Fall into Winter...

Lots of things going on around here.  We picked all the pumpkins in October...my little backyard harvest was lovely!

The blue pumpkin (which I cannot remember its name for the life of me) was just beautiful.  It's one of the sweet pumpkins that are mostly flesh.  We cut it open and it is lovely!  I am making pies with that one.

My big field pumpkin weighed in at a little over 22 pounds.  That's the biggest one yet that I have grown!  We also have been making preparations in the garden for winter.  The coop was cleaned out and all the beautiful bedding and manure is just gorgeous...I am enhancing many of my garden beds with it.  Most of my beds can also be converted to hoop houses.  I usually use the hoop house/low tunnel in the spring for tomatoes.  I have never done it in the fall, going into winter, going into spring.  The winters here get extremely cold.  I am going to experiment with some thermal techniques.  I have three that I am using.  I have kale, spinach, and beets growing.  Of course, the weed of my garden, cilantro, is popping up everywhere.  We will see what makes it.  I think they will probably do well.  For now, they are quite snug.  We had a very light snow.  We will see how they fare once winter really packs its punch.

My husband and son have also gone hunting.  They got a large doe that yielded about forty pounds of meat! Most of that has been canned, and the roasts are in the freezer.  We have an exciting venture this weekend.  If it pans out, I will definitely post about it because it is a great secret that is worth revealing! Not only will it add to my larder, but it will do miraculous things for my garden.  Stay tuned!  I hope you all are getting your homes and gardens ready for the winter.  Blessings to you!

Garden Harvest

Here is my haul from yesterday (plus one more egg).

The garden is slower this year because of some unforeseeable happenings that took place at the beginning of June, but the garden is starting to crank up now and I need to get back on track.  I will be putting in the fall garden (I know, I really need to get moving) and hopefully I can get some more produce.  My tomatoes are going like gangbusters, but no ripe ones yet.  Maybe within the next two weeks I'll get some tomatoes.  The peppers are just gorgeous.  I roasted them and will probably put them with the eggs.  The raspberries are almost done producing for this season.  I think I have about ten pounds in the freezer...it's time for me to make some jam!!!  The beans are just now coming in.  They are so beautiful.  It's a French pole filet bean...they are nice! Even with this heat, I still have lettuce...it's only because I have cilantro shading it.  So, still taking advantage.  I hope you are having great harvests.  It's been hard with the heat, but the peppers and tomatoes are loving it (me, not so much)!

Cow appreciation day!

Here's what we all looked like going to Chick-fil-A today.  Four of us were under this "cow costume" and we were sweating like cows!!!!

It was a fun time!  My daughter was the head of our family heifer!  We were a bit creative with her face.

Here's one last look...

Hope you had a fun day with a free meal!
Blessings!!

Awesome bargain...help me!

I just found this gem at one of our Goodwill stores today.  Let me tell you, the vultures were circling with this one!  I practically had a lady follow me throughout the store and a gentleman was complimenting how well-made it was.  I paid $14.99 for this baby.  It is a Drexel nightstand and in perfect condition.  I am always all over bloggy land looking at all the DIY furniture makeovers and am astonished and jealous of the outcomes.  This is the first piece that I've really found that I want to redo.  Here's the dilemma:  what should I do????  It already has a fabulous look to it, but how could I make it more fabulous???  I like the cottage look and shabby chic, but I also like high Victorian.  One style I am not particularly fond of is modern so traditional would best suit me.  If you have any suggestions or links, I would be utterly grateful!

Here's the furniture stamp inside the drawer.

  
I am also not hung up on it being strictly for the bedroom.  I think canning jars full of jam would look absolutely quaint.  I have no idea what to do with this piece, but I'm excited for the possibilities.  I'll keep you posted!!!

Chicken and garden updates

Wow...time sure does fly when you're gardening! I've got a bunch of updates so I will start with the chickens.  Here's the progression of our coop.

The coop with our salvaged window from a neighbor.

Hubby working on the run and the door has been added on.

Chickens already using the run!

Hubby is still finishing up the coop.  He's got to put on the chicken wire on the back ventilation and he's finishing up the floor.  The chickens are seven weeks old so they really needed some sunshine.  They stayed in the run all night and since it's warm, they have fared very well.  I couldn't sleep because I was so worried about a fox getting his paws/claws through the chicken wire...tonight we'll have them locked up in the coop!  I really need some sleep, haha!  The only supplies we bought for this coop are the screws and hinges, the chicken wire, shingles for the roof (I bet I could have found these but we really needed them now) and the paint (hello, $5 oops paint at Home Depot that normally runs over $37 for one gallon--who can afford that???)  My husband did a great job and we need to put up the trim and finish painting.  I can't wait until it's finished.

