Big changes coming soon!

We got some news the other day. I don't know whether I consider it good news or bad news. I'm still reeling.

We have to move.

After 7 or 8 years of living here, settling in, establishing raised beds, fences, paddocks, chicken runs...now we have to start over again someplace else. We plan to take down all the fencing we can, dismantle the raised beds, pull up fence posts, empty the 275 gallon water totes (one has minnows and a 600 lb rock grow bed), gather all hoses and pipes, dig up and repot whatever herbs, berries, grapes, and asparagus we can, Then, we will get the inside of the house purged as much as possible.

Purging is probably long overdue, to be honest. It's been on my mind for awhile, but I didn't figure on being forced into it. Clothes, dishes, pots, pans...all kinds of things will need to go. Some will be donated. Some will simply be trashed. (Unless somebody out there really wants my old, stained, garden T-shirts!) I'll be getting lots of those tubs and totes to start packing things in that we will be moving with us.

We purged the freezers already, tossing some things and deciding to can up whatever I'm able to can up. Yes, it means heavy jars to take with us...

BUT

It looks like we'll be going off grid so I need as few things as possible left refrigerated or frozen.

In a day or so we'll be talking to a local real estate company that offers in-house financing of land. We are hoping it at least has septic on it, and we can deal with off-grid water supplies for now. We'll also be talking to a rent-to-own yard barn place that offers pretty nice deals that will pay off in 3 or 4 years. Combining the money I currently pay for rent plus the money I currently pay for electricity, I should be able to cover the payment for both land and cabin.

I currently have a small solar array, a couple of batteries, and 2 inverters. I will need more solar panels and more batteries, but these will come in time. I'll also update information about all this in a future post.

So, soon we will be saying a tearful "goodbye" to our little house in the country and moving to an even smaller house, the location of which we do not know yet. I'll video and photograph things along the way and share it here and on YouTube.

Goodbye little house.

Storms at the homestead!

We've gone through over a week of rain, and then on Sunday, March 13, 2016, we got sunshine. All well and good, you think? No, not really. See, in our part of the country when there is suddenly sunshine like that, it heats up the already unstable atmosphere and causes storms.

We were lucky in our particular location. It did blow in and it did thunder, lightning, and rain very hard. Some of the surrounding locations weren't so lucky. They got large hail, tornadoes, and damaging straight line winds. The news is full of damage reports now. So far, I haven't seen where anyone was injured, so that's a blessing.

We should have sunny, warm days until around Thursday night, when it's supposed to rain again for a few days. This means we need to get out this week and really work on accomplishing outdoor tasks. Things like planting more in the raised beds, cleaning up from the winter, and making repairs to coops. Maybe even finally dispatching 2 turkeys and 6 roosters!

I went out with my phone and took some video of the approaching storm, after I'd fed all the animals and given water to those who needed it. When I was through feeding/watering, I was actually sweating, it was that warm and humid. By the time I went back out about an hour later, it was downright chilly out! That's how it goes with storms, especially ones that will produce hail.

So, without further ado, here's the short video of the approaching storm clouds.

The Homestead Cheapskate - Part 1 The Electric Bill

Probably nobody is more of a cheapskate, skinflint than me. Not in areas where quality far outweighs a cheap price. But in areas where "making do or do without" really counts.

For this installment of The Homestead Cheapskate, I'll address saving on the electric bill. I'm sure many of my tips will be just a rehash of things you've already read or learned in the past. I'm hoping some of them, though, will be a little newer to you. My goal is to so reduce my electric bill and electricity usage that a moderate solar array will actually supply all my power needs. It's a work in progress. At the end of this post, I'll show you our solar setup so far and my goals for extending its use.

