Tag: Homesteading

The Downtime Prepper: National Preparedness Month
Homesteading

The Downtime Prepper: National Preparedness Month

Sarah

Before the Covid dumpster fire years, prepping for me was about gaining life skills. We had had years of life to do it in, with no real feeling of impending doom. We were truly prepping for natural disasters. I have lived through a couple of those, including living in the flood plains of a volcanic explosion. We wanted to be prepared for earthquake, volcanoes, tsunamis and bad winter storms – even wild fire. Societal collapse was pretty far down on the list of things I feared. Like at the bottom.

We learned to garden, to store water that we harvested from the rain, worked on solar, and so much more. I brought to the table my other skills I already had such as sewing and preserving food. We planned, we moved to rural land, and started all over, building a new infrastructure that bogged down my life (and still does) years later. We kept learning new skills, new methods and tried to be open to failure. Every winter storm and power outage was just practice, with the downside of not having cell service (which isn’t necesarily a bad thing).

Better to learn when failure doesn’t mean you will starve or freeze to death.

Covid brought an uncertainty. In dystopian nanny states such as Washington (and Oregon and California), the restrictions and lock downs lasted for what felt forever. I can remember in 2021, as most of the US had opened back up….feeling so frustrated in my state. Waiting as the governor toyed with his citizens yet again, acting like a nagging adult “if you just behave, you will advance to the next stage….and get more freedoms!” For a hot second we’d have things back. Then we would slide back, because King County (Seattle) would cry and cry about their “disease numbers” and was so over populated, and the rest of the state, rural and low population be damned, would pay for it. It wasn’t till spring of 2022 that children didn’t have to wear face masks to school – is just how bad it was. It didn’t matter if our tiny counties were nearly disease free. What Seattle cried for, Seattle got. Same with cities like Portland and Los Angeles.

We opted to simply stay out of society so we didn’t have to “follow” or comply with the rules. I figured out where I could shop to avoid masking up, and we spent nearly all our time on our land, outside, in the fresh air, alone from scared society. Working our land. People came to us to learn. They seemed sincere. Were they? I still don’t quite know. Mostly they were bored since they couldn’t travel or even go out to eat. They couldn’t see friends and family who were fearful. So they took up growing food and other skills. Some even would call themselves a prepper. They were growing food, preserving it and even building a pantry. They were learning how to make a fire, how to cut kindling. Even how to run power tools and do their own chores for once. So pretty basic prepping skills – of which they had none at the start.

But then the end of 2022 came and all the restrictions finally lifted. It seemed society just looked the other way and “forgot” the past 3 years that had happened. Three so very long years. That utterly changed me. But almost none of them had actually changed. Suddenly they had all their “freedoms” back. They could go into stores without mask restrictions. They could travel without proving vaccination status. They could sit at the cafe for hours with friends. They lost interest and got back to living. Not realizing they could do both.

Like with teaching others how to garden, teaching people how to prep, how to be a prepper, fell out of favor overnight. I watched whole groups fall apart, of what had been like minded folk. They just poofed. Locally and online. That one hit hard because it had been nice to have like minded people to be with. Like almost friends.

Stuck in the bad finical times of present, wondering daily if it will get better, or get worse. Every storm, every insanity wild fire, heat domes and so much more – yet the majority of society is lulled by whatever the news pushes daily. They have given up any control they had over their lives and chosen to quit caring.

But there is something:

September is National Preparedness Month. An actual month where the government asks, nay, BEGS, people to be prepared for disasters.

FEMA is hosting it again (and no matter your thoughts on FEMA…..there is nothing wrong with reading their suggestions. Better to be so prepared you don’t need their help if a disaster occurs. Take that thought and file it away. I hope to never need their special brand of help. Ever.

2023 Theme: Preparing for Older Adults
“The Ready Campaign’s 2023 National Preparedness Month theme is “Take Control in 1, 2, 3”. The campaign will focus on preparing older adults for disasters, specifically older adults from communities that are disproportionally impacted by the all-hazard events, which continue to threaten the nation.

We know older adults can face greater risks when it comes to the multitude of extreme weather events and emergencies we now face, especially if they are living alone, are low-income, have a disability, or live in rural areas.”

So…the take away? We all need to be preppers. Prepping gets you ready to handle what comes your way – fires, storms, wind storms, earthquakes and so much more. If you are prepared, even for a few days, it means the services that come to help have fewer people to need to get to – if you are not part of the problem! Especially if it happens in a highly populated area and there are 100,000’s of thousands of people with no water or food in the first 3 days.

