The Next Generation of Garden Pitfalls

Every year, despite my claim from the previous year that 'Next year will be different', our garden ventures seem to hit the same pitfalls. Actually, I can't really call them pitfalls as the the largest 'garden issues' are the result of grandchildren. Specifically the increase in the number of grandchildren we have. Let's see how the 2015 garden saga is playing out.

January(ish)
As usual, I started getting the 'itch' in early January. The Rare Seeds catalog arrived in the mail from the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. Even though I had a supply of seeds that I saved from last year's garden, along with seeds I had received from friends, I began perusing the catalog and their web site for new varieties I wanted to add to the gardens this year. I had plans to add a new garden area and was excited to expand the types of produce we would be harvesting this year.

Based on my notes from last year's garden, I knew I wanted to start my seeds earlier this year - both those I started indoors like tomatoes, peppers, and cabbage and those that started directly in the garden like beans, onions and carrots. Since our annual addition to our grandchildren was due in May I decided I better make up a timeline to make sure everything was in the garden before we headed to Kansas City in mid-May for the birth of grandbaby #5. My planting scheduled looked like this:

The Location for the Newest Garden
(aka the Bottom Garden)

Early March - begin start seeds indoors
Early April - have all indoor seeds started
Mid April - Prepare the new garden area (designated the Bottom Garden)  and start bringing in loads of garden mix soil for the new containers as well as the raised beds in the North Garden that did not get filled last year due to 2014 'garden pitfalls' (i.e. the birth of grandbaby #4). This will include moving the tires I used in the South Garden down to the new growing space and re-arranging the South Garden to include more containers for tomatoes as well as some additional pallet beds and wading pool beds. I plant my luffa gourds and squash in the tires and let them trellis on the feed lot panels that surround the garden. Since we recently moved the solar panels into the South Garden I need to make some changes to make sure no tall or vining plants will cast shade on the panels.

Hardening Off the Young Plants

Mid to Late April - 'Harden off' indoor plants by placing them outdoors several hours a day and direct sow remaining seeds in the various raised beds in the North Garden.
Early May - Transplant all indoor plants to gardens and set containers in wading pools as a watering system for while we are in Kansas City.

Well, that was the plan... I had it all scheduled out to work around the annual garden pitfall who was due to be born on May 16th. As the daughter who was this year's provider of the new grandchild tends to pop them out a week early, I also had plans to bump my garden schedule up a bit just in case we needed to make the trip the first week in May. I had this covered with a contingency plan. Well, that was the plan...

The First Load of Dirt for 2015

Mid-April
Everything is going as planned and we're even a bit ahead of schedule. The Bottom Garden has been cleared of rocks and small trees, the landscape fabric is covering the entire garden area and the feed lot panels are in place. Some of the plants that were ready  have been transplanted to the containers in the South Garden and we have brought in our first load of dirt for the year. I am anxious to finish out the Bottom Garden so this first 2 cubic yards of dirt is used to fill the containers, tires and raised beds in the Bottom Garden. Last year we learned that a pick-up load of dirt does not go as far as you think it will. It seems to be never ending as you shovel it into 5 gallon buckets and then lug said buckets into the garden and dump the contents into the various containers and beds, but after what seems to be hundreds of such trips, your truck bed is finally empty yet many of your new garden planters are still empty as well.

I am also experimenting with growing
ginger this year. I bought ginger root
at the grocery store and it is growing!

My thought process at this point is to transplant as many seedlings as I can so that none get left in their little starter beds should we need to leave earlier in May (the contingency plan). So, while we still need to get another load of dirt, if I am honest with myself I know it will be at least 2 more loads of dirt, to complete the Bottom Garden and finish out the North Garden from last year, I make the decision to hold off on bringing in another load until after I plant all I can with the load we just finished hauling. The dirt that was still needed was mostly for the direct sown seeds like beans and cow peas and I could plant them later on if need be, after the impending garden pitfall arrived. OK, more honesty, I was probably using that as an excuse so as not to have to move more dirt around for a few days.

I quickly filled all the available containers and beds with my transplanted seedlings. I still needed to fill some containers in the Bottom Garden to fit in the last of my starter plants so I started stealing dirt from the raised beds in the North Garden that I had used last years for beans and cow peas. Since bringing in more dirt for that garden was the next thing on my list, I would just re-fill those beds at the same time. Yes, I was procrastinating once more on going to get more dirt, but this was a quick solution to finish getting my plants into the ground.

Late-April
No more putting it off, time to go get another load of dirt. It's April 23rd and we have over three weeks before we head to Kansas City or maybe more like two weeks if this baby decides to follow in his brothers' footsteps and come a week early. We will go get more dirt today. Well, that was the plan...

Weyland Sage
(aka Garden Pitfall 2015)

That morning our daughter calls us from the hospital, the sonogram she had that morning showed there was not enough amniotic fluid around the baby and the doctor said they would be inducing labor immediately as the baby was at risk.We quickly pack and leave the garden to fend for itself.

Baby Weyland was born a preemie, one day short of what is considered full term, but all was well. We stayed in Kansas City for a week or so and then it was time to head back home to see what was left of the garden. We were pleasantly surprised to find everything had survived , we were thankful that there had been enough rain while we were gone to keep everything watered.

Early-May
With the annual garden pitfall's safe arrival, we can now get back on track with our garden plans. The advantage of the early arrival is that we are back to the property earlier than expected. In fact, we arrive back home about the time my schedule shows us heading to Kansas City. Now, to get that second load of dirt and fill up all the raised beds in the North Garden. Well, after the rain stops, we didn't want to haul and shovel mud....

Mid-May
Well, after the rain stops....