1. Unplug those chargers! The "phantom" load on phone chargers, and other chargers, is pretty small. But it still exists. Every hour of every day, even when not in use, those little chargers are pulling power. The more you have, the more power they pull. Unplug them when you're not actually using them. Better yet, seek out a way to charge your devices without having anything plugged into a socket. I use my laptop and a USB cord to charge my cell phone and other devices that need it. I also have a "vape" MVP (I think that's what it's called) that holds a charge for a long time and can plug into my phone to charge it up. It's the mini-USB end and it works for other devices as well. Once the MVP is fully charged, I can use it for my phone 2 or 3 times without needing grid electricity.
2. Monitor your hot water usage! I do laundry in cold water unless something is really needing warm water, like extra dirty towels. Most of the time, though, cold water will work just fine. I also don't own a dishwasher, though they are pretty energy efficient, so I wash dishes by hand. I make sure my dishes are well scraped of any garbage. I fill up my dishpan with hot, sudsy water (it holds less than the actual sink), then I half fill the other sink with plain hot water with about 1/2 cup of white vinegar in it for rinse water. Even plastic items come out squeaky clean from the rinse. I've only used about 1 1/2 to 2 gallons of hot water for rinsing and about the same for washing. Rinsing under hot running water can use many times more than that!
3. Switch the kind of light bulbs you use! Right now, I'm using CFL bulbs but the next bulb purchase I make will be LED. I get the brightness I want and only use a tiny fraction of the power. They also don't generate heat, which is a real blessing in the summer time since it reduces the need for so much running of the AC, which is a window unit.
4. Monitor your electric stove usage! I do have an electric stove, and really wish I could have propane here. I can't, so I do the best I can with what I have. In this case, I actually turn the breaker off to the stove unless I really, really need to use it. After all, it's a 240 watt appliance. If I'm doing oven dishes, I do several of them at one time. Maybe a casserole, potatoes, and bread all together so that I'm only running the oven once for the whole meal. Even side dishes, like green beans, will go in the oven with the rest of the food in oven safe dishes or small skillets. I also make good use of my crock pot or my roasters. I have a large turkey roaster that can do double duty as a table top oven. In the summer, you'll often find it out on the table on the back deck where I'm baking bread in it. Yes! You can bake bread in a roaster and it does get brown! It bakes in exactly the same amount of time, doesn't use as much electricity to bake, and doesn't counteract the AC since it's baking outside!
   
5. Turn off or unplug anything you're not using! I know, this should go without saying. But how many times have I left the bread machine plugged in, the coffee maker plugged in, or a light on in an unoccupied room. Yes, I'm guilty of all that. I bet you are, too. But part of reducing electric consumption is becoming more aware of what's going on in your home. The best method of making sure nothing is sucking those phantom loads is to have things plugged into an outlet strip. Just flip the switch on it, and you will have turned off everything that's plugged into it. Use these for your TV, stereo, DVD player, printer, computer...I'm sure you can look around and see lots of items that would be just fine if you switch off their power!
   
6. Find and use non-electric appliances and kitchen tools! A short run-down of things I use in my home are a manual egg beater, hand crank grain mill, hand crank Victorio food mill, hand crank meat/veggie grinder, wire whisks, mandoline...I'm sure there are more I've forgotten until I am actually cooking. You get the picture, though. I can use my manual egg beater and whip up fluffy whipped topping for cobbler in the same amount of time (maybe less!) than it would take to get out an electric mixer, plug it in, put in the beaters, and do the project. I still have to wash the beaters and I have to wash the manual beater, so that time is the same. The major difference is that I can get the manual beater out, use it, and be done, and not use electricity for it! Same for all the other things I mentioned. They are easy to set up, easy to use, and easy to clean in minutes.

And, here's my solar setup. It's pretty small -- only 205 watts -- and 2 batteries. But, it is very useful when the power goes out. I can plug my modem into the inverter (10 watts) and my laptop (65 watts) and still remain connected to the outside world.

Canning sweet potatoes

I actually canned a lot of sweet potatoes late last summer, when local growers had them right out of the field. They aren't beautiful sweet potatoes. In fact, a lot of people buy them for animal feed, and at the price, they'd be really good for that. However, in my little world, a sweet potato is a sweet potato and they all taste good.

