Category: Around the Homestead

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We received our I600A approval today!  Yea!  Just a few loose ends to tie up and we will send our dossier to Holt.

Okay, maybe a weird post, but when we were having lunch Saturday Randy and I were talking about how we don’t eat lunch meat.  You know the sliced packages of turkey, ham, and bologna.  This seems so crazy to some.  What on earth do we put on a sandwich (and we eat a lot of sandwiches) if we don’t use these?  And Why? 

Fried egg sandwiches are probably my biggest life saver.  We are getting over a dozen eggs a day from our Rhode Islands, so this is a perfect way to make a quick breakfast, lunch, or dinner for next to nothing.

Hotdogs!  I know what you’re thinking, “yuck,” and “that is so not healthy.”  Well, Randy LOVES hotdogs.  It’s the one food he would rather not give up.  So we compromised.  We eat Hebrew National (and we eat them in moderation) until I can find an even healthier hotdog that catches my eye.  They aren’t perfect.  What pre-packaged, man-made food is?  They are kosher, and I can get these at my local grocery store and I even found them in extra-large, quarter pound variety at Sam’s.  Hebrew Nation also carries deli meats, lunchmeats, polish sausages, and condiments, but I have yet to find these anywhere.  If I ever find polish sausages I will probably clean them out.

Chicken salad is another biggie at our house.  After I have roasted a chicken, every last bit of meat gets picked off the bone before I toss what remains into the crockpot to make broth. 

We do lots of burgers.  I know all the anti-red-meat-eaters will cringe.  Cringe away.  We buy only locally raised beef, sometimes grassfed, and never from a feed lot.  We eat them on homemade bread with home canned pickled green tomatoes.

Sloppy Joes are another quick meal at our house.  As I said before, our hamburger is local.  We would love to buy strictly grassfed, but for now we do what’s financially feasible.  Our ground beef is always mixed with ground venison, half and half.  These are served on homemade bread with home canned sweet green tomatoes.

Grilled cheese sandwiches are another favorite, especially with a bowl of homemade tomato soup.  We are finishing up the last of our sliced American cheese (American cheese isn’t even really a cheese) and switching over to block cheese until I can start making my own hard cheese.  I have found Tillamook cheese at my local grocery store.  It is expensive, but most healthy food does cost more.  So, we will use it sparingly and hopefully get motivated to buy/build a cheese press and begin making our own.  Again, not perfect, organic, or homemade, but it gets us by until something better comes along.

We also do open-faced shredded chicken sandwiches under the broiler in the toaster oven.  These are a great way to use up roasted chicken.

Lunch meat is a processed meat filled with chemical additives.  Sodium nitrite (warning…this is in the Hebrew National hotdogs) is one of these additives.  It is used to give processed meat it’s “fresh” color.  Lunch meat is listed as one of the worst foods and leading cause of certain cancers such as colon cancer.

That’s all I can think of for now.  There is life without lunch meat.  I know our hotdogs aren’t a pillar of health, but we do what we can and still allow ourselves a “treat” everyonce in awhile. 

Have a great day!

Randy took Friday off to tear down the engine for our 4-wheel drive pickup.  I dusted and vacuumed our house.  I also finished organizing our back closets and moving heavy objects off of the top shelves of the closet we will be using a storm shelter if needed.  I replaced records, board games, and movies with blankets, sleeping bags, and patio furniture cushions.  They will be much nicer to come crashing down on top of us in a tornado than a stack of records.

We started back on our cod liver oil.  We had been slacking to say the least.  I have also added Primrose Oil to the mix to try to help with some PMS issues.  Maca is also on my list of supplements to start taking, but I tasted the powder the other day.  I may have to put it in capsules to get it down the hatch.  I’m not sure my smoothies can mask its taste.  What a girl has to go through to ward off mood-swings.

Saturday was fence day.  We got a late start due to a corn issue.  Our grain cart had leaked from all the rian and the remaining corn was now moldy so we couldn’t feed it to our sheep.  We bucketed the bad corn out of the cart, rinsed the cart, and headed to the co-op for fresh corn.  We grabbed a quick bite to eat for lunch and headed out to roll up barbed-wire fencing.  We got the entire half-mile stretched rolled that afternoon, finishing up right before the rain hit.  Here is what remains of what once was a barbed-wire fence.

Just to give you an idea, the post hiding behind the ball is about 4 feet tall.  I was the wire roller, but have to admit I handed to task over to Randy toward the end.  The ball was just too big for me to roll.  There are 4 balls of wire total that got rolled up Saturday.  The other ones aren’t quite this big. 

