Eat Your Weedies

Weeds & Greens

Anyone who has planned a community event knows that people will show up if there’s food.  Better yet, throngs will appear if the food is free.  Until recently I assumed this was a cardinal social rule…but I've discovered an exception.  Imagine a garden growing in a neighborhood.  It doesn't have to be planted, fertilized, watered, or cultivated.  Sadly, it grows and decays each season without much more than a passing glance or aggravated huff from the humans that share its habitat.  Why?  Because this garden is hidden in plain sight.  It is the crabapples that litter the sidewalks, the dandelions that riddle the yard, the burdock burrs that tangle Fido’s fur, and the green haze that carpets the forest floor.  Somewhere between the passage of time and the progress of society, the wild plants around us have been demoted from life-giving nourishment & health to pretty ornamentals at best and noxious weeds at worst.  I've always appreciated this garden, but now I’m beginning to study it.  Like a preschooler looking at the jumble of letters that fills an encyclopedia, I’m facing the overwhelming excitement that is the plant world in my own proverbial back yard.  Plant by plant, part by part, one culinary and medicinal use at a time, I’m learning to utilize the wild garden around me.  I don’t have to be an expert, I just have to begin.  I’m writing to share that you can, too!

Reading: Research or Recreation?

It's hard to justify a post about reading when it's 70 degrees outside and the sun's Siren call is beckoning many of us.  Attempting to live up to its schizophrenic reputation, March came into Kentucky as a roaring ice and snow storm last week and threatens to bring rain and freezing temperatures by tomorrow.  But sandwiched between these blustery spells has been a slice of heaven bringing the promise of paradise on the other side.  Last week's winter wonderland (the worst this season) had me snuggled seven-layers deep on my couch.  I spent hours reading, savoring the sedate activity before spring's bustle of activity catapults me into the kinetic and outdoor world.  In my opinion, reading is an oft-overlooked element of the auto-didactic, do-it-yourself lifestyle.  It is a fundamental homestead skill.  Blissfully, I blur the lines between research and recreation.  I admit I rarely have time for many of the bestsellers or latest novels, but works on How-To, witty philosophical musings, food, nature, and even classic literature keep me plenty busy.  I have an unending list of titles I'm eager to keep churning through.  I make time to read just like I make time to grow my garden, cook from scratch, or care for livestock.  The homesteading two-step of researching and doing is just that, a dance in which two indispensable partners must find their rhythm without overpowering each other. I don't consider reading a luxury; I consider it a gratifying requirement of the lifestyle I've chosen.  Despite the frenetic pace in which most of us live, there are subtle ways to lace the schedule with a good read.  So, dear readers, bear with me: Below are my tongue-in-cheek tips for How to Read.

Calm Before the Storm

For obvious reasons, I was never a Boy Scout.  And despite my thorough enjoyment of Tagalong cookies, I wasn't a Girl Scout, either.  Somewhere along the line I still got the message: Be Prepared.  This weekend our community was abuzz with talk of the coming weather (even more than usual).  A cold front was expected to change warm rain to a wintery mix to snow to below zero temperatures within just a couple hours' span on Sunday night.  Unlike northern climes that brave subzero readings and copious amounts of snow for months at a time, our area isn't used to this drastic an arctic dip.  Of greatest concern is our region's propensity for ice.  The Ice Storm of 2009 left thousands without power for weeks (in addition to the millions of dollars of damage).  Though that event was certainly the extreme, it was an excellent lesson in being prepared. The current winter flare up is intensely cold, but nowhere near as catastrophic or long-lasting as in 2009 (thankfully!). However, one of the crazy things about weather is that it's hard to know beforehand how bad it's really going to be. Without getting all doomsday about it, Weldon and I like to take advantage of the calm before the storm with a bit of old-fashioned preparation.

A leafy welcome mat, thanks to swirling winds

 

...and so it begins.

Medicinal Mysteries

One area of my homestead education has been lacking to such a degree that it’s been nagging at me: natural home health care.  Has anyone else had a hard time keeping eye of newt, root of dried fern, and pulverized sycamore bark in their cupboard?  I’m exaggerating a bit on the ingredients, but any time I've approached herbal health or medicinal plants the elements sounded uncomfortably similar.  The truth is that I've been paralyzed by the sheer magnitude of the subject and the not insignificant reality that an incorrect implementation could be detrimental.  For the longest time I didn't know where to start, so I set my interest aside like a gift waiting to be opened on Christmas morning.  I tip-toed around it, eyed its shape and size, sniffed it, shook it, and peaked in the folds of the wrapping; but it wasn't until recently that I finally began tearing into it.  I know I’m only scratching the surface of what there is to learn, but I’m scratching like a kid with chicken pox…and boy, does it feel good!  Taking one simple step at a time, I find the subject fascinating and not nearly as overwhelming as I expected. 

News for November

Happy November!   I've finally bested the cold that had me down the past few weeks.  In the interim I’ve continued to craft Digging Deeper Pages.  There are TWO NEW PAGES posted on the blog's homepage for your reading and research enjoyment:  The House – a bit of domestic dissection about the tactile traits and philosophical framework of making a home.  The Livestock – a brief personal history along with the why and generic how-to of our animal husbandry practices.  This should be handy for animal lovers and conscientious consumers alike.    

There are a few more pages soon to come: The Farm, The Garden, and The Finances.  I value your interest, comments, and questions.  I know many of you have applicable personal experience and musings to share!