Late-May
Well, after the rain stops....
You can refer to my last blog post, Better Build an Arky-Arky to read about our unprecedented rainy season this spring. Oh, and we also had an unexpected trip in May. One Sunday morning in May we get a call from our oldest grandson in Kansas City - big brother to Baby Weyland. I answer the phone to hear Zeke's plea of "Grandma, we need help!". It turns out that Weyland was not allowing Mom & Dad to get any sleep and they decided it was time to call in some reinforcements - Hammy & Poppa could watch the two older brothers so that Mama could catch some sleep during the day when Weyland was asleep, then she could get up at night more and give Daddy a chance to get more sleep as well. The plan worked great and we got to spend another week playing with the grandsons - always a treat.

The candy roaster squash starting to
trellis on the feed lot panel.

Early-June
We return to the property, but it is still raining. At this point, I start rethinking my plans for the North Garden. What had been my 'showcase' garden last year was now my dilapidated after-thought of unused beds, beds that had their dirt stolen from them and a few beds with odds and ends planted in them - plants that had still needed a home after I ran out of room in the South and Bottom Gardens.

I told myself that the Bottom Garden was a great success, that it and the South Garden were well stocked, and I managed to convince myself to let the North Garden languish this year, to not plant the seeds I had planned for these beds, to wait until fall to get more dirt. In a month we would be heading to Kentucky to help our daughter with her annual sales event and then heading from Kentucky straight back to Kansas City to watch the two oldest grandsons for a week. That, along with the fact it was still raining and getting very hot made it easier to decide to abandon some of garden plans this year.

Instead I focused on the two gardens that were flourishing. Knowing we would be gone for two weeks in July, I kept up with the weeding and fed everyone healthy doses of the worm juice my worm farm has been producing.

One of the wading pools set up
to keep some of the containers watered.

Mid July
Once again we must prepare the gardens for our absence. As I was putting our smallest planters into the wading pools for self-watering I had an idea on how to do something similar with my larger planters. With the wading pools, I place an inch or so of water in them and then set my smaller pots in the pools. Besides the water I pumped in, the pools will also collect any rain water while we are gone.

I had been picking up gardening supplies on clearance to set aside for next year's planting - seed starter flats, potting soil, etc. One of the items I bought were a dozen or so very large planters for $5 each. When I realized these new planters did not have any drain holes yet, I decided to use them like the wading pools. I placed my large containers which hold tomato plants into the even larger clearance planters, thus creating a reservoir for watering my larger plants while we were gone as well.

The dill did not survive, but the
Honeydew Sage is making a come-back

Late July
As we returned home from our two weeks of 'vacation', I was anxious to see the state of our gardens. Would anything be ready to harvest? When we had left there had been small green tomatoes. Would anything have died? We have been having a heat wave this summer.

As we pulled up our driveway I saw bright red tomatoes hanging in the Bottom Garden. As soon as the truck stopped, I hopped out and did my rounds to all the gardens and was pleased with the state of almost everything. A few of the herbs had died, along with my cabbages, which I have yet to successfully grow to completion. The three types of ground berries I had planted were also in a pitiful state, but that was because I thought I would give them a head start by starting them indoors only to later learn that they do not transplant well. It is best to just scatter their seeds directly on the soil. We will try those again next year, item one to order from Baker Seeds next January.

The South Garden on our return

On the bright side, I had over a dozen tomatoes ready to be picked and only one that was over-ripe as well as some huge candy roaster squash that should be ripe in a few weeks. I have since picked another 2 to 3 dozen tomatoes and am in the process of cooking down and canning tomato soup. So far, these have all been my German Strawberry tomatoes, that Amish Paste tomatoes are just starting to ripen now.

So, in conclusion of this garden saga, I would say this has been the best garden season yet in our Ozarks adventure. The season is not over, the harvest is just beginning, but the next generation of garden pitfalls did not wreak havoc despite his early arrival. On second thought, maybe I should change the title to "Garden Pitfalls - The Growing Generation". I wonder if there will be another new little garden pitfall next year?

The Growing Generation of  Annual Garden Pitfalls
From Left to Right: 2014 (Connor), 2012 (Hanna), 2015 (Weyland), 2011 (Ezekiel) and 2013 (Ellison)

Better Build an Arky-Arky

About 15 feet to the north of our house.
There is no stream here, this waterfall was just
from run-off down the hillside.

This entry is more photo journal than blog. We wanted to share some photos of what our spring has looked like this year. While we are not in the same boat as Texas, we have had a lot of rain this spring. I was doing some checking online and in the month of May we had 21 days with rain and the total for the month was just over 13 inches. I checked and the average rainfall in May is 6 inches.

The year we moved to the property was a drought year, as we explored the area we saw lots of dry creek beds and gulches, in fact there were some areas we didn't even know occasionally had flowing water until the following February when we first experienced spring rains in the mountains.

With all the rock and clay comprising steep slopes down into valleys, lots of rain means lots of run-off. With the huge rainfall totals this past month, the ground quickly became saturated and then everything falling from the skies became run-off. By the last week of May we were having 'Flash Flood' alerts pop up on our phones multiple time a day.

While our place is never threatened by flooding, we do occasionally  get a 'seasonal' stream running down the mountain on the south side of the house. There is a small rocky ravine that water funnels into there. This year we had a rather impressive waterfall just north of the house where there is no seasonal stream. These pictures show the run-off coming down the hillside.

This is a close up of a section of that run-off waterfall. The reddish wood is our deck rail. There is not even a seasonal stream on this side of the house

I use this pallet at a low section of the path that goes to the north garden. It spans a small dip that fills with damp leaves in the fall.

Fording the run-off as it crosses
the north end of our driveway

We decided to drive a longer route into town one day to view some flooding along the north end of our road. There is a stream that meanders along the length of our road and if we head north the road does not climb out of the valley as it does when we take our usual southern route. We had taken a walk heading north and saw a lot of wash-out damage and that is what prompted us to drive the north and circle around into town. Most of the pictures of flooding are from that drive.