Sunday was yard day and boy did it need it.  Randy ran the weed eater and mowed while I pulled weeds in all our flower beds and bucketed them over to the sheep.  The wind was blowing a million miles an hour, so it was a little nerve-wracking at times.  It looks so nice now that it is all done and the sheep were pleased to have something fresh and green to munch on.

Last night Randy went out after dinner and pulled ALL the posts where we had taken down the barbed-wire Saturday.  I couldn’t believe he was able to get them all pulled in one evening. 

A mix of t-posts and wooden posts had to be pulled.

I spent the evening cooking, cleaning up dinner, and feeding bottle lambs (giving special attention to a sick ewe lamb we have been doctoring).  We also have a rooster with a hurt foot who needs some extra attention in the evenings.  I give him a pile of scratch grain and feed and bat away the other chickens while he devours his dinner.  I do think he is getting better, but only time will tell if he can make a full recovery.

 This is a view from the north end of the pasture looking back at the house.  Wish it was a little greener, but I love the view from out here green or not.

Have a wonderful day!

Yesterday was Randy’s birthday.  The day got a bit mixed up, but he got presents, money, and hotdogs for dinner so he was happy.  Our neighbors came down to help us with chores and visit.  There is nothing better than good neighbors.  It was so nice of them.

We have a little ewe lamb who is really having a tough time.  When she isn’t constipated she has diarrhea.  When she doesn’t have diarrhea she’s bloated.  Everyone has surpassed her growth-wise.  I feel so bad for her.  We are fairly sure her state is due to her eating too much hay at too young an age.  Her body cannot digest it, yet she devours it.  I’m about to decide to pull her this weekend, stick her in a crate in the house where there is no hay to be had, and monitor her diet.  That will give me three days to really focus on her eating and get her system cleared of any hay and strictly back to milk (or milk replacer).  I may even try to milk out a ewe so she will have real milk and not milk replacer.  That would be huge for her system I think.   

Our Rhode Islands are laying 12-14 eggs a day.  A lot of them are still little, but some of our customers/neighbors don’t care as long as they get eggs.  One of our roosters, yes we have more than one for now, has hurt his foot.  If he is not better by the weekend we may have to put him down.  There was a guy in town interested in getting a rooster from us, but I’m not sure we are going to have one for him now.  We only have two RI roosters and one Bantie rooster.  We really hope to get a new coop built and move our Banties into it.  We will use that coop to raise our broilers once or twice a year and house the Banties.

I plan to devote Friday to cleaning our house.  Between lambing, bottle lambs, a blizzard, and constant rain I’ve really let our house go.  It needs a thorough cleaning and fast.  I also hope to spend some time in the kitchen preparing meals for the upcoming week.  We have really gotten away from healthy eating this week. 

I hope to get some beans soaking so I can make Navy Bean Casserole and Italian Pinto Beans to put up for quick meals I can pull out of the freezer.  We are trying to eat from our freezer (mainly meat) and get it all cleaned out before restocking it with grass-fed beef, fall broilers, and hopefully venison.  I need to get some meat pulled out of there this evening, sausage, ham steaks,  maybe a homegrown chicken to bake on Sunday, spaghetti sauce, and chicken broth.

I didn’t make it to the Asian Market while I was in Wichita Friday, so I’m completely out of brown rice.  Hopefully I will make it back over there soon to get a few things, but for now we are rice-less.

This weekend (weather permitting) will be dedicated to tearing down pasture fencing.  We didn’t get our pasture burned like we had hoped.  Here in Kansas you at the mercy of the winds and the weekends have just been too windy and/or rainy.  Our rams got to go out to pasture last night.  The girls were so jealous.

Our yard is a weedy mess.  Our neighbors offered to spray it yesterday (which was really nice of them), but Randy told them “no thanks.”  They make fun of us because we are adamant about not using chemicals on our lawn and garden.  Laugh away, we just won’t do it.  We will hopefully get it mowed down low soon and burned off next year.  Corn gluten is really expensive for the amount of grass we have, but hopefully we can start using it to help control weeds.  I’ve planted lots of new fruit bushes and trees, so as they grow and branch out the amount or grass/weeds will decrease and we will have less to worry about in the way of a weedy lawn.  Our yard doesn’t look great right now, and we know that, but we won’t break.  We won’t use chemicals for a quick fix.