The garden is coming along well!  I've had my battles though.  Flea beetles are now prevalent in my backyard and they love the radishes!!!  I think I will continue to sow radishes so that the flea beetles will only bother them...a trap crop.  This is the first year I've grown radishes and they have turned out beautiful (minus the holey leaves!). 

They truly are the jewels of the garden and are so lovely to photograph!

The greens are coming on strong as well.  We had our first garden salad last night with the radishes.  My spinach has turned out really nice this year.  I've kept them spaced properly and they have just flourished.

I am up against the insects, though.  The ants have gone crazy and now I have the flea beetles.  It's an ongoing struggle, and I've found aphids, too.  I've spied a few ladybugs so between me squishing and the ladybugs devouring, we may stay on top of things.  Here's one last shot of the garden from an "aerial" perspective.  This is taken from my bedroom window.

I've laid down hay as a mulch between the boxes.  I'm not quite sure how I feel about it yet, but I consider it the cheap man's pathway.  I would love to put flagstone or brick or pavers down, but that's not in the budget any time soon, so we'll see how this works for me.  It gets quite windy sometimes so we'll see if the hay is still there in a few weeks.  I hope your gardening and homesteading is going well.  Let me know how your garden grows and happy homesteading!  Blessings!

Recycling in the Suburban Homestead Garden

I haven't been posting much because of all the spring preparations.  It's been nothing but seedling and seed-starting "carnage" around here.  There are a lot of ways to recycle common household items that would normally get thrown away to use in seed-starting.  Here are some things I do:

I reuse disposable aluminum cooking containers.  Whether I do bulk cooking or acquire them through friends after an event, I have plenty to use for my seedlings.  The aluminum helps reflect the sun's warmth and light.  I start my heat-loving plants, like squashes, this way.  In the middle tray are my sunflowers.  I've never started sunflowers early before.  However, this year, I really want some bohemoths that grow 16 feet tall so I'm going to see if this works.  What do I do with the sunflowers now?  It's still a bit early for them and we've had tons of rain so I gave them each their own cozy little greenhouse.

That's right--more recycling!  These are two liter soda bottles that I've been collecting and cut up to house my seedlings right in the ground.  If it gets too warm, I can unscrew the lid or take the whole thing off.  This will keep the soil around them warm until they can get established and the air temperature finally warms up around here!  It's supposed to be near 75-80 this weekend so I'll be sure to pop these off so they don't get fried.  (You can do this with virtually any large plastic container you have:  milk jugs, juice containers, etc.)

When you're out shopping and checking out clearance items, look at things that you can use more than once.  I was out a couple of weeks ago and they had Easter candy on clearance.  Look at this container:

These were filled with delicious gummie candies for $0.20 each.  I was not interested in the candy (although we all loved them); it was the container I wanted!  It's perfect for soaking seeds--you can use both the lid and bottom for this.

Here are some Morning Glories ready to go out.  (Remember to nick their hard seed coat before you soak.)  These were the perfect size so I soaked all my morning glories and sweet peas this way!  Perfect containers--plus, I can save seeds in these later in the summer.  Here's another scenario:  you're shopping and you get the family a rotisserie chicken for dinner.  Cook up that carcass for stock, and don't throw out the plastic container the chicken came in.  It is perfect for housing those little peat pots and comes with it's own lid!

Back to two-liter soda bottles:  here's a pumpkin I started early.  I cut the two-liter bottle two-thirds of the way up, and then I use the top by inverting it to keep the greenhouse effect.  Once it's warm enough, you won't need the lid and you can transplant.  

Again, you can use pretty much any plastic container you have around.  I also use yogurt cups for seedlings, and in some of the pictures I have plastic cups that I fill with seed starting medium.  I put most things under lights in my basement, but I have quickly run out of room and one of my lights has blown out (argh!).  So, I am trying to get things rotated through as fast as I can to get them out in the garden.  The weather is still a bit shaky around here, but I am trying to keep up the best I can.  My whole point of this post is to show that there are so many things we can recycle to suit our purposes.  I hope this inspires you to get planting or get creative.  

I'd love to hear some of the innovative ways you start your seeds.  Until next time, happy gardening!

Blessings to you!

Garden beseiged with...snow!