A neighbors driveway with the flooded stream flowing over it.	We had to ford this as we drove north on our road.
This was our road when we headed south. (Our usual route into town)	The stream that is usually a trickle meandering alongside our road.
Once we reached town, we stopped at a riverside park. The river, along the rock cliff is usually not visible from here as the bank drops off from the grass.	This is a three foot high concrete weir that is dry all summer and has a trickle going over it the rest of the year. You can see a tree stuck on it.

The rain was coming down too fast for the water
to drain out of the various container gardens.
My pools of onions looked like rice paddies.

All this rain has also wreaked havoc on our gardens as well. The raised beds drain fairly well, but all the containers I use in the south garden were flooded multiple times this spring. All my containers have holes for drainage, and they all worked well last year. However, with the huge downpours we had last month, the drainage holes could not keep up with the rate the rain filling the pots. I even went out in a middle of a downpour to drill holes above the dirt line of the wading pools and various containers to help drain the standing water.

This cat, that lives up the road from us,
decided to head for higher ground.

The good new is that we have had no rain in June (yet). We no longer have a waterfall rushing down the side of the hill or standing water in the gardens. The bad news is my gardens already need watered! The raised beds, buckets and pots I fill with garden dirt drain and dry out much more quickly than if I could actually plant in the ground which means that even with a month of flooding, after three rainless days I have to go out and water the gardens .

If You Do What You Love, You'll Never Work A Day In Your Life

Reggie, our wood burner , is a real multi-tasker
 with his chore list. Here you can see him 
(1) heating the house, (2) humidifying the air, 
(3) heating rocks to warm our worms, 
(4) raising two loaves of sourdough bread and
(5) keeping our seed beds warm for germination.

Several people have asked how we manage both our homesteading work and our real work - that which provides our income. We have also been asked how our day-to-day life has change over the last 3 years, that is, how things have evolved since we first moved to the property three years ago. Yes, it has been three years.

Back in May 2012, Alan wrote a guest post describing a typical day on the property. It was fun to read back through that and reminisce about the good old days when we first jumped off the grid.

But, for those who are curious, this post will give you an idea of what a typical day is like now.

The first thing I realized when thinking about how to start this entry is that there really isn't a typical day. There are however daily chores, semi-weekly chores, weekly chores, monthly chores, etc. and all of these can vary from season to season. So, I think the best way to paint a picture of our current off-grid-life activities is to use a list of various chores that fill our days. I will be focusing on the off-grid centric chores - those that pertain only to this lifestyle, and also those common daily chores that we now do in a different manner since we have unplugged from 'normal' society.

Daily Chores
Water - Our water now comes totally from our rain catchment system. If you have been following our adventure from the start, you may recall that we started by filling water jugs at a car wash half an hour away. Then we learned of a spring 20 minutes away, so we started driving there to fill an 275 gallon IBC tank we kept in the back of our large pick-up. We have not made that trip now in almost two years. We also used to manually pull water out of our well by lowering a special bucket (torpedo bucket) down the narrow well pipe to the water 120 feet below. We have not done this in over 1 1/2 years. Both of these options are still available to us if we find ourselves in a drought that depletes our rain water supplies.

Using the Sawyer Filter for our
potable water supply.

We currently collect water off three sections of our roof. A tank outside the utility room, a tank outside the bathroom and a tank under the deck on the north side of the house that is only used for the North garden. Each of these tanks holds about 275 gallons, and we also have one additional reserve tank behind the house that is not connected into the collection system. When our catchment tanks are full and there is more rain in the forecast, we transfer water into this fourth tank from the utility room IBC, it acts as an extra holding tank to use during dry periods. We have also installed a 55 gallon holding tank inside the house to be used whenever the water lines freeze in the winter.

Our water system for the kitchen, which is behind this wall.

Our daily water chore is the filtering of our collected water to maintain our potable supply. We chlorinate the collection tanks and use a whole-house coarse type filter as we pump water from the tank outside the utility room, but for potable (safe drinking) water we run water through our Sawyer water filter. In the past we stored our potable water in marked 2 1/2 gallon bottles in the utility room that we would then use for cooking, washing dishes and drinking. This winter we installed a small water system for the kitchen. We now put the potable water into a 15 gallon holding tank that is connected to a pump and a water heater. This system now pumps potable water (both hot and cold!) to the kitchen sink. No more carrying all our water into the kitchen and heating it on the stove to wash dishes. The hot and cold water comes right out of the spigots - image that!

The tubs in the sink basins cut down
on the volume of water we use.

Washing Dishes - I wasn't going to include this daily chore in the off-grid list now that we have hot and cold running water in the kitchen, but there are still off-griddy elements to washing the dishes. We still place plastic tubs inside the sink basins. These tubs are a couple of inches narrower than the sink basins in both directions and thus we need less water to fill them compared to filling the sink itself. We also make sure we don't just keep the water running to rinse off dishes. One of the basins holds a tub of hot soapy water and the other holds a tub that starts out empty. We place the washed dishes in the empty tub. Once there are a few dishes waiting to be rinsed we turn on the water, rinse the dishes and collect the rinse water in the tub. As the rinse water accumulates we can use it on subsequent dishes without running more water out of the kitchen tank.

The thought we put into conserving our water supply comes as second nature to us now, in fact when I am back on-grid I find it now feels very decadent to keep the water running while brushing my teeth. We recently read an article about water usage that stated the average person uses 60 gallons per day for all their water needs (drinking, cooking, washing, laundry, toilet, shower etc.). So we added up our water usage for a month and divided by 30 days, and came up with 16 gallons per day!

Power- Our solar system really doesn't have any daily maintenance requirements, however we do find ourselves monitoring our power supply on a daily basis - seeing if the batteries are fully charged, how much power we are currently using, etc. On sunny days, the batteries are usually fully charged before noon and the system goes into float mode - basically topping off the batteries and throwing away a lot of power. At that point we try to work on projects that will use up some of that excess power. I will run my dehydrator, which is a power hog and only gets used on sunny days, we will fully charge computers, phones, rechargeable batteries etc. and also work on projects requiring power tools.

