With the Asian pears on our trees ripening a little earlier this year, we found ourselves with many full baskets and the question of what to do with them. This is one tree fruit that doesn't keep well in our cellar, you can only eat so many fresh, and I dried enough last year so that we still have plenty. We really enjoyed making different kinds of hard apple cider last fall, and this presented a ...
Homesteading
Arctic Homesteading Documentary
Several years ago, when I was on an Alaskan homesteading documentary kick, I discovered this gem called "Braving Alaska," which I mentioned in a post: Braving Alaska: Food for Adventuresome Thought. Aside from the various high-quality documentaries on Dick Proeneke's homestead, I was unable to find anything else substantial at the time, and the Alaskan homesteading documentary kick eventually ...
The Fruits of Our Labor
One of my favorite things about this time of year is all the fresh fruit. During most of the year, fruit is such a treat or thing to be rationed, that having as much as I want around is a wonderful thing. It feels like a huge bonus paycheck for all the hard work that goes into growing and picking food. Apples, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and huckleberries are all coming on in ...
Colors of the Sun
...
Roast Your Own! A Do-it-yourself Coffee Tutorial.
For those of us who drink coffee and subscribe to a more self-sufficient philosophy on life, there can be a bit of a dilemma. Coffee grows only in very specific regions, and North America is not one of them. While we cannot grow our own, the good news is that we can still roast our own. Not only is this a rewarding and fun venture, but much like brewing our own beer, it allows full control over ...
Summer Homestead Happenings
It's good to be back working in our garden after our trip to Illinois, and being able to see all the changes that happened in two weeks. The sunflowers are getting taller than Dude the scarecrow, pumpkins are popping up everywhere, the green beans and potatoes were ready for harvest, and we had a yellow summer squash the size of a small child! With firewood to gather and split for the winter, ...
Blueberry Independence Day
Well folks, I am proud to share the achievement of a homesteading dream. Blueberry independence has been achieved. What this means is that we produced enough blueberries on our own land to freeze for the year's supply. To really understand the significance of this, you have to know that we eat A LOT of blueberries. Every July involves several U-pick trips, many frozen quart bags and a ...
June on the Homestead
Yes, I know it's July. That's just how busy things have been around here. With the garden having overcome the cloudy weather and slugs, and finally starting to take off, we've been busy weeding, watering and harvesting. On top of that, I've been busy with all my off-homestead work trying to make ends meet by doing everything from handling cocoa bean orders for two weeks to repairing coffee ...
Like Shelling Peas
I'm not quite sure how the phrase, "Like shelling peas" came to mean that something was easy. I personally think shelling peas is a tedious task. And still, I love it. When I think of shelling peas, I think of summer on the homestead. It's a lot of work, sometimes it's tedious, but the rewards are crunchy and sweet! ...
Dude Returns. Birds Beware.
During our sunny Memorial Day weekend, the kids did their annual rebuilding of Dude the Scarecrow with our friend Isaac who was visiting from Portland. With a dapper "new" set of overalls and straw hat, there was a lot of good material to work with this time. Stuffing the scarecrow with straw is always a good time. The kids like to make him very fat and then adjust the stuffing around once ...