I originally bought 120 lb. of sweet potatoes. You read that right -- 120 pounds! I canned up 40 lb. of them, shared at least 40 lb. with family members, then kept the last 40 lb. to use for baked and dehydrated sweet potatoes. Or for other fresh cooked recipes.

There's qute a process to canning them safely, but it's so worth the effort. You have sweet potatoes in jars, then, that are easy to just heat n eat for side dishes for meal, or you can make candied sweet potatoes really quickly with them. And now, I have enough sweet potatoes left to sprout slips and grow some in my own garden beds!

Here is how I canned them:

I hope this helps you in your canning adventures. If you ever can sweet potatoes at home, you'll wonder why you ever bought them canned from the store! Home canned ones taste so clean!

Homestead bread!

It's Friday, and it's been damp and rainy since Tuesday night. We aren't expected to have a break from the rain until this coming Monday. The ground is soaked. The animal pens are soaked and muddy. It's just been miserable, wet, and, yes, chilly for several days now.

I'm grateful for the rain since it will recharge the aquifer that feeds our well. And, it seems like the raised garden bed plants are loving it. The plants are taking off really nicely! I'm hoping I can get out Saturday and take some video and still shots of how things are looking, since there's been a big change from just a few days ago.

Anyway, because it was so chilly and dreary, I made a loaf of bread today. I need to make more because this one didn't turn out exactly how I'd hoped. Could be the high humidity and rainy weather. Could be I did something wrong. With bread, you just never really know, it seems.

I did a tutorial type of video about my bread making that some of you might like to see. The bread isn't perfect and neither is the camera operator! But, you'll get a good idea of what I do when I make bread (I make it at least a couple times a week) and I'm sharing my recipe for Bread Machine Basic White Bread. It's not a big secret and it's not rocket science. :-)

Here ya go!

Craft and yard sale news

Being a homesteader, even a mini homesteader, doesn't mean livestock and gardening are all there is to deal with. I also do some crocheting and loom knitting. I especially enjoy these activities when it's cold weather or wet weather that will keep me out of the garden.

Last weekend was my mother's 94th birthday, so I went to visit there for a few days. On the same weekend was a local craft and yard sale, sponsored by the local Extension Homemakers group. I've met quite a few of these folks over the years so I saw a lot of familiar faces while there. My sister brought Mom over to the indoor sale where I had my booth set up so she could visit with me and with others she's known for many years.

I took mostly kitchen items I'd crocheted and loom knitted. I sold a few, though not enough at the sale to actually pay my $15 booth fee. Lots of folks admired them, but few were actually buying. Many other vendors had the same complaint -- lots of lookers but very few buyers.

Anyway, I thought I'd share a couple of videos I made of the setup the day before and the table on the day of the sale. Enjoy!

Setup the day before the sale.

Table on the day of the sale. Sis also put a number of gardening books in so we shared the table.

Canning Onion Soup

One of the things we do here on our mini-homestead is engage in food preservation. We can, freeze, and dehydrate just about anything we can get our hands on.

Last summer, I canned some Onion Soup, and videoed most of the process. I somehow neglected to video the last stage: Removing the jars from the canner. It's possible I did video that, too, but apparently I've forgotten where I filed it since it isn't filed with the rest of the clips!

I followed the USDA guidelines for canning soup, which can be found by following the link to Soups. There you will find a safe, tested method for canning soup. Of course, you can also explore the site for hundreds more recipes as well as help for canning and other food preservation, equipment, and safety concerns.

I've been canning many years, so I also use the Ball Blue Book. Some of us who can call it the "Canning Bible"! Loaded with great, safe information, clear instructions, and even planning charts for canning and gardening.

Since I thought some of you might like to follow along with me as I canned my onion soup, I made the videos into two parts.

Canning Onion Soup Part 1

Canning Onion Soup Part 2 & an Announcement.