Right now we are in a downtime. There isn’t the panic that things are horrible. This is when people get lazy. They quit caring.

Do you know what FEMA and the US government asks you to do? Almost nothing. Yet, even this small amount of work could make a massive difference in a disaster.

Oh, and if like where we live, and 65% of the population is over 65? It really matters.

Emergency Kit
This National Preparedness Month, we are reminding you to build your emergency kit. Don’t forget to include:

  • Non-perishable food and water that can last 3 days, per person and animal
  • Flashlights, radios and extra batteries/or solar to charge them
  • First Aid Kit

That is it.

How To Build A Kit. Is a comprehensive collection on their website.

Find the energy to care. Try to focus on how being prepared will remove the fear and uncertainty, should you not have to go to town, to battle with everyone else for water as a storm approaches. You stay home, and stay safe. Away from society! You can avoid disease and morons all in one easy move. And FEMA’s roving busses should they ever show up.

I’d recommend you do more than 3 days of course. But even 3 days will make a huge difference.

Just stop being distracted and get back to it. Keep working on your skill sets. Learn how to do more things yourself. This is life. It will free you!

I’ll be posting more this month of September on things you can work on to be ready for storms and natural disasters.

~Sarah

August On The Homestead
Gardening · Homesteading

August On The Homestead

Sarah

August started off like July. Colder than normal, where if it did heat up, the nights were well under 60*. Chilly for the plants. Some thrived well, some didn’t. Eventually we got a week of heat mid month, which helped the harvest later on.

I finally after YEARS got white Burbank blackberries. But they just never got good. I’d say mealy was the best term for them. Not good eats. I will keep up hope though, I really want to master this berry.

Marshmallow in bloom. It doesn’t last long, so I treasure it yearly. The plant got at least 12 feet high this year (yes, it is a water hog). It collapses when the heat ramps up, so 3rd week of August it plopped down for the year.

Taunting me, but nope.

Where as the Boysenberry crop this year was off the charts.

White strawberries.

Catnip in bloom.

Boysenberries.

Rusty the Rooster.

A random lily a squirrel planted for me.

Potatoes straight from the Andes Mountains growing.

One has white flowers.

The other has purple flowers.

An August harvest.

And another nights harvest.

Our Frostline peach tree did amazing this year and we had a huge harvest in mid-August. Very juicy and sweet, but they bruise very easily. Not one to store, they must be eaten quickly.

The Lily opening up.

When a cucumber hides on you. The chickens eat well with these.

Having survived July’s freak windstorm, the giant Sunflowers fought on and started opening. The bees were very happy.

Strawberry Calendula.

Sunflower.

Native Twinberry Honeysuckle, growing in the berry bed.

The pear tree gave over 40 pears this year. That was a great crop for this tree.

Herbs that have spread and spread. I let them grow randomly, as it brings in pollinators.

Right before we harvested the peaches.

The Olympian Fig tree grew a lot this year and put on its best harvest, with over 50 figs.

Baby Kiwi growing.

In late spring the boys and I planted Lupine seeds and 12 plants took. This one was getting ready to open. We gave a couple of them away, and will plant the rest into the berry bed.

Boysenberries ripening.

Grapes slowly growing.

Rusty spends his days with us, when we are working.

August brings the start of the second crop of strawberries, on the ever bearing types.

Moving the strawberry plants into a large cage has really helped with getting a better crop.

The swimming pool bed growing lots of food.

More grapes.

Elderberry ripening. It was also a good crop this year, but I am letting the birds eat them this year. The tree has reached at least 14 feet high.

A harvest every night.

August is the height of tomato picking.

Lupine opening.

Which leads to canning.

I love creating jar after jar of salsa, for the winter.

Peach harvest.

The figs ready to be picked.

As August wound down, the strawberries ripened.

The strawberry cage has filled in nicely.

The dual crop red raspberries are putting on the start of the second crop.

And at the end of the month, the first ripe grapes showed up.

Four videos from August:

And as August wound down, we had a freak day of intense thunder/lightning storms (not very common here), with a lot of rain. The temps in the last days dropped into the low 60’s as well, and low 50’s at night. It rained overnight and is still raining today. An odd way to end a month.

Fruit and berries did great this year. Everything else was hit or miss, due to the cold temps.

I am actually looking forward to fall. We are going to rip out all the fences, turn the beds over for the first time in years, then tarp the beds to kill the weeds. Once the cool weather and shorter days arrive I will be busy getting it ready. I need this I feel, to reset everything.