A few months ago we upgraded our charge controller with the addition of a unit called the 'Whiz-Bang Junior'. The charge controller is a black box that is connected into our system between the solar panels and the batteries, it's job is basically to regulate the amount of power the solar panels are dumping into the batteries. The Whiz-Bang Junior provides more options to control and fine tune the feeding of the batteries. Alan has an interface on his phone that connects via the Internet into the charge controller, so even when we are not at home we can check on how the batteries are charging.

Work Work - We tend to refer to our professional jobs as 'work-work', as in "Do you have any work-work you need to get done today?" Both Alan and I have computer related jobs that we work from home. On a daily basis we have the normal day to day business correspondence along with writing computer code for whatever project(s) we are currently working on. Sometimes this work can take up our entire day except for what we absolutely have to get done on the property, while at other times we may be in between projects and just check our email several times throughout the day to make sure nothing has popped up that needs to be handled. The unpredictability of our work-work schedules leads us to strive to keep everything else in our life as flexible as possible. That way, if it ends up one of us needs to put 12-18 hour days in on a coding project we can do so without feeling like the rest of our world is falling apart.

Seasonal Daily Chores - From October through March carrying in fire wood is a daily chore. Our deck stretches the length of our house and is about 5 feet off the ground. We stack our supply of  firewood under the edge of the deck. Our daily routine is that Alan will go down to the stacked wood and  place the supply for the day up on the deck. I will then carry it into the house and stack it by Reggie, the wood burning stove. Another daily chore during this time period is sweeping up around our indoor wood stack and around the wood burner.

I start many of our garden plants indoors and until
it is warm enough for them to go outside they
sunbathe in our one south-facing window.

Mid-February to mid-April is seedling time, step one in the garden preps. In January I start looking through seed catalogs and planning our garden. The first part of  February I start making a list of all the seeds we have saved from last year and new varieties we have purchased. Then I determine which seeds need to be started indoors so that they are ready to go into ground as healthy young plants after the last frost. Once various seeds are started indoors, the daily chores begin of watering, moving them around so they all get some sun throughout the day, and transplanting them to larger containers as they grow.

I am expanding my gardens yet again this year and I have started way more seeds than in past years, it has been a busy daily process of trying to keep everyone happy, especially when it is too cold, too rainy or too windy to set the baby plants out to get more sun. We only have one south facing window in the house so I crowd all the flats around my kitchen window when I can't put them outside. All the gardening books state that seeds and young plants need to be started under grow-lights, but that is not an option when living off-grid. Therefore, I tend to move my flats around a lot on a daily basis - either shuttling them all outside if it is warm and calm enough and then bringing them all back in at night, or finding the sunniest places in the house and giving them all a turn to bask in the sun coming through the windows.

From April through September the daily garden chores move outside. Watering is almost a daily occurrence, except for days when we get rain. The raised beds help cut down on the amount of weeding that needs done. Most days also include some other type of puttering around in the garden - building supports, staking tomatoes, checking for pests, and then from June through October harvesting whatever is ready.

Semi-Weekly & Weekly Chores

You can see samples of my sourdough bread in the upper left.
This array of sourdough goodies was in preparation for a talk
I gave on sourdough.

Baking Bread- Sourdough bread has now become a staple at our house. The recipe I use makes two loaves and this will last us 5 or 6 days. In the winter the bread will keep in the bread box for this long as sourdough keeps longer than yeast breads. But, as the weather has started to get warmer, I keep the second loaf in the fridge until we are ready for it. We often have sourdough toast for breakfast using a stove top toaster. And I have learned that if I ask Alan what he would like for lunch the answer will most likely be grilled cheese on sourdough.

Feeding Hooch- While doing some research on sourdough for a talk I was giving, I discovered that many people name their sourdough starter. I then named mine Hooch because that is what the liquid is called that forms on top of the sourdough starter in between uses. The longer the sourdough sits between feedings the more hooch is generated. And yes, the hooch is basically alcohol, but not drinkable. Some people pour the hooch off, but it is perfectly safe to stir the hooch back in at the next feeding, I think it helps add 'tang' to the sourdough products. I feed my sourdough every time I use it, and since I make multiple sourdough items each week Hooch gets fed often enough through use. If, however, you do not use you sourdough on a weekly basis, you still need to feed it regularly as it is a living entity. Hooch's meal consists of equal parts of water and flour. These measurements should be by weight but I am not a stickler for accuracy. Since water weighs more than flour by volume, I simply add a bit more flour than I do water and Hooch has been perfectly happy with this diet for about three years now.

Laundry- Depending on our current water supply, I will do between 1 to 3 loads of laundry per week. Laundry is actually one of the more time and energy consuming chores, no just dumping a load in the washer and walking away. Here are the steps to complete a load of laundry:
1. Grate part of a bar of Fels Naptha into the laundry and add some Borax.
2. Use the hose in the utility room to add about 3-4 gallons of water to the tub.
3. Let water sit in the tub to dissolve the soap, then add clothes. (A load consists of 5-6 shirts or the equivalent in volume)
4. Use the washing plunger to agitate the clothes to make sure they are all thoroughly wet and then let soak for an hour or so. 'Or so' can be up to a day or two if I forget about them.
5. Use the washing plunger in earnest for about 150-200 strokes depending on how energetic I am feeling.
6. Remove clothes to a 5 gallon bucket and then run them all through the hand crank wringer that is attached to the utility tub.
7. Use the utility tub hose to rinse off the wrung out clothes while dropping them back into the 5 gallon bucket.
8. Run the rinsed clothes back through the hand crank wringer.
9. Hang the clothes out to dry.
10. Bring in the dry clothes and enjoy how good they smell.

