I'm Thinking Of Planting A Tea Garden This Year!

My first guest blog post is up over at the Heirloom Girl blog.  It's about planting tea herbs and making your own teas. Check it out!

Alice Waters Helps Me Sneak Veges!

 Chef Alice Waters is brilliant when it comes to vege recipes.  I've been turning to her book The Art of Simple Food for ideas on what to do with my garden bounty.

Tonight we are using fresh tomatoes and making her Simple Tomato Sauce: 2 lbs ripe tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and seasonings.  And I'm going to sneak in some roasted patty pan squash into it too! (Of course I will also put in some ground beef so that my meat loving son will be appeased.)  Served over pasta it will be simple and yummy.

She also has a recipe for raw tomato sauce.  Fresh tomatoes, basil and olive oil!

 

Last night I used some of my chard for her Chard Frittata.  Chard, olive oil, onion, garlic, seasonings and eggs (from our chickens) served on garlic toast. Yummy!  What I love about her recipes is that they really are simple yet cheffy and taste delicious!

If you are not the best "scratch" cook (like me) I recommend this cook book highly!

Losing it Mondays!

200 lbs must go!

Hmmm... I have some fat showing too! I'd like to drop 20.

This is the start of my husband's journey to health.  He just entered a weight loss contest at work and weighed in today at 360 lbs. His ideal weight is in the 160's.  That is 200 lbs. to lose folks.  He has been able to lose weight before successfully, however some injuries happened that made working out too painful and he gained it all back.

With the start of this contest and a new shift beginning at work it is ideal for us to begin working out again. And I do mean us... the entire family.  We do it together from John on down to Taylor. I think we will start with walking.  It shouldn't be too hard on the joints and we'll take it slow and build up.  By the time winter comes round we should be in shape enough to start our work out videos and weight training. (This will be on top of any homestead work like chopping and stacking wood.)

We don't have too much of a change diet wise.  We've already cut out most junk food and eating out and I buy mostly whole foods. (I confess to having artificially colored corn on hand for children who immediately want food when they get up.)  We will need to increase our vege intake and watch portion sizes.  One thing John has to monitor on his own is sampling the Costco samples and not being tempted by the food court at work.  The frozen yogurt isn't too bad but calories add up.

I just want to state right now, we will not stop eating eggs from our free-ranging chickens or grass-fed meat, cream and butter.  These things are healthy for you!  I will not buy low-fat anything or diet anything- it's not natural people.  I will cook from scratch the things we like and take a meat on the side approach.  I will practice and perfect catching wild yeast at home and turning it into healthy bread. I also want to research "cleanses"- not the kind bought through a program or a store but made from scratch at home.

I think our biggest challenge is just getting moving and finding more energy. And of course for me... I keep hoping to catch a joy of cooking.  I love to bake and will make loaf after loaf of bread to perfect it but there is something about cooking that just doesn't do it for me.  But I really do need to transform into a chef.  That is unless some one knows Bobby Flay and he wants to just come live with us. We've got a great spot for him in the basement... as long as we aren't working out.

So join us every Monday and see how and what we are doing to make ourselves healthier.  I'll want to know what you are doing too!

Fighting The Curse!

In Genesis Chapter 3 God said to Adam, "Cursed is the ground because of you... It will produce thorns and thistles for you."

Yep!  Wonderful.

That is why we have this:

And this...

 

 And this...

 

But even in God's original plan we had work to do. In Genesis 2:15 it says, "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

 

...And so that is what we did today.  We worked hard fighting the curse of weeds and taking care of our little piece of blessing.  Not all aspects of homesteading are glamorous- actually very few are- but the rewards are bountiful when you see the finished product of all your hard work.

 

 

Nothing left but the mailbox, the day lilies and dirt. 

 

The plan is to chip fallen branches (from the backwoods of our property) and cover the dirt with chip mulch and then next spring put in some more plants.  I think lavender would be good.  What do you think?

 

Food From The Ground!

My "city daughter" wonders why we can't just buy our food from a store like normal people.  She did not get the "farmer" gene.  I however did and even though my gardens are messy (er, that means tons of weeds) there is just nothing like going out your back door and digging up dinner.  Here is a picture of the bounty we picked just the other day...