~Sarah

Dehydrating Kale and Making Green Powder
Prepping · Preserving · Recipes

Dehydrating Kale and Making Green Powder

Sarah

It’s been a bountiful year on the homestead for kale production. Cold wet springs lead to greens growing well, and once the sun showed up mid summer, the heat kicked off the growth. I have 3 varieties this year going on our land on Whidbey Island in Washington State. We face the Salish Sea so we have sunny/windy but dry in summer. It’s called the Olympic Rainshadow for that reason.

Overall, I don’t eat a lot of it fresh. We grow it for our chickens mostly. They love that stuff.

Chickens are just feral pets you didn’t know you needed in your life.

With the rate of growth this summer though….I harvested a ton the other day. I have a setup down in our gardens, where I have a tent set up that I can work in, in the shade. I stripped the kale of the bottom parts, which is rarely tender. That the chickens got in piles. Which they noshed on.

I washed up a very tightly packed kitchen sink worth. We grow regenerative/organic, and don’t use anything on our plants. Mostly just making sure no bugs came in. I let it air dry a bit, spread out in piles on the counter, on towels.

Then I would grab bundles of leaves, and roughly chop it up. All in told, I had 3 very stuffed gallon bags of kale leaves, cut into wide ribbons.

Pro-tip? Have a paper bag on the floor for ugly parts, to toss it into. Also, hungry chickens to feed it to.

I spread the leaves out on the dehydrator trays. My dehydrator has 6 trays, and they were well stuffed. In the end, I came back and did another 3 trays later, for 9 trays worth. Our dehydrator has been with us for a very long time. It is an older L’equip I found in a cooking store at least 17 years ago. It keeps ticking, so I have no complaints for now. As long as it has a fan, and you can adjust the temperature, then it should work fine. Dehydrators can be very affordable (you can pick up a Nesco for $70, and they are made in the US – and work great). They don’t have to be fancy to work well.

Fresh on the trays.

I set the dehydrator to the highest setting, on furnace blast. There is no need to be delicate with leaves like this. The temp is around 155*. I flipped the trays every hour to get even drying, as the motor is on the bottom. Bottom tray goes to the top and keep repeating.

5 hours later they were crispy dry. I let them cool down overnight.

In the morning, in a number of batches, I ran the dry leaves in the dry container of our Vitamix blender, until powdered. Most blenders can at least get it chopped up. A cheap method is have a coffee grinder that is only for grinding dry items like this and herbs.

I transferred each batch to a mason jar, to store until needed. A canning funnel makes that task easy.

Out of all the fresh kale, I got about 16 ounces dry powder, well shaken down. I processed it a second time when it was all done, to have a very smooth powder.

How to use?

  • Add to rice for green rice. A Tablespoon is plenty. Cook the rice in broth or broth powder with a bit of of olive oil, sprinkle on some parmesan cheese at the end.
  • Do you have a smoothie recipe made with dried/freeze-dried fruit? Add in a Tablespoon green powder. You can use this smoothie recipe to add what you want to it for a portable dry mix (recipe is on our sister site).
  • Add to pasta sauces you make, or to mac n’ cheese, for more nutrition.

Add in some vital greens to your diet easily! But do it sparingly, for once it is powdered, it is very concentrated.

~Sarah

Brazen Stranger On The Homestead
Homesteading

Brazen Stranger On The Homestead

Sarah

I was working in the garden beds on Saturday morning on our homestead, before it heated up for the day.

The boys were out with me. We were working on chores, such as watering, the chickens and harvesting.

When my inner voice popped into my head that something wasn’t right.

And I see a person walking down our driveway, and no one one else was home but us and Kirk – and that wasn’t Kirk. And here’s the thing – there is no road access to our property from above. Only way in is our driveway. From the road seen below.

It was an older lady, all decked out for a hike. Purple pants, a sun shirt, hat and a large fanny pack with hydration bottles.

She kept walking once I saw her, would not look at me. Oh, she knew she had been caught and was doing the o’ bluff it out.

Carried herself right up the driveway, out to the road and took a right.

That did not amuse me. I don’t want ANYONE on our land that I don’t know – and gave permission to be on our land.

All I can think is she started from the church that is next to us, out for a long hike, and thought no one would notice her (probably had looked at Google Maps on satellite view and saw our long driveway). Parked her car at the church so it wouldn’t get broken into, and then got walking. About half a mile from the end of our land is a public hiking area, with a trailhead into it (great area to hike in!). I get it, hiking is a huge thing for me. But the issue is…I have children. I have animals. I don’t want strangers here. They are a risk to our land (fire safety), biosecurity to my animals, and my children should have no fear of strangers. And that trailhead is not known for break-ins.