Feeding the Worms - The worm farm survived the winter and the population is once again increasing. The worms are our composters and they produce worm juice to fertilize our gardens. I have two 'scrap buckets' (5 quart plastic ice cream pails) on our kitchen counter, one for the worms and one for the crows. Everything suitable for the worms goes into their bucket, everything else goes into the 'crow bucket'. Every few days I take the worm bucket down to their farm, dig a hole in their dirt and dump in the bucket contents for them to chow down on. On a side note, the crow bucket contains kitchen scraps that are not good for the worms such as bones and old bread. This bucket is dumped out in a designated area of the yard where the crows congregate during the day and raccoons and armadillo wander through at night.

Monthly Chores

Our  eight 6V golf cart batteries. Four series banks

of two batteries each connected in parallel.

(Each 2 batteries in series creates 12V and then these 4 pairs

are connected in parallel for storing our power.)

Battery Maintenance- The storage batteries in our solar system need to have their water levels checked regularly and the water levels need to be 'topped off' at this time. Our batteries are in a Rubbermaid storage cabinet in our utility room. We have 8 golf cart batteries that are lined up on two shelves in the cabinet. This used to be a two person job involving funnels, rubber tubing, a flashlight, dental mirror and distilled water. It was quite awkward checking the vent caps on each battery, especially on the upper level of batteries

However, Alan had a great idea on improving the process that has now simplified it to a one-person job by using a hand-pumped sprayer with a long modified nozzle for adding the water to the batteries.

Sanitize the Water Storage Tanks- This chore isn't exactly monthly, but is more dependent on when we have rainfall. Whenever we get new water in our collection tanks we treat them with chlorine. The tanks sometimes get treated in between rainfalls as well if there has been a long dry spell since the last rain. We do NOT use bleach.

Canning & Vaccu-canning - Again, these chores are not exactly monthly but are dependent on when there are sales on meats or dry goods, when we get low on some of our favorite canned items, and when we have enough produce for a batch of canning. I would say that on average I can once or twice a month and vaccu-can every couple of months.

Our home built Vacuu-Canner!

I know I have talked about my canning before, but I can't recall if I shared how we vaccu-can other food items. Vaccu-canning is a way to preserve our dry goods for a longer shelf life. This is especially helpful in the summer since no air-conditioning and a humid climate can cause little critters to appear in flour, etc. We saw a vaccu-canner at a self-reliance expo and knew we wanted one but we didn't have spare cash for the $420 price tag. So, Alan did some research and built one for us. Basically he converted a pressure canner to be the vessel to hold the jars to be vacuum sealed. By modifying the lid, a vacuum pump can be attached to suck the air out of the canner and thus the jars of dry goods are vacuum sealed.

Seasonal Chores
Applying Tick Repellent- By now, anyone who reads this blog knows my aversion to ticks as well as the abundance of them on our property. The first summer, we used a granular product that is spread over the ground and this worked quite well. However, since then, with our more abundant water supply and pressurized outdoor hoses, we have switched to applying a permethrin solution that is diluted and dispersed through a sprayer on a hose. We have hoses at both the north and south end of the house that utilize our water tanks and 12 volt pumps powered by the solar system. With these two hoses we can cover all the gardens and 'yard' with the tick repellent and one application in the spring lasts the entire season.

Preparing the Garden for Winter- Our growing season ends in either late October or early November with the first frost. After that, I remove all the plants from raised beds and container gardens. This year I also plan on keeping up with fall leaf removal from around the raised beds. I did not do that this year and has a lot of piles of wet, deteriorating leaves in the rows between the beds. I am also planning to dose the garden areas with worm juice throughout the winter to replenish the depleted soil.

We can adjust the angle of our solar panels seasonally.

Adjusting the Solar Panels- In summer and fall we need to adjust the angle of the solar panel to better line up with the sun. For the Harbor Freight panels on the deck, Alan screwed decking screws part way into the deck to act as 'stoppers' to hold the panels at the correct angle. For the Grape Solar panels, the frame Alan built to hold them is attached to the deck rail and is hinged so that the angle of the frame can be changed by adjusting the position of the concrete blocks that the frame rests on.

Dehydrating- This activity is not necessarily seasonal, but is again dependent on when I have abundant supplies of produce. I have ideas for a solar dehydrator that we hope can get built this summer. Until then, whenever I have stuff to dehydrate, I start off by using my oven with just the heat from the pilot light as a dehydrator, and then finish off the batch with 2 to 3 hours in my electric dehydrator. On sunny days, I can run this dehydrator off the solar system and still have excess power going into the batteries. As Alan claims to be chlorophyll intolerant, he does not eat a lot of the garden produce 'as is'. However he will eat the vegetables I add to soups and stews, as long as they are not overly-abundant. I have also started making various vegetable powders by dehydrating them and then running them through my mini food processor. This year, after I harvest my tomatoes, I want to experiment with making tomato soup from my tomato powder.

Well, that is all the basic off-grid chores I can think of for now. I am sure there are some I missed as well as new chores just around the corner.

Okay, That's a Bit.... Weird

What could Alan be concocting here, you ask?

Keep reading.

I have had several topics I wanted to blog about, but was trying to figure out how to write them in a manner that would not make those who know us think we have 'turned the bend'. Now it is not as ominous as that sounds, it's just that we are not the typical type of people you think of when you think of self-reliant living, or are we?

Over twenty years ago, when we started homeschooling our children, we soon discovered we did not fit the norm of what most people thought of when they thought of homeschoolers. If using a term from today's vernacular - we would have probably been called 'edgy' homeschoolers and the same probably goes for our pursuit of self-reliance.

Just as we discovered that people chose to homeschool for many different reasons, we even had an acquaintance who home schooled strictly for feminist reasons - to teach her daughter from that viewpoint, so have we discovered our self-reliant peers also chose this lifestyle for a number of different reasons. Some of the reasons that fall farthest from our shared views include:

What is Arn concocting here, you ask?
Its not compost - Keep reading.