 

Zucchini, cabbage, carrots, jalapeno peppers, banana peppers, tomatoes, parsnips, beans, rutabagas, turnips, horseradish, dill, basil, patty pan squash and chard! Oh, and eggs from the chickens! So much more fun and rewarding to harvest your own rather then traverse the tiles of the grocery store under bad lighting!  I was going to say bad music too but then I remembered that the Musak playing now is from the 80's and were talkin' bout my generation!

Fighting Summer Colds

I think I found out why I was so dang-dog tired last week.  I was coming down with a cold.  I don't believe I've ever had a summer cold before.  Winter colds... check, spring colds... check, autumn colds... check, but never a summer cold.  I guess there really is a first time for everything.

Usually I get colds during the change in seasons where temps and weather are varying by large degrees.  That might also explain why I picked up this one. We had a week of 90 degree temps with really high humidity.  We didn't run air conditioning so we were HOT! Now we are having a week with mid-60 to mid-70 degree temps.  My body evidently couldn't process the change very well.

The virus that causes a summer cold is the same that causes any other at any time of year. The symptoms aren't any different.  You may be tempted to think that this is allergies but I've been fighting those all summer (and still am) along with the added dragged behind a bus feel of a cold.

How do you fight a summer cold?  The same as a winter cold:
1.Wash your hands often.
2. Drink plenty of fluids... I like Yogi's Echinacea Immune Support and cold season teas infused with lemon and honey.  Also plenty of water with lemon in it.
3.Get plenty of rest... supervise summer activity instead of participating.
4.Eat well... take advantage of the bounty of summer fruits and veges (especially berries) and the nutrition they have to offer!

There is one different treatment for a summer cold...
5.Lay out in the sun! (It's a rough life, I know.) Let the sun's natural vitamin D do its thing.

So while the kids are weeding today,  I will lounge in the sun and sip iced lemon water.  Perhaps this cold thing isn't so bad after all.

A Monday On The Homestead...

Apparently 1/2 my teenage chickens have decided that they should be free-range.  I am consistently finding them outside the pen.  They fly to the top of the fence and then jump off or fly to the top of the chicken tractor.  I wouldn't mind so much but I don't want my garden eaten up by them.

 

The only chickens that do have permission to free-range are Mrs. Q. and Mrs. P.

 

If you noticed, at the end of the video were my two adult roosters, Jack (shorter/fatter) and Sawyer (taller/thinner).  Also, if you noticed, on the fence there are two killing cones my husband made and mounted.  Those boys are more trouble then they're worth.  One of my hens has a horrid wound all down her side because of them and most of my other hens have puncture wounds.  We filed down the fellas' spurs but it didn't really help much. So, this coming Saturday, we will be inducted into the butchering club.  I'm not really relishing it because I do enjoy them and they are pretty but I think my adult hens will fare better and in two or three more months Snowball will be mature and take over rooster duties without anyone to challenge him. 

I have mullein growing back in the field which I plan on harvesting to use in herbal medicine.  I walked back this morning to grab a picture or two. 

Here are the killing cones up close and personal.  John spent last Saturday building and mounting them and then pouring over internet video and through our chicken raising books to learn what to do past the initial action.  I asked if he thought he got the process down and he said he did.  I hope so... I'm just going to be following his instructions.  I will probably blog about our process but I don't think I'm going to be taking pictures so everyone can let out a sigh of relief.

Now after all that cheery talk about offing offending roosters... let's have breakfast! Homemade scones with homemade strawberry jam and homemade whipping cream!  Yummm!!!!

Dead Heads and Oil!

For most of the spring I have been working on the vege gardens- planting, weeding, watering etc. but it is evident that my attention (now that everything is in the ground) needs to turn to our flower beds.  They are overrun with "wild flowers/herbs" that aren't supposed to be or weren't planted there. They looked good for a time but now I must do a massive weeding.

I started to today with dead heading my roses.  Most of the trimmings went into the compost pile but there is one particular rose that smells soooooo...... delicious that I take the old petals that I've dead headed and pull them apart to put in a vase.  They smell amazing even after they have dried and turned a bit brown.  I like to think of it as free, natural room fragrance and also "repurposing/reusing because that is, you know, trendy and all that!

I also made time to start my plantain oil.  Plantain is a common herb.  Most men with lawns would call it a weed. How ever is a great external skin soother.  It can also be used internally and eaten but I'm focusing on external right now.  I harvested it very carefully- NOT.  I just ripped the leaves off some of my many plants, took them inside to rinse them, pat them dry and then I let them sit overnight.  (Okay mine sat for a few overnights until I could get to them.) It is important to let them air dry for at least 12 hours to let some of the natural moisture leave them so mold or fungus doesn't grow while steeping. 