Here we are at the end of April and last night it snowed again.  It's not an unexpected thing around here in Colorado.  It just puts a "damper" on your gardening.

I put out my pea seeds...for some reason I plant so late.  The snow always puts me off.  In Colorado, it seems we go from the end of winter to summer.  Spring is filled with snowstorms and hail storms and all that fun stuff and then BAM, it's summer.  It's a bit annoying, but we're making due.  My lettuce and spinach haven't sprouted yet (I probably wouldn't sprout either with this kind of weather).  Anyways, like I said with Easter, all of this will be gone by this afternoon.  We're due for some nice weather and the temps are going to warm up nicely for the latter part of this week.  My husband has been working so diligently on this backyard and rearranging our boxes and building some new ones.  I am excited for when August arrives because that's when the garden looks its best!

I will update with more photos once the backyard is semi-dry.  My husband is almost done!  I've also sown some mustard and collard greens (yummy) and am still sprouting things indoors under lights.  I need to start all my pumpkin and zucchini and squashes inside.

On the chick front, the little ladies are doing well!  They are growing like crazy!  My daughter's teacher actually bought chicks (since the incubator eggs did not hatch).  So my daughter brought home one more Buff Orpington.  That brings us up to nine chicks...like I said, I think a few of the girls aren't actually girls, but we'll wait and see.

I hope your weather is nicer than mine.  I've been cruising the web and am living vicariously through your warm locations and wonderful gardens.  I wish you happy gardening!  Blessings!

When the children start to grow up...

I am here at the library as we are still under hostage to our hijacked computer.  I am blessed that we have such a wonderful library system where we can use the computers.  I just can't really upload any pictures which is a bummer because I love posting them for you.  It will probably be another week before I can post pics.

Until then, another reason I am at the library is that my daughter started working here at the little coffee shop in the library.  She got the job literally by the hand of God.  She didn't apply here although she applied at several other places.  We saw a friend that we hadn't seen in years and just started chatting it up in front of this coffee shop.  The lady in the coffee shop kept staring at us.  Well, turns out, the coffee shop owner is the neighbor of this friend I hadn't seen in years and wanted to hire my daughter.  How amazing is that?!!!  She got the job and has started working. 

Her first full day of training went quite miserably.  This little coffee shop has no drain so there is a portable tank that must be dumped out periodically in a separate location.  Well, the tank overflowed and her shoes and bottom of her pants were soaked, she had to dry mop it by hand and it just was so much information for her to take in during an intense eight hour training session.  As I took her home she was crying.

Have you ever noticed the moment your children actually started growing up?  It was during these moments that I realized that my daughter is truly embarking into adulthood.  She is 16 and I know that there are things that I won't be able to do for her or help her with.  She has her own battles to win and I have had to tell her on more than one occasion that she has a voice.  Yes, my daughter, you were blessed with a voice to ask questions with and advocate for yourself...mom will not always be around.  It's so hard yet necessary and scary all at the same time.  I know that I am going through some growing pains because I am being prepared for my children to grow up.  One day, my daughter may end up going to study in London...Lord, help me.  But I know that I am my children's biggest cheerleader and I am here to help guide their way until they can fly on their own.  That's the whold purpose of raising your children.  To prepare them...and along the way, we mothers are getting prepared for when the babies leave the nest and can take on the world as we have taught them.  It's bittersweet.  It's also exciting because the future holds so many rewarding moments that will reflect everything from the past.  She's learning.  I'm learning.  We are learning things together.  I pray that in all this, that I am preparing her well and that she will be ready.  It's all we can do:  pray and lead. 

I hope you had a beautiful weekend.  I am looking forward to getting my revamped machine so I can do more food and garden posts.  Until then, blessings to you!

Garden clean-up and technical difficulties...

It finally feels like spring...we cleaned out the garden last week and it's just itching to be planted!!!  I'm no fool, though, because the weather can change 50 degrees in one day.  I still have seedlings and can't wait for them to be planted.  We've decided to do some major rearranging of our boxes we've set up.  I'm very excited and can't wait to show you the before and afters!

Another exciting development-- we will be getting our chicks next week!  It's been my desire for a very long time to have backyard suburban chickens and we are getting them for FREE from my daughter's enrichment program...we can have up to ten birds (no roosters).  I can't wait for all that wonderful fertilizer for my garden.  I have much to do until we get them...