1.Increasing health and wellness - think keywords: organic, homeopathic, nutrition, GMO, Monsanto, crunchie-moms

2. Building community strength - keywords: being neighborly, working together, commune

3. Restoring balance - keywords: back to nature, conservation, tree-huggers

So, based on my keywords to describe these various concepts in the world of those striving for self-reliance, I have been reluctant to share some of our experiments/research which slip into a dalliance with these trains of thought. That is, I don't want readers to think we live 'that type' of self reliance. However, as we jumped with both feet into our new life, we did so with lots of research which led us down many paths, some of which were out of our comfort zone but we were willing to admit showed some merit and thus deserved further study.

By this time, you are probably thinking "Oh, no! what have they gotten themselves into." Maybe I shouldn't have used such an extended build up, it's really not that crazy, but then you can be the judge....

A Cup A Day ... Bone Broth
This healthy addition to our lives did not come from self-reliant discussions or research, but from our daughter. She wrote a blog on the benefits of bone broth and one item on the list was that it helped relieve joint pain. Alan has had pain in his knees for several years, and I had recently noticed I was having some pain when sitting down and standing up, especially from chairs that were lower to the ground.

The trick to good bone broth - add a bit of vinegar
to draw the nutrients from the bones.

So, after reading Eryn's blog I decided to cook up a batch of bone broth. What is the difference between bone broth and regular old chicken broth you ask? Bone broth is made by taking an extra effort to draw minerals and nutrients from the bones being used to make the broth. This is done by simmering the bones for a long period of time and also by adding a small amount of apple cider vinegar to the stock pot.

Alan and I often enjoy a 'hot beverage' before bedtime, usually tea, but we started having a nightly cup of bone broth instead. The broth is delicious and satisfying, so even if it it did not help our aching joints, we were still enjoying a nightly treat. After just three days, I noticed my knees were not hurting as they had been. I did not say anything to Alan because I did not want to skew our experiment by planting any suggestions in his mind, yet that same night he mentioned that he was noticing improvement also. Further proof of the benefits is that we could feel the negative difference when were are away from home for several days and not having our nightly dose of bone broth.

Right after Thanksgiving, I was able to buy several turkeys at 50 cents a pound so I made quite a few gallons of turkey bone broth and canned it. We also enjoyed many cups of it 'fresh' as I set some aside for our daily use while I was canning it. It turns out that the turkey version is even tastier than the chicken.

A Silver Lining ... Colloidal Silver

Welcome to the science lab.

Anyone who has known us for a while, knows we are not proponents of natural healing, tinctures, herbal remedies, essential oils, etc, That being said, in some of our many areas of research we came across articles on colloidal silver as an anti-bacterial supplement. We originally lumped this in with all the items I listed above, but Alan remembered several items regarding silver being used for medicinal purposes, and it was enough to consider some additional research:
- Doctors have been putting silver nitrate drops in newborn babies' eyes for years
- Some keyboards now come with keys impregnated with silver and are marketed to office situations where many people may be touching the same keyboard on a daily basis
- Some brands of bandages (Band-Aid, Curad, etc.) now have a silver impregnated version of their products.

Time to make another batch

That being said, Alan did much research before deciding to make a batch of colloidal silver. Colloidal silver is a water that has microscopic particles of silver suspended in it, colloidal means 'particles in suspension'. The particles are so small, they stay suspended and do not sink to the bottom of the container.

We have been taking a very low dose of colloidal silver every morning, and though I am not yet ready to say there is a definite benefit, I have noticed some interesting 'coincidences'. For example, during our annual Turkey Palooza week with extended family, the household came down with a very nasty stomach bug. It generally lasted for 12 hours, longer for some, and was very unpleasant - let's just say it was a good thing the house we rented had a washer and dryer.

There were 13 of us staying at the house and one by one everyone was hit by the bug. That is everyone except me. And, Alan was one of the last to get it and he did not have any 'stomach issues' he just slept it off for an entire day.

Many of our friends we gather with throughout the month have all been sick this winter, many with this nasty flu going around. Yet neither Alan nor myself have had a single sick day yet this season.

The colloidal silver also seems to help wounds to heal more quickly when applied topically. Ever since my recluse spider bite, I periodically get small sores, somewhat like water blisters around the area of the bite. The last few times this occurred, I have swabbed the area with the colloidal silver solution and the sores have healed more quickly than in the past.

It is also beneficial in the garden...

Alan has spent hours looking at methods of creating the colloidal silver, learning of many scams on the market, and even learning of some electronic components he didn't know existed (constant current diodes for example). He now has a rig that uses silver bars, measures and holds a constant current (1 ma), and has a motor driven agitator). It takes him about 2 days to make a quart batch of 10 ppm (parts per million) solution.

A Garden Tonic ... Worm Juice

Bag-O-Worms

The first two items I mentioned have been digestible items. Please note that this next one is not to be ingested! Some of my garden research has led to discussions on the benefit of having a worm farm. Vermicomposting is the term for using worms to do your composting, and to do this you create a worm farm.

Many worm farmers harvest the castings to either use directly in the garden or to generate worm tea through a process of soaking and aerating the castings in a container of water. What are worm casting, you ask? The definition is "a convoluted mass of soil, mud, or sand thrown up by an worm on the surface after passing through the worm's body", aka worm pooh. Rather than going to the work to collect the castings and generating the worm tea, I have gone with a simple approach. I collect worm juice. What is worm juice, you ask? It is actually leachate which is the liquid run off that settles below the vermicompost or worm castings, aka worm pee.

So this past summer, we constructed our worm farm and placed an order for our worms. We decided to re-purpose Alan's 'hot tub' we had set up on our deck the previous summer to become the home for our worms. This is a 100 gallon watering trough made out of black Rubbermade material. It had originally been purchased as our first rainwater catchment container to provide water for our toilet, it then became Alan's soaking tub when we upgraded our bathroom water system, and now it is home to a legion of worms.

The bottom of the tub with the nozzle and bottle attached.

