We enjoyed a warm spell this past week, and the 60 degree days have been delightful for working outside. It's tricky, because although it's only January, it was easy to feel like spring had arrived. Things are starting to bloom around the yard much earlier than last year, and I spotted a few honeybees buzzing around the witch hazel flowers. I have to keep reminding myself of the Spring Equinox ...
Homesteading
A Homegrown Tree
Last Sunday, like so many other families, we set out to find our Holiday tree. What was most exciting about this is how short a distance we had to travel to find it. At the top of our 7 acres of land, someone at some point planted a little forest of mixed Douglas-fir and true fir, and many are just the right height for bringing indoors. Last year we cut our first tree for this homestead on a snowy ...
Trail Work
When the weather turns cold, and things slow down, it's time to bust out the really fun projects! With the garden put to bed for the winter and the woodsheds filled, we could finally turn our attention to some trail work. Most of our property is forestland accessible only by trail, and between downed trees from last year's wind storm and a couple of slide areas, it was getting pretty inaccessible. ...
To Heat a Home
If you have ever contemplated what goes in to heating a home, you may have thought about your electric company or natural gas company and wondered about the resources the energy came from. You may have thought about things like wind, water, oil or coal. For those of us who have a woodstove, however, we know exactly what goes in to heating a home. We can measure it out in cords, months of ...
Through Another Lens
Sometimes, it's refreshing to get a glimpse of our life through someone else's lens. We had some friends come down to visit from Portland last month, and they had some photographic fun with our homestead and weekend adventures. I take all of the pictures on this blog with an old Olympus digital camera from 2001, and tend to focus in close-up on aspects of our life, so seeing the sweeping "bigger ...
Apples
“It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.” ~Henry David Thoreau, Wild Fruits: Thoreau's Rediscovered Last Manuscript ...
Fall Equinox in the Garden
As the seasons turn toward fall today, I am taking a moment to appreciate all the changes happening out in the garden. While many things are dying off and withering away towards becoming organic matter, many other things are putting on their last, colorful display, and some new things are just beginning to grow. It's a real dichotomy of life and death happening on that patch of ground. As I ...
When Life Gives You Grapes, Make Your Own Raisins!
Lately, life has been giving me grapes. Although having large quantities of grapes is not an issue, figuring out what to do with them all at a very busy time of year requires some strategy. Wanting to put those grapes to good use, I decided raisins were the answer. Most of our south fence line is a trellis for grape vines, and with all the pruning and blackberry clearing we did over the ...
Yes We Can!
It's canning season. Every week, I survey my counter and all the baskets and bowls of fruit, veggies from our garden and local farms, spices, and various sizes of canning jars to preserve it all in. At times it seems daunting, but when approached with a "Yes we can" attitude, those pantry shelves fill up quickly with rows of good, wholesome food for the year ahead. Last year we had so much canned ...
Line Dried
The warm days of drying clothes out on the line are coming to an end, but I wanted to pay tribute to the deep contentment that can be found in daily work and the interface between home and the outdoors, with a quote I ran across at MaryJane's Farm: "...the powerful religion of ordinary life, a spirituality of freshly mopped floors...and clothes blowing on the line." ~Adair ...