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!

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.

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?