Since we wanted to drain the worm juice from the worm bin, Alan drilled a drain hole in the bottom of the tank and attached a bulkhead adapter that we could screw a 2 liter soda bottle onto (the soda bottle adapter is actually a 'vortex' connector sold in hobby shops to make 'tornadoes' in science class). We then placed the worm bin on concrete blocks so that it would be far enough off the ground so that we could switch out the collecting bottles as they filled. We made sure to have the bin sit at a slight angle with the drain hole at the low end so the juice would run off into the bottles.

The completed worm farm.

Next came the layering of materials within the worm bin. First was a layer of rocks to allow for a more open space at the bottom of the bin. We then placed a layer of landscaping fabric on top of the rocks so that the dirt and compost would not work its way through the rock layer and clog the drain hole. Next was a layer of shredded cardboard, then dirt intermixed with dead leaves and more cardboard. The final layer is a large piece of cardboard that covers the surface and then there is also a lid that we clamp on top of the container. The lid was to keep any predators out, but I have also discovered it is needed to keep straying worms inside, some seem to have the desire to leave home and head out on adventures. Now we were ready for our worms.

Move-in day for the worms.

We had ordered 2000 Red Wigglers from Uncle Jim's Worm Farm. Your typical earthworms are not good composters. The worms were shipped by priority mail and arrived healthy in their very own personalized bag. No, we did not count them to verify that we received 2000 of them. We dumped our worms into their new home, gave them some fresh produce to compost and waited for the worm pee to start flowing. And waited... and waited.

I was just about ready to check Amazon (or possibly petmeds.com) for 'worm diuretics' when we finally started to see leachate draining into the soda bottle. Realize that the liquids had to soak down through the materials in the worm bin and collect enough to fill the end of the tank up to the to lip of the drain hole before we started seeing any production, thus the reason for the wait. But, during this time, the worms were very busy. Each time I take compost out to add to the worm bin, I dig a hole in the current dirt and compost to bury the new food. In doing so, I unearth some of the residents so I am able to check on them at the same time. By the end of summer, I was seeing many baby worms in the bin, so our stock is multiplying.

Reggie, the wood stove, also provides heat
for our worm farm (indirectly).

As winter approached, I started worrying that the worms may freeze. This would not really be a disaster as all the worm eggs in the bin would survive and hatch out this spring, but try telling that to the current worm population! So, the worms and I came up with a plan, whenever the temperature was below freezing for more than a night, that is not getting above freezing during the day, I would place a galvanized bucket full of rocks on our wood burner. I would then take the heated rocks out to the worm bin and lay them on the top layer of cardboard to help keep the dirt underneath thawed. I have two sets of rocks so I can swap them out and have one set heating while the other set is warming the bin. So far this has been a success, dirt around the walls of the bin has frozen, but the worms have survived by staying in the center of the tub.

I now have several bottles of worm juice that I plan to use as I prepare my garden this year. I will share more details on that in another blog post. By the way, I've learned that worm juice like we are collecting sells for $60 to $120 per gallon!

What Else May Be on the Horizon?
What are some of my current areas of research, you ask? I have read some interesting articles on Honey, Ginger, Cinnamon, Nuts and Vinegar. And hey, even if none of these pan out as actually being beneficial , they will still make some very tasty snacks.

Winter Hibernation..... Yeah, Right!

As I harvested the last of our green tomatoes the day before our first frost in early November, I was thinking of all the time I would have in the next few months to work on crafts and hobbies - like crocheting, jigsaw puzzles and some new sewing projects I would like to get started on. I told myself that once our annual week of 'Turkey Palooza' was over, Alan and I would settle down for a few months of semi-hibernation. Outdoor projects would come to an end, except for carrying in wood, and we would spend our days and evenings snuggled in front of Reggie, our wood burning stove. And, with the ceiling fan we installed this summer, we were anticipating much more comfortable temperatures during those coldest days of winter.

Well, upon returning from yet another exciting, hilarious and heartwarming Turkey Palooza week with our kids, grandkids and my parents we soon had a list of projects that dispelled our vision of the lazy days we thought were before us. I am a list person, so here we go...

While I work at clearing my various containers
out of the south garden....

1. Adjustments to Our Solar System
Yes, after our last upgrades I had written that our solar system was now complete, but we ran into a bit of a hiccup. You may recall we had added in more of the Grape solar panels and we now have four of them that we arranged in a 2 by 2 grid that are positioned on a frame that angles from our south deck railing down to the ground. Well, as the winter sun dipped lower in the sky, we discovered that the tool shed we have to the south of the house was casting shadows on the newly added lower panels.

... Alan reinforces the frame that now holds
four Grape solar panels

We decided we had two options to increase the efficiency of our panels - move the shed or move the panels. After a bit of discussion, I convinced Alan that I did not mind tearing apart my container garden (currently to the east of the panels) so that we could slide the solar panel frames over to ensure that the shadows are no longer cast on the lower two panels. Plus, we would be able to reinforce the frames at the same time as they had added a bit of sag since we doubled up the weight on each of the frames when we added the new panels.

I emptied all the large planters, moved my tires and manhandled my pallets that had been leaning against the deck to make room for the repositioning of the frames. In the mean time we ordered in the extra cable needed to reach from the new location to the electrical panel, and Alan worked on adding metal supports to strengthen the frames.

Our grid of the Grape solar panels is now devoid of shadows (until the sun dips behind the tree tops to the west each day) and I have a start on redesigning and expanding my container garden for next spring.

Our transplanted solar panels.
You can see we are also still using our original
18 Harbor Freight panels up on the deck.

2. Can't Waste a Bargain - So I Am Still In A Canning Frenzy
We have several 'staples' in our canning pantry that I try not to run out of. For example, when ground beef was on sale earlier this fall, I spent several days canning many pints of ground beef as well as a variety of meals and entrees in jars. One item I use a lot are 'Lil Sizzler' breakfast sausages. These sausages have no casing and work well for canning. I can fit six in a half-pint jar which is a perfect serving for Alan and I for breakfast and we enjoy them with both sourdough pancakes and french toast, so we have them on a regular basis.