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Is spring really on its way?  I already had onions and potatoes in the ground before the blizzard hit.  The onions aren’t looking too good, so I may grab another bunch of onions from mom’s store to make sure we have enough.  Her supplier didn’t have anymore for her.  They told her more people were planting gardens this year and there weren’t enough seeds to keep up with demand.  So, I better have her set me back some onion plants before they are gone.  The weight of the snow broke off two of our cherry bushes we had just planted.  I pruned off the broken piece and will hope for the best.  I don’t know if they can make a comeback or not.

This weekend will be spent putting up a privacy fence between our sheep lots and our backyard.  One of our dogs bit the ear off of one of our baby lambs.  We plan to seal it up and close in the gate so it cannot happen again. 

Can you imagine?

We had hoped this weekend would be spent tearing down a section of our old fencing in our pasture so we could replace it with new.  Between the wind, snow, and rain we have not been able to get out there and get to work on it.  We had the wire delivered, but we still need to count up how many posts we need and get them picked up.  The old fencing is barbed wire and will have to be rolled up by hand.  Not a fun job.  Especially since just the one side we are replacing first is nearly ½ mile long.  We are also installing a gate which requires more corner posts, digging, and money.  One good thing is since we’ve had so much snow and rain the ground should be soft for digging posts and pounding in t-posts.  Always look on the bright side, right.

The wind has been so terrible here it just rattles you to the point of exhaustion.  Randy and I are feeling the aftermaths of lambing and bad weather with complete burnout.  We have also been trying to make up some time at work so this week our mornings start at 3:30 (that’s a.m.).  We make milk for the bottles and buckets, feed the dogs, and both head outside to give bottles, baking soda water and electrolytes to a couple of lambs with upset tummies, let the sheep out of the building, let the chickens out and let Cooter (the cat) out.  Then it’s inside to clean bottles, drenchers, and get ready to head off to work. 

Saturday evening family will start rolling into town.  We are meeting cousins for dinner in town that evening.  We have Easter Sunrise Service at a little pond in a pasture.  There are large crosses driven into the ground, a fire going, and homemade breakfast is served afterward.  It’s usually a little chilly, but it is such a neat way to celebrate Easter everyone braves it even on the coldest of mornings.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter!

Is spring really on its way?  I already had onions and potatoes in the ground before the blizzard hit.  The onions aren’t looking too good, so I may grab another bunch of onions from mom’s store to make sure we have enough.  Her supplier didn’t have anymore for her.  They told her more people were planting gardens this year and there weren’t enough seeds to keep up with demand.  So, I better have her set me back some onion plants before they are gone.  The weight of the snow broke off two of our cherry bushes we had just planted.  I pruned off the broken piece and will hope for the best.  I don’t know if they can make a comeback or not.

 This weekend will be spent putting up a privacy fence between our sheep lots and our backyard.  One of our dogs bit the ear off of one of our baby lambs.  We plan to seal it up and close in the gate so it cannot happen again. 

 Can you imagine?

 We had hoped this weekend would be spent tearing down a section of our old fencing in our pasture so we could replace it with new.  Between the wind, snow, and rain we have not been able to get out there and get to work on it.  We had the wire delivered, but we still need to count up how many posts we need and get them picked up.  The old fencing is barbed wire and will have to be rolled up by hand.  Not a fun job.  Especially since just the one side we are replacing first is nearly ½ mile long.  We are also installing a gate which requires more corner posts, digging, and money.  One good thing is since we’ve had so much snow and rain the ground should be soft for digging posts and pounding in t-posts.  Always look on the bright side, right.

 The wind has been so terrible here it just rattles you to the point of exhaustion.  Randy and I are feeling the aftermaths of lambing and bad weather with complete burnout.  We have also been trying to make up some time at work so this week our mornings start at 3:30 (that’s a.m.).  We make milk for the bottles and buckets, feed the dogs, and both head outside to give bottles, baking soda water and electrolytes to a couple of lambs with upset tummies, let the sheep out of the building, let the chickens out and let Cooter (the cat) out.  Then it’s inside to clean bottles, drenchers, and get ready to head off to work. 

 Saturday evening family will start rolling into town.  We are meeting cousins for dinner in town that evening.  We have Easter Sunrise Service at a little pond in a pasture.  There are large crosses driven into the ground, a fire going, and homemade breakfast is served afterward.  It’s usually a little chilly, but it is such a neat way to celebrate Easter everyone braves it even on the coldest of mornings.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter!