and supporting a family farm too!

 

 

 

There was nothing overly complicated about this set up and I went away feeling it was something that any of us could duplicate. We have strawberries and blueberries in our vicinity but I have yet to find raspberries, currants or gooseberries in the area so that could easily be something for my homestead, Creek Cottage Homestead, to capitalize on.

 

If you have a little bit of land, good fruit skills and some creativity this could be a good little side biz. (Of course one would need to check with the local powers-that-be for regulations etc. and I'm sure some form of insurance would be a good idea.)

 

One last tip for you:  Make sure to bring something to take home your fruit in.  They did have bags available but not every operation will.

Friday Read & Write

I've been feeling pretty darn tired this week.  It's eight at night and I could lay down and go right to sleep.  Still, I have a new pile of books and magazines courtesy of the local library system.

 

 

 

For more writing education I picked up The Everything Get Published Book by Meg Schneider and Barbara Doyen.  It was published in 2006 but the info still seems quite relevant. I'm enjoying it a lot.

 

I also picked up Blogging  All-In-One For Dummies by Susan Gunelius.  I would like to make my blog a little more interesting and noteworthy so I'm hoping to garner some tips and inspiration.  We're talking a platform blog. (Wanna-be published authors will know what I mean.) It was published in 2010 so the info should be pretty up to date but I'm not sure it will have what I'm looking for. 

 

  On the homesteading front... I found Pay Dirt How To Make $10,000 A Year From Your Backyard Garden by John Tullock.  It looks interesting. Published in 2010 it should have lots of good tips for earning some money from homesteading ventures.  $10,000 seems like a feasible number if I could just keep my gardens weeded!

The newest issue of Hobby Farm Home is also out.  I especially liked the article on working goats, the article on pickling and the article on cooking on the hearth.

 

With regards to homeschooling, I picked up The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook by Raymond and Dorothy Moore.  It claims "A creative and stress-free approach to homeschooling".  I found this in what I thought was the library's new section but when I got it home and checked the published date I was disappointed to see it was published in 1994.  That's pretty old and homeschooling has come a long way since then. I could appreciate the content but there is nothing new to me since I've been homeschooling since 2001.  If you have never home-schooled before I would suggest it but remember it is almost 20 years old.

Lastly, if you are in the Grand Rapids area and are looking for an affordable writer's conference to go to check out the Breathe Writer's Conference.  I can't afford to go but have put an essay in to be considered for a scholarship to attend and have a friend who is registered as well.  From all the online info it looks like a really good and fairly priced conference.  It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of bigger conventions but I don't really need bells and whistles.

That's all from the reading front.  I'm still trying to carve out time daily to work on my YA novel and made some good progress this week.  How about you all?

Lock Your Doors & Booby Trap Your Porch!

Is this a familiar site in your neck of the woods?

 

Zuke season has arrived and I made the mistake of planting all the seeds in the packet.  I forgot just how prolific each plant can be.  We are bursting with zucchini.   But the fun thing is there is so much you can do with it: quick breads, muffins, pancakes, cookies, stir fry, battered and fried, pickled and on it goes.  We shall not go hungry where there is zucchini.  My freezer will be stocked high!  My chickens will eat well.  And still there will be surplus...

What will I do with said surplus?  Start a cottage industry of course.  Creek Cottage Homestead (The official name of our farm.) is now offering fresh, homebaked, zucchini bread for $8 a loaf for local area pick up.  If you live in the Grand Rapids area you can place an order via the comment section.  If you don't order you run the risk of heaps of huge zukes being dumped in your car when you aren't looking and dropped on your porch steps. (Warning zukes produce like rabbits.) I know where you live! (Well, not really... some of you.) Don't let this be your fate.

Coming soon muffins and cookies and perhaps even cake.  I might try a gluten-free experiment too.  Anyone ever try quick breads with out wheat flour?

What do you all do with your zucchini?  Anyone willing to share recipes?

Friday Read & Write!

This week on the reading list is: The Millionaire Dropout by Vince Stanzione. I would classify it as a motivational or self-help book.  It's full of "love yourself" and other humanistic ideas but there is some good information on priorities and finding time and some good ideas on building a home-based business.  The premise is working from home/having your own business will make you happier, healthier and more financially sound than merely working for someone else.  I found some good ideas to run past farmer John to help us earn a little more income.  It is a fairly new book published sometime earlier this year.  I found it in my library's New Book section.