Boxes from my first batch of  'Lil Sizzlers'

I first started canning these sausages over two years ago when a store in the nearest town had them on sale for 99 cents a package. They are normally $2.29 per 12 ounce package which contains 12 sausages. For about 18 months, the sale price would occur every so often and I was able to keep them in stock in our pantry. Then last spring, or early summer, I ran out.

Since that time, there have been no sales... It appeared that inflation had got to the 'Lil Sizzlers'. Then right after Thanksgiving we made a trek into town, and saw there was a sale! Not 99 cents like the old days, but 2 packages for $3.00. I quickly grabbed all they had in the freezer section. I didn't managed to get enough to have a 'canner-full' but I had some other meats to can so I was happy - when I only have a partial canner load I feel like I am wasting propane.

I used a very large stock pot to make large batches of
bone broth as I simmered each turkey. Then I canned
turkey meat, turkey soup and nutritious bone broth.

There is a Wal-Mart in the nearest big town about 45 minutes away, and I had to pay them a visit to stock up on canning jar lids. While there, I found turkeys on sale for 50 cents a pound. I couldn't pass that up, and Alan talked me into getting three large turkeys. They were frozen solid and could sit in the bottom of our fridge for several days thawing, so I could can them after I finished the sausage. Plus they would act like three large blocks of ice in the fridge and thus save on some of our solar power that runs the fridge.

Just a small portion of the over 400 sausages
I browned off for canning.

A few days later, I check the online sales ad for that grocery store with the 'Lil Sizzlers', and discovered that while the week prior they were on sale for $1.50 a package, now they are once again on sale and this time for 99 cents a package. It's too good of a deal to pass up, so the next time we are in town we stop to pick up some more. I am disappointed that the store's freezer shelf is bare, so I ask an employee and he says he has plenty in the back and how many would we like. We end up with two more cases (24 packages) which is another TWO canner loads. All told I canned 444 'Lil Sizzlers'!

So between sausages and turkeys the pressure canner has been very busy. Oh, and did I mention we also picked up a 50 pound bag of potatoes for $10. I like to keep canned potatoes on hand for quick meal preps.

3. All This Canning Led to Expanding.... Pantry Shelves

The cabinets in my kitchen island
were the first location for my canning pantry.

I originally stored all of our home canned goods in the cabinet area of our kitchen island. But, as the majority of our meals started coming from our canning pantry, we had to find more room for our growing supply of home canned goodness. Thus our third bedroom became our pantry.

When we moved in, our second bedroom was decorated as our guest room, but the third bedroom had become a catch all for projects and 'stuff' that we hadn't found a home for elsewhere in the house. We did leave room (most of the time) for two heavy duty cots we had purchased so this room could still be used as an additional bedroom, sort of.

These are the 'candle shelves' that
my canning pantry recently outgrew.
I moved a lot of the jars that were on these
to my new shelves as I organized.

As my canning bounty increased, we added more shelves to this room. We had started out with your typical plastic storage shelves for all the 'stuff' that was 'temporarily' (yeah, right!) housed in this room, but these were not sturdy enough to be loaded with full canning jars. They tend to bow some-what even when I store my empty jars on them.

A little over a year ago, I was fortunate enough to get two sets of shelves that had been designed to go into stores for selling candles - the jar candles that are so popular (and heavy). Alan graciously carried the yet to be assembled wooden (and heavy) shelves up the stairs and into our house and then spent several frustrating hours building them as no instructions were included. Think Ikea furniture with no instructions - yeah, really frustrating. We were able to get 4 extra shelves, 2 extra for each unit. I could then better adjust the height of each shelf to fit the most jars.

Well, I love these shelves and I can fully fill each shelf with canned goods with no fear of broken or sagging shelves. However, with my recent flurry of canning, my pantry storage was filling up fast. I needed to find another option that would hold more heavy jars as they came out of the canner.

My newest addition to the pantry.
Each shelf can hold 350 pounds.

Last spring, Alan had picked up a set of the heavy chrome shelves like you find in commercial kitchens. I have plans for a greenhouse/solar dehydrator that I want him to work on this winter, another project to disrupt hibernation. The shelving unit came with 5 shelves and stands about 6 feet tall. It is sturdy enough for canning jars, but 5 shelves spaced over 6 feet in height means a lot of wasted space when you put just one level of jars on each shelf. However, the way the shelves are designed, you can add more shelves to a unit and Alan told me that when he had made the purchase at Lowe's he also saw that they sold extra shelves individually.

Alan needed some items from Lowe's for a current plumbing project (another hibernation buster) and so I went along to get some more shelves. I discovered that the complete shelving units (with 5 shelves) were on sale for about $65, while the individually wrapped shelves were $20 each. I could pay $100 to get 5 extra shelves, or pay $65 for a complete 5 shelf unit and just use the shelves. Therefore, I bought two units with plans to use the shelves from both on just one of the frames, thus doubling the amount of jars I can store in the space of one set of shelves.

Once I had the new super-duper shelving unit constructed, it was time to start reorganizing the pantry - the fun part of the project!

The energy graph from our solar panels.

Wait, Where's All Our Power?
As I described above, we moved the panels so that they can all bask in the sun, but unfortunately there has been no basking since we relocated the panels in early December. Checking the graphing feature of our charge controller (above) shows that we have had only 6 somewhat decent days for generating power throughout December. From December 1st to the 27th there have been 25 days of cloud cover. A few of these days had a bit lighter cloud cover that allowed some solar power to be generated, but for the most part our batteries have not been fed by the solar panels. Our generator has had to come out of a long hibernation because the sun has decided it can hibernate even though we can not.

Well, it looks like someone is hibernating.