So that led me to doing detective work to figure out which way she used to get onto our land.

When we bought the land, we thinned the forest, to lower fire risk. The deer and coyotes glommed onto that, and quickly cut two distinct paths  thru the woods. But normally, that isn’t an issue. The wild animals I do not care about. I see them all the time on our security cameras.

I went shopping and picked up more No Trespassing signs this morning. At least they are cheap. Add in a few screws I liberated from Kirk, and we got to work.

After a lot of walking thru our woods, I figured out the woman came in via the property line we share with a church. Their septic field sits along the property line. Two winters ago 2 trees fell on the line, and now there is an opening, so one can see into our land. And the deer took the path already there, and made it bigger and noticeable.

First sign went up here. If you miss this one, then you are doing it on purpose.

The tawny spot in the middle is the septic field mound (they don’t have a gravity field as we do). You can see the 2 stumps of the trees that came down.

I headed to the back of the land.

As I said, we thinned this forest by 3/4 in the past 4 to 5 years. You can walk through it now, with ease.

It comes out to the end, to a clearing. The power lines run here, along the highway we back up to.

There is a low area in our natural fencing of blackberry canes and stinging nettle, which the animals use – and the deer eat as well. You can see a road across the way, the highway is between us. But I wasn’t seeing any human presence.

Between this area and the woods, the trail is only visible if you know where it is. I have let the salal come back up, to hide the paths.

Still I posted another new sign on the tree. The old one had broken a year or so ago.

Having done my trek across our land, I was 99% sure the mystery person came in via the church. There is a history of their members wandering onto our neighbors land over the years as well.

I am hoping that this lady got the message she was not OK with being on our land – and won’t do it again. The signs are to remind them this isn’t the church’s land.

I handled the encounter well. I did not threaten her – but my stance was not friendly. Had she asked, I’d have been far nicer. Just ask, right? Then I’d have shaken hands and asked about her hiking plans.

I added another sign at the start of the driveway (or end of it really) which is in the upper field, on another tree. Pointing towards the church’s land. I have had signs down low, by the lower fields and such for years.

For now, it reminded me to walk my land often, looking for any potential issues before they become one.

~Sarah

Fall Gardening: Sow Right Seeds Fall Sale
Gardening · Homesteading

Fall Gardening: Sow Right Seeds Fall Sale

Sarah

If you see gardening as a 3 to 4 month time period, you are missing out on the fun months. The months where it is cooler, not baking in sun. Where we live in the PNW, we can actively garden from often March to November, and if we put in extra time, we can extend it even farther under high tunnels/greenhouses.

Which brings me to that I have been planting seeds the past few weeks for fall items. I just go out very early or after the sun settles down into the trees, so I can work with less sweating. Lots of lettuce, new kale (it’ll go thru the winter and get big next spring), swiss chard for the chickens and yes, radishes for some early fall crunch on salads/

I started using Sow Right Seeds awhile back, adding them into the rotation of my favorite go to companies to get them from.

Sow Right sent me this great Fall Crop Collection of seeds to try out this season:

Of the seeds, the first to go into soil was the swiss chard. I cannot emphasize enough how much chickens love fresh swiss chard. So yes, we don’t get a lot ourselves to harvest (I like it in soups, chopped fine), but it sure provides rich eggs for us to enjoy. It’s cost prohibitive to buy fresh greens on our island for our girls in fall/winter, so growing them has to happen year round. But the other part? I love the vivid color of swiss chard – it is visually pleasing and few pests bother it. If I cover it with frost fabric when snow is predicted, it comes right thru.

Now of course…we sit and wait, giving the cups fresh water daily, till the seedlings pop up. By end of August they will be in the ground growing quickly in the waning month of high season.

If you’d like to check out their seeds, visit Sow Right Seeds. Use code: SARAHK10 to receive 10% off your order as well. They are having a Fall Sale as well, from 8/11 to 8/18 with 15% off and if you order $25 and up, free shipping comes with it. They are also on Amazon if you prefer shopping that way.

Fall Giveaway! Starting today, August 11th through August 18th, enter for a chance at winning 1 of 5 seed packs. Winners will be announced on August 21st. US only. 

Click here to enter.

~Sarah

FTC Disclaimer: We are an affiliate of Sow Right Seeds, and receive a small amount if you choose to buy from them. This helps support running the website. We were sent seeds to grow, but all opinions and reviews are ours.