Next chop up the herb leaves.  I do not have "mad" knife skills so I just tore mine up.  I put them in a mason jar, poured olive oil over them until they were covered and poured a bit of vodka on top to keep airborne mold at bay.  I covered the jar and shook it and then removed the cover and rubberbanded cheese cloth on the top of it.  Now it will sit on my nice sunny warm kitchen shelf for two weeks to steep.

After it has finished steeping I will strain the herb out (the alcohol will have evaporated out by then) and I will have plantain oil to use for 1st aid and for salves.  Yeah!

Read and Write Fridays: Herbs, Strawberries and a Book or Two

I had such glorious plans for yesterday. Plan number one was to pick strawberries and make jam.  Well you would have thought I was the wicked witch.  The looks my family gave me when I showed off my bounty of fresh picked gems and told them it was time to be jammin'... you would have thought I was going to make liver and onions.  I was quickly put in my place and told that a better use would be strawberry shortcake.  My daughter even volunteered to bake the angel food cake.  Okay, fine.  The season did just start. 

Plan number two was to harvest some of my plethora of plantain for use in an herbal salve.  But my day ran amuck and I ran out of time.  (Good thing I didn't try to make jam.)  So today I made it a point to make sure to harvest plantain. Which brings me to my read and write subject:  My current reading and reason why I'm learning that what my husband considers a blight on his lawn is indeed a blessing.

The new copy of Mother Earth Living (Natural Home and Healthy Life) hit the shelves of my local library and I quickly snatched it up. It's a good read but by far the best article in the July/August 2013 issue is Backyard Bounty: 8 Healing Weeds. Dandelion, Chickweed, Sheep Sorrel, Yellow Dock, Plantain (not the banana) Chicory, Burdock and Clover are all covered in the article along with pictures.  It was this article that made me realize all of our "fat grass" as my four year-old calls it is actually plantain and plantain is useful! Score! I also realized that a "grass", for lack of a better word, that I and the kids had noticed was sheep sorrel, also useful.  Of course we have dandelions and clover but we also have chicory in the "back 40".  The only things missing, or I haven't found yet, are burdock and yellow dock.

I also obtained the latest issue of Mary Jane's Farm at the library as well as two books.  One on the writing life called Pen on Fire.  And the newly released 1st novel of Bee Ridgway called The River of No Return.

What are you reading?  What are you writing? What is growing wild on your little piece of the planet?

My harvested plantain

 

 One of many plantain plants growing on our property. 

 My plantain drying overnight

 Chickweed

 

Sheep Sorel

Working With What God Gives Me

Just a quick morning post.  Gonna work with the bounty that the Lord has given me today.  I'll be picking strawberries from our two patches and hopefully will secure enough for a batch of strawberry jam or strawberry rhubarb jam.  I also will be infusing some plantain oil today for use in a healing salve in a couple of weeks as well as exploring what else is growing "wild" that I can harvest and use.  (My poor delusional husband calls these things weeds.) I love foraging on my property.  God has so richly blessed us with all we need if we just open our eyes to see it!

What has God given you?

Mosquito Part Three (Finale)

We've all felt the itch of mosquito bites.  Even with all the precautions mentioned in Part One, Part 2 A and Part Two B, you can still end up itching.  Lady mosquitoes (male skeeters don't bite) inject their saliva into your skin when they bite.  The saliva prevents blood clotting and allows the insect to feed uninhibited. It is the saliva that creates the bump and the itch.

The best method for relief is not to scratch but if you are like me then that isn't happening.  I have no will power in this area.  The options I choose from then are:

1. A baking soda paste- mix baking soda with a bit of water to form a paste and apply to each bite.

2. Bath in your tub with 1 cup of baking soda and 1tsp. lavender essential oil.  Soak for 15 to 20 minutes. (This is my favorite and feels heavenly!)

3. A drop of tea tree essential oil or lavender  EO dabbed on your bites will bring relief.

4. For a splash: 1 part apple cider vinegar mixed with 3 parts water.  Stand in tub and splash on areas that are causing you discomfort.

5. You can dab neem base oil onto your bites and also aloe vera.

Of course there are always the standard OTC remedies too: Benedryl (topical and pill), calamine lotion etc.