 

 Also at the library was the newest edition of Country Woman.  I'm particularly interested in the article on Author/illustrator Jan Brett.  She is a lover of chickens and uses her hens for story ideas to write about in her children's books. Hmmm.... Mrs. P and Mrs. Q approve of this idea!

I also picked up the next Cappers.  Great articles this month, especially the article on deep litter management with chickens.

 

Have a great day! Go read and write!

Meet Farmer John!

Meet my wonderful husband, John.  He is the CEO of the Lewis family and a great man.  He works as a manager for Costco by day and is farmer, fisherman, daddy, carpenter, artisan, husband and John-of-all-trades the rest of the time.  We will have been married 20 years this October! He is equally at home with a chain saw as with a sewing machine. He's a handy cook (much more cheffy than me.) and chief tickle monster! God has blessed me well! There isn't much he can't do.  (He can't write poetry.)

 He makes incredible walking sticks from branches found laying around.

 A little carving, sanding, polishing, varnish and string...

 He has just recently built his first bamboo fly-fishing rod and hopes to make it into a business.

He whipped out this handy little bamboo scooper from some extra bamboo he had in the scrap pile. We use it to fill the chicken feeders.

What can I say?  How can I go wrong with a man who like to relax by watching the chickens!

Lewis Family Version of Homework

Today was just too nice of a day to spend inside in school books.  That's the beauty of homeschool. We took the learning outside and did "Homework".

 

Science and art: Planting lettuce and greens, laying wood chip pathway, Painting stepping stones, placement of stepping stones.  The kids learned repurposing and frugality with this too.  The wood chips are all shredded in our chipper from fallen branches around our property. The stepping stones are left over wood from building our chicken tractor's nesting boxes.  The paint was leftover from the kid's bedrooms.

 

 More hands on garden experience: Three freshly tilled garden beds.  Our fourth bed wasn't tilled but covered in layers of leaves last fall and then covered with a tarp to promote decay.  We will compare which method (till or no till) produces better crops.

 

 Animal Husbandry: Feeding chickens dandelion greens, worms and grubs and learning that the chickens really prefer you to till the garden bed rather then do it themselves.

 

 Auto detailing:  Something my 12 year-old son is interested in doing to earn some $$.  Today was step one- learning how to properly wash the outside!

 

 Yes, a lot of kids are already proficient at washing cars by 12, 14 and 16 but when we were suburbanites our cars didn't need washing often and we just drove them through a pay car wash.  Now that we live on a dirt road the cars get a wee bit more filthy.  They will get a lot of practice.

For those of you who are freaking out because of lack of "studious" school, today we also had personal reading time, Bible study, WW2 history, and guitar practice. It was a full but fun day.

Friday Read & Write

If you are like me, you always have a stack of reading material to get through.  I always have a magazine on hand (I'm an information junkie.) and usually a mix of fiction and non-fiction to be read or re-read.

I'm currently on a YA (Young Adult) reading kick for two reasons. 1. I have three of them in the house.  A 16 year-old, a 14 year-old and a 12 year-old. I like to stay on top of what they like to read and what is available out there. 2. My current #1 writing project is a YA novel so I need to know the market.

This weeks stack includes: The Apothecary by Maile Meloy, Tiger's Curse by Colleen Houck and Cooked the new Michael Pollan tome.  My mag is Writer's Digest's newest issue.

The Apothecary is YA and set in 1952.  It deals with Russian spies, a sacred book called the Pharmacopoeia and a quest to save the world from nuclear disaster.  I love natural healing and all things herbal so I was drawn to this book by the name alone.  I'm looking forward to the read.

Tiger's Curse is a the first book in a series or three or four.  My 16 year-old has wanted me to read it for quite awhile.  She really likes the series.  It is YA and the plot centers around the protagonist tying to break a 300 year-old curse involving a mysterious white tiger.  It is a fantasy/romance and as my daughter has already read the series, I hope I approve.  I declined to let her read the Twilight series not because of vampires and werewolves but because I didn't want her thinking that relationships like Edward/Bella's were what real relationships were like.