Which leads me to my next dilemma...my computer is having much technical difficulties and so I am here at our favorite place, the library.  As soon as I can get back online again, I will post pics and update you on the chicks.  Hopefully, we should have a handful by Tuesday.  I look forward to blogging all about the fluffy little guys and our adventures of keeping them away from our two cats, plus we will have to eventually devise some kind of impenetrable fortress in the backyard due to the cunning antics of the neighborhood foxes, not to mention all the prairie falcons and massive owl who lives near us.  It will be an experience! 

I hope you are having a great week!  Blessings to you and may you have a wonderful weekend at your homestead! 

Lofty Plans...

Does anyone recognize this spectacular palace?  It is in fact Hampton Court, which was the residence of King Henry VIII.  If you read the previous post, I talked about some exciting developments for my 16 year old daughter.  This is the exciting development...this is where she wants to go to school...in this building.  Is that not magnificent???  What school could possibly be housed in a palace, you ask?  Well, it has an amazing history and it is called the Royal School of Needlework.  It has a prestigious reputation and would be a fantastic place for her to learn and be immersed in such history.  My daughter has a passion for fashion and this would be a great avenue for her to pursue.  She is going to apply for their 2 year foundation degree program once she is done with school, then if she feels so inclined, she can do a third year which would have an emphasis on fashion and textiles.   I had heard of this school before, but never had any thoughts about it for my children.  It came up again last week and I thoroughly researched it and it seems to be the perfect fit for my daughter.  She does great embroidery and this would possibly give her a high-brow entrance into the fashion world.  Once this came up, I talked about it with my daughter the next morning.  She loved the idea and then I went to my part-time childcare job and a good friend of mine just found out she's going on a trip to England with her husband.  I told her all about this place and sent her questions to take to the school because she is in fact going to visit!  She is actually in England right now!  All this has progressed so quickly...we are continually researching and my daughter really wants to pursue this!

So, I have to sit down and realize that my daughter may be going to school in England...that she has to leave home...oh, my heart!!!  We are on spring break right now and she is looking for jobs.  She actually was offered a job without even applying just because we knew the person who is her neighbor.  All of these things are falling into place and I can see how exciting the future is for her...I have homeschooled her since third grade and these are the moments we have been preparing her for.  It's a bit scary.  As a high schooler, she's been doing a dual-enrollment program at a very good charter school and I don't regret it at all.  It's a hybrid program that's been started specifically for homeschoolers.  With all that said, all I can do now is to keep helping her go in the direction she wants to go and to pray.  God has orchestrated all this up to this point and we will continue to leave it in His hands.

If you are interested in information about the Royal School of Needlework, here is the link.  How have you dealt with your children leaving the nest and going to school???  This is my first child so I have three more to go, but the first one is really hard!  We still have two more years, but as you know, time flies! 

There's been the excitement for this week...I hope you are having a lovely week!  Blessings!

Homesteading in the days of yore...

Have you ever wondered how women back in the pioneer days did so much without our modern day conveniences?  For instance, just the effort to clean anything, be it household items or people, took a tremendous amount of effort because water had to be heated up by fire and then hauled to the point of necessity.  It took so much work!  Plus, water takes a while to heat up, especially in great volume.  What has me pondering about all this?

Well, my new year is starting with a bang...or I should say, a leak!  Our hot water heater is cracked and we won't be installing a new one until Saturday-so no hot water delivered to us conveniently!  Fortunately, in this wonderful modern age we live in, electricity is my friend and I have massive pots to boil water in for any use we need.  I've had to wash my dishes by hand (I'm sure you are all balking at me right now, but my least favorite chore is washing dishes by hand and my dishwasher is truly a workhorse around here!).  It has been a long time since I've washed dishes by hand and it really hasn't been that bad.  In fact, seeing how much water I save may be a turning point for me.  We shall see! 

The question arises now on how we bathe.  It's interesting because most of us don't think about this due to the fact that we have hot, running water.  With six of us, bathing is a pressing issue.  Hmmmmm.  We had to come up with something so let me show you our make-shift tub in the tub!

That's right--it's a handy 18 gallon bin just purchased on black Friday!  I boil water in my massive pot, we take it upstairs and pour it in the bin while the bin is in the tub, add cold water to bring down the temp. a little, and then proceed to bathe.  We told the kids to wash their hair and their face first, then they could sit in it (or attempt to sit in it) or stand in it and wash off.  This may seem weird to blog about, but like I said, it's not something I ever thought about before.  All I can say is that I am soooooo thankful to have the ability to heat up water fairly quickly.  I know that there are those who are off the electrical grid and all I can say is blessings to you.  This does take a lot of work and effort to have the luxury of a warm bath or shower.  What I would like to focus on now is what would we do if the electricity goes out for quite some time.  This little stint without hot water has really made me think about preparedness in these type of areas.  Hopefully, this post will make you think a little about these things, too, and if not, at least you have yet another use for an 18 gallon bin!!! 