To purge your body of toxins from the saliva of the mosquitoes drink red clover tea.  It is actually a really yummy herbal tea with no stimulants. (Pregnant women or those having surgery should avoid drinking it.)

There ya go folks.  Have a great, mosquito bite free rest of spring and summer! I'm off for a baking
soda and lavender soak! Thank goodness these skeeters are only supposed to be around for a couple of more weeks. They are special type thanks to our spring flood. You can read about it here!

Mosquitoes Part 2 For Real This Time

This is the post that I tried to do yesterday and failed because of technology problems. And as I sit here typing I am itching something fierce!  Western Michigan has a small mosquito problem right now.  It's pretty bad everywhere you go.  So what can you do to avoid the itch?

1. Wear light colored clothing, long pants, long sleeves, collars high, and leave as little skin available as possible.

2.  Keep a smudge or smokey fire burning near you. To make a smudge tie together dried lavender stalks, dried peppermint sprigs, dried mullein and dried catnip sprigs and light on fire.

3. Crush a handful of leaves of a mosquito repelling plant (see here) and rub on your body as needed.

4. Watch what you put in or on your body.  Lotions, soaps, shampoos and perfumes can attract insects. Eating sugary processed foods attract them also.  Eat a wholesome real food diet rich in nutrients to keep your body chemistry from attracting interested bites.  You can take vitamin B6 supplements but it would be so much better to get your B6 from real food: Bananas, potatoes, tuna, beans. Mosquitoes are attracted to the carbon dioxide you exhale so eat lots of garlic and onions too.  This is a case of bad breath being great!

5. Use a natural repellent.  Repellents block your pores so the mosquitoes can't sense the warmth and moisture of your body.  Though DEET is the most effective repellent it is a chemical cocktail of yuck.  Would you rub nuclear waste on your body?

To make a repellent take 2 cups of witch hazel, 1/2 tsp. each of citronella, lemongrass and lavender essential oils and 1Tbsp. of apple cider vinegar, mix together and put in a spray bottle.

To make a rub on massage type oil take 1/2 cup base oil, (I think olive oil would work good.  I would avoid coconut oil unless it is unscented.) 5 drops each of lemongrass, geranium and catnip essential oils and 10 drops of basil and eucalyptus essential oils.  Mix and use.  I do not recommend a spray bottle because the oil will clog the sprayer.

To make a balm take 3 Tbsp. of base oil (olive again is my choice), 1 Tbsp. of neem oil and 1Tbsp. of beeswax and heat together on a low heat.  Cool slightly (but not too much for the beeswax to solidify) and add 20 drops of catnip EO (essential oil), 10 drops each of lemongrass, rosemary and thyme EO's and 5 drops of cedar EO.  Pour into a container and let harden.  Rub on.

For the more adventurous herbalist try Joyce A. Wardwell's repellent salve from her book, The Herbal Home Remedy Book. She uses fresh plantain, lavender, peppermint and thyme to make infused oils which she then turns into salve with the addition of beeswax and cocoa butter. (Again, I would recommend an unscented cocoa butter.)  The entire process takes a couple of weeks though because the herbs need to soak in the oil.  It is a plan ahead project.

Well, I'm off to make some bug spray and soak in a lavender bath with baking soda.  I'll share about the bath on Monday.  Here's to an itch free summer!

Mosquitoes Part 2 (Friday Read & Write)

I am a little bit of a natural cosmetics freak and I had an entire long post written about natural mosquito repellants but wouldn't you know that my internet disconnected during the writing of it so nothing saved and when I went to add photos I lost most of the post. (I have a love/hate relationship with technology.)  So in keeping with Friday's theme of reading and writing.  Here are some of my go to books on the topic and tomorrow I will try again with the real post.

 

The Herbal Home Remedy Book by Joyce A. Wardwell

The Herbal Body Book by Stephanie Tourles

Organic Body Care Recipes by Stephanie Tourles

Making Aromatherapy creams and lotions by Donna Maria

Natural Beauty at Home by Janice Cox

Mosquitoes Part One

Since Creek Cottage Homestead has been inundated with mosquitoes lately I started researching the best ways to deter them.  Unfortunately it seems the only really effective way is with poisons/chemicals and that is just not acceptable to me.  There is not one "natural" solution that can be called the end all of mosquitoes.  There are, however, many different ways to deter them that when employed all together just might make outside living a little more tolerable.