Cooked is the book I've been waiting for to come out.  It's finally here and I can't wait to see what insights Michael Pollan has discovered about the process and history of cooking.  Even though he comes from an evolutionary point of view and I am a creationist he still usually brings me quite a few aha moments from the conclusions he draws.  I'm only through the introduction but I have already found quite a few good quotes.  Here is one: Cooked is an invitation to alter... the ratio between production and consumption in your life. The regular exercise of these simple skills... increases self-reliance and freedom while reducing our dependence on distant corporations. Love it!  Down with the Man!!

Also in my reading pile is a friend's book that she has finished and I'm critiquing.  I also have some Bible study to do for a upcoming devotional I am giving to my church's ladies group.

My writing list:  Keeping up with this blog and social media. (Tweeting is actually a good exercise in conveying your point with minimal words.) Working on my YA book: The Follower, my friend's critique, my devotional, my journal, various free-lance articles, and other books in the works.

Who needs to sleep right?

What are you all reading and writing?

I'm Back!

Oh My Gosh!!! I still exist!  Getting serious about a great many things.  Farming... got chickens!  Bees are next. We've had our top bar bee hive for two years.  This is the year to finally get bees for it!  Also getting serious about writing and selling artisan products from the homestead.  More soon...

 

Reagan holding one of our "Little Peepers"!  12 Barred Rock Pullets.

Garage Sale Day Two

About $40 more, bringing our total to $80'ish.  Yeah!  One more day!  It's actually great fun to size customers up and then make up stories in your head about what they might do with their purchases.  Like the Middle Aged Latino woman who bought an old meat cleaver.  Hmmmm...

Garage Sale Day One....

...Over!  Made about $40 dollars not bad for a Wed. selling our junk.  Now lets see how tomorrow goes.

End of Summer Rush

Ack!  Summer is almost over!  All those things I wanted to do and put off (because there was plenty of time) need to happen. Potty training the almost 3 year-old, garage sale, homeschool planning and working on starting a new cottage biz.  Oh, well... it's what I get for playing all summer and procrastinating.

1. Potty training... didn't fly yesterday... The kitchen, where I was going to train her, is the largest of the non-carpeted rooms.  It also houses the washer and dryer.  She was freaked out by the noises the machines were making and didn't want to go potty there.  Sigh.  Trying again today- without the machines going.

2.  Garage Sale... Happens tomorrow, Thursday and Friday!  Come on "BUY" if you are in the area.  Spent yesterday (instead of potty training) sorting through our piles and pricing.  Still have some more rooms to go through and purge.  Most of our stuff is small and quarter/dollar stuff.  Still anything I sell is less to cart off to Goodwill.

3. Homeschool Planning... I need to plan and organize 5 different bins of activities for Taylor, our pre-schooler.  One for each day of the week to keep her busy during "school".  My second grader is pretty much set.  She is using workbooks, except for science and geography/history. So I only need to plan some reading assignments and activities for those two subjects. Most of our time will be spent perfecting her reading which isn't too hot yet. My fifth grader is moving away from workbooks this year, except for math, to get him ready for upcoming Jr. High.  He's going to take the most planning as his Language Arts studies will be incorporated into science and history/geography.  I use the "What Your ___ Grader Needs to Know" series for those two subjects and have him do the reading and make up assignments based on that. I really like tailoring assignments to each individual student.  The books aren't "Christian World View" but I either have him skip sections that we don't agree with or we discuss the differences in world view and what the Bible says.  I also supplement these subjects with a lot of  documentaries and other learning tools from various homeschool sources and of course the library.  My Jr. Higher and my Highschooler use the Far Above Rubies curriculum by Linda Coats.  LOVE IT!  It gives them a well-rounded education while emphasizing homemaking. It also helps you document everything for transcript purposes for any college bound student.  F.A.R. is for girls but they also have Blessed is the Man for boys.  That is what my son will use when he gets there.  These programs are self-directed but I like to sit down with each child and help them choose their assignments.  I'm also going to be teaching family art, music, and nutrition plus we have family Bible time in the morning and Biblical Character training and Spanish with Dad in the evenings.  Oh, and family exercise.  Our days are full. 

4.  Cottage biz... focusing on home arts... still forming in the head.  Like my days aren't full enough...lol!

All this to say... sorry that the "homesteading" focus isn't very back to the land orientated right now.  I'm focusing on my "home" and those in it.