After all this, it makes me very thankful for what we do have.  I am thankful that our hot water heater has lasted this long and I pray our next one will have longevity as well. And I am always grateful for the women who came before us working tirelessly to provide for their homesteads no matter what the circumstances!  May we all rise up and meet every difficulty that comes our way with that same pioneer spirit!  May you enjoy your hot water no matter how it gets heated!!!!

Reorganizing...Just Do It!!!

Ladies, you know how it is...we just keep getting more stuff!  I got a new set of pots and pans because I really needed some new ones...I still had a set that was 10 years old.  So I really needed to purge my space to make room for the new pans and that can only mean one thing...reorganizing.  Well, I went into my cabinet where I kept all my pots and pans and I dragged everything out.

Can you believe all of this fit in there???  I cleaned down the shelves and threw out things I no longer needed...like the lids to pans that have been long gone.  Now my new space was nice and clean!

I reorganized by putting all my baking sheets, muffin tins, cake dish, trifle bowl, and other miscellaneous items in this cabinet to give my pots and pans more room. 

Nice and tidy!  Now I moved my pots and pans to underneath my island and it's glorious to have them so neat.

 I really didn't know what to do with myself...actually, it got me motivated and I cleaned my kitchen and it looked so nice.  That's the problem with reorganizing...it's infectious and you can't just stop. It snowballs from one area to another!   Hahahaha!  What are you reorganizing???  I hope you're having fun enjoying your newly reorganized space...I'm loving mine...now to the next area!!!
Blessings on your reorganizing!!!

Vacation is almost here...garden is in!

We are full speed ahead here on our suburban homestead!!!  Everything is pretty much planted and coming up!  This year I've planted a ton of cucumbers as I am going to can pickles this summer!!!  I'm very excited about the prospect of it! I also have a lot more squash planted as well.  Last year was not a good zucchini year and we are praying for a good harvest this year!!!  I've got some tomatoes growing...I've had to fight the weather so we'll see how they fare.  All the lettuces look amazing and the peas are coming around nicely.  I was going to plant my beans, but every year I've wanted to coat them with inoculant to get a better harvest and I can never get my hands on any.  I've finally ordered it online so in a week or so I can get started on that.

We are almost ready for vacation!  It is going to be crazy fun and I can't wait.  The kids are so excited!!!  We are doing the whole Florida/beach/theme park vacation.  I love blogging, but this isn't my main blog.  If you are interested, my other site is www.homesteadblogger.com/zucchinimom.  I've got all kinds of stuff there, including recipes, all this fun vacation stuff, gardening, homesteading in the suburbs, etc.  I'd love to get to know more of you!  I hope you have a great weekend!!!

Gardening and kitchen revelations

We have had gale force winds around here and I didn't get much done over the weekend.  Finally, around dinner, the winds stopped, the sun shone, and I put in all my seeds into the ground.  Ahhhh.  I feel much better now. I'm particularly excited about my French pumpkins, affectionately called the Cinderella pumpkin.  They are an heirloom variety that the carriage in Cinderella was made from.  It's a large, flatter shaped pumpkin and looks just beautiful.  I'm crossing my fingers and praying for just one beauty this summer!!!

I also decided something...instead of pining away for an expensive Bosch mixer, an expensive grain mill, and a horde of hard grain, I decided to break out my bread machine and make dough so I can bake it in the oven. I think we often times get in a rut of "I have to have..." something in order to accomplish something.  Why not make dough and then bake it in the oven???  I finally dug the machine out of the small appliance cemetery in the garage and put it to work!!! It's been in the garage because with my family of six, one little bitty loaf of bread equates to one slice per person...not exactly worth my time and effort.

So I decided I was making rolls for my family and you know what, they turned out gorgeous and delicious!  No more feeling sorry for myself because I don't have the newest, most efficient fandangled gadgets out there.  I think back to the prairie women who did it all by hand and cared and nurtured for their families amazingly well with what little they had.  They are truly inspiring and help me when I'm not feeling like I'm homesteading very well.

I hope your homestead is running smoothly!  Dust off some of those small appliances and put them to work! You just may be surprised with what you turn out!!!