1. Don't give them places to lay their eggs. Make sure to empty toys, birdbaths, kiddie pools every few days.  Keep your grass cut!

2. Employ predators: chickens, bats, purple martins and dragonflies.  Each species will help but don't expect them to totally clear up the population.  Chickens are limited to where you keep them.  Bats will eat the skeeters but will usually go for the biggest bugs it can find which might not be mosquitoes and it can take up to a year for bats to settle into bat houses. Purple martins are daytime eaters and mosquitoes are early morning and evening creatures.  Dragon flies need a clean, fresh, permanent source of water to live near and it is not recommended that you purchase them.  You either have the habitat for them or you don't.

3.Employ cultivated plants: Citronella/West Indian Lemongrass, bee balm/horsemint, marigolds, Ageratum/flossflowers (Ageratum is not to be rubbed on the skin.) Catnip, Scented geraniums, Peppermint, Rosemary, Lemon balm, Garlic, Clove, Eucalyptus, Tea Tree and Lavender.

4. Employ wild plants: Vanilla Leaf, Sagebrush, wormwood, mugwort, Pinapple weed, nodding onion, bergamot, snowbrush, sweet fern, cedar

The plants in three and four really work best when crushed and rubbed on your body but just their presence around outside areas where you like to gather may be enough to keep yourself at least slightly less itchy.  Take note of what you plant.  Some plants may not overwinter well and will need to be planted in containers so they may be put inside or in a greenhouse .  Any plant with attractive flowers will attract wasps and bees. It may be best to not put them on table tops or up close to where people will be sitting.

Tomorrow I will discuss how to avoid being bitten in Mosquitoes Part two!

Flowers and salads!

Last night's dandelion and lilac salad was a success!  I will not be facing church discipline or excommunication. I don't know that people will be rushing to recreate it any time soon but everyone tried it and found it surprisingly good.  Everyone but Farmer John.  Turns out that he doesn't like the smell of lilacs (You think I would know this after 20 years.) and "they taste just like they smell."  After he was finished eating there was a little pile of lilac petals on the side of his plate.  Seems the dandelions were fine for him though.  Next time I'll sneak dandelion greens into it too.  I only did the flower heads last night.

Regular vege salad with the addition of edible flowers: Lilacs and Dandelions.

I also used my available flowers in a more traditional sense.

 Dandelions flower heads floating in a shallow bowl of water.

Lilacs as the centerpiece of the table.

The other in season item I used for the evening was rhubarb from my garden in a yummy rhubarb crumble topped with homemade vanilla custard!

My rhubarb earlier this spring.

 

It is so much fun to "use what you've got" and be creative rather then running to the store and buying something.

The only downer to the night was the over abundance of mosquitoes that chased us off the deck and indoors for the evening.  Bat houses, homemade natural mosquito sprays and itch remedies will be fodder for another blog post.

Spring on the Homestead: Lilacs and Dandelion Trails

We first laid eyes on our homestead almost a year ago.  When I saw it, it was evident that the property was for me.  One of my big wants on my "list" was lilacs.  I wanted my home to have some thriving lilacs on it- the more, the better- and this property had one whole, long fence line of the shrubs.

 

They were beautiful and smelled heavenly.  Unfortunately for me we didn't close on the house until mid-June and the lilacs had finished.

But it is spring once more and those precious lilacs are mine- ALL mine! Not only do I intend on some very pretty bouquets in the house but since lilac flowers are edible I will adding the blossoms to salads and topping desserts with them.  I might try sugaring them... wouldn't they look pretty on a cake or pie?  I've also heard that one can make lilac wine.  I'm not a drinker but it might be fun to learn how to make flower wines. Hmmm... lilac tea too.

Its a good thing I'm hosting a ladies bible study tomorrow night.  I think I shall be creative with my lilacs and dandelions and see how my foraged treats go over.  It will either be a big hit or I'll end up in church discipline. LOL!

 

 My coveted fence line!

 A white lilac growing in one of the flower beds.  I wish I could bottle up the aroma!

Another lilac type of shrub in another flower bed.  This one however lacks any aroma.

A beautiful bonus: A path of dandelions leading back into our forested area.  I am a lover of the herb (dandelions are not weeds) and couldn't believe this beautiful path was on my property.  God is so good to bless us with this land!