Frequently Asked Questions

Weldon and I are very aware that our homestead lifestyle raises a variety of questions for most people.  We’re also aware that we’re never actually asked a good number of these questions.  We get it!  We’re two unabashed nerds with corporate and creative backgrounds who have chosen to farm in rural Kentucky within 10 miles of our families.  We raise much of our food, learn old-timey skills, drive older vehicles, wear second-hand clothes, live fairly frugally, and travel as often as possible.  Hmmm.  Out-of-the-box only begins to describe us.  Why on Earth do we not have a clothes dryer or television?   Why do we make our own mayonnaise and cook with lard?  Why are we taking down old houses and barns in order to build our dream home – calling a metal shop building home in the mean time?  Why does our farming look so different from other farming?  All good questions!

I've been compiling a bounty of information in response to these frequently asked (and unasked) questions.  The topics touch on some of the most important tenants in our life.  In the coming months, I intend to post these excerpts as permanent pages on the blog for your reference and amusement.  You’ll be able to click on each topic along the menu bar at the top of the blog’s home page.  Each page will have photos and expand the scope of my regular weekly posts to include our more in-depth research, resources, and personal thoughts.  Whether you’re intrigued by our quirkiness or blazing your own unconventional path, I hope these pages get your wheels turning.

 

This week I've added TWO NEW PAGES:  The Food – a tasty background and overview of our framework for healthful eating and The Library – an evolving list of the invaluable sources for information and inspiration we've found along the way.  Our love of food and learning are two key elements (perhaps the foundational pair) that keep Weldon and I eagerly homesteading.

I look forward to your comments and questions!

The Teacher Type

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”  -- Socrates

If Socrates were alive today I’d give his toga-wearing frame a huge bear hug, look him straight in the eyes, and thank him profusely for acknowledging this truth.  Then I’d ask him how in the world he said so many quote-worthy things that we still reference thousands of years later.

With the exception of one moment of weakness in elementary school when I said the words, “I want to be a teacher,” (out of adoration for Mrs. Most-Awesome-Teacher-Ever) I was otherwise convinced that the field was not for me.  I loved school but there seemed to be a mismatch between me and the profession.  I wasn't a softy-type nurturing personality that could warmly embrace snot-nosed little ones or repeat the basics of multiplication for the eleven-thousandth time.  Likewise, the idea of working with upper level students made me roll my eyes because, as everyone knows, aliens remove teenage brains and don’t return them until much later in life.  When I began setting my sites on viable career paths I objected to the entire field of education under the guise that I didn't have the patience for it.  The only thing I even hesitated to consider was a position on a collegiate level…but I think I was only intrigued by that because Indiana Jones was a college professor by day and an adventuring intellectual by night.  So, pretty much teaching was out. 

Ten years later, look at me…I’m working with middle school students five days a week!

Making A Kid-Friendly Wooden Puzzle

I have a posse of nieces and nephews that I adore.  The youngest of the bunch are twin boys who just turned one year old.  These toddling cuties have recently been my inspiration for a homemade gift.  Of course, I often find myself in the position of having an awesome project in mind that I have no clue how to produce.  It’s one of those yin-yang predicaments.  I’m the type of person that prefers to try new things, particularly when it comes to creativity.  But I’m also the type of person that likes a plan and wants to do things well.  This polarity yields itself to frequent occasions where I am eager to jump into a creative process I've never tried before AND equally freaked out because I have no idea what I’m doing.  Experience has taught me two things in these moments:  First, give myself as much time as possible to think through, research, and tackle the process.  And second, have a back-up gift idea should the outcome look like a kindergartner made it (not cool when the intended recipient is an adult).

This post is my experience making two adorable wooden puzzles for my incorrigibly feisty twin nephews.  Let’s hope the puzzles are played with more often as puzzles than as clubs! 

Land, Ho!

This month will go down in my history as a major "FIRST".  I bought land!  I married into 40 acres that Weldon already owned; but these 30 acres we eyeballed, calculated, negotiated, and signed on the dotted line for together. This post is about land ownership -- an integral part of our homestead -- but it is just as much about a more subliminal subject: money.  In a day and age when this topic is politically hot and socially taboo, our culture is motivated by excess and plagued by financial illiteracy.  I'm no financial expert, but in the last five years I've taken my education into my own hands in a desperate search for balance, simplicity, and security.  So far, I'm living on the smallest paycheck yet, but with a greater sense of abundance and the most financial freedom I've ever had.  Had we not had enough of our greenbacks in a row, we never would have been able to scribble our signatures on a deed when the right moment fell in our lap.

How To Process A Chicken

About eight weeks ago I posted about our newly-arrived flock of one hundred chicks.  True to my word, this post follows up with their story.  In an era where most of the population is disassociated from their food sources, it can be a difficult fact to face that an animal dies in order to be a part of our diet.  On our homestead this is a revered truth, a part of the circle of life.  Processing your own meat isn’t for everyone, but there are a growing number of people intrigued by skillsets of yesteryear such as this one.  Like my husband and me, these folks are eager to be more self-sufficient and crave a means to be in touch with nature and their food.   Raising food at home is also an excellent way to live frugally while eating extraordinarily well.  Chickens are small animals that are relatively easy to raise and fairly quick to mature; this makes them a good starting place for those interested in learning how to process their own meat.  Below is a how-to with plenty of photographs from our most recent chicken-processing experience.  Please note that while we borrowed specialized equipment for this large batch, it is just as simple to do it the old way when working with smaller batches of birds (hot water in a pot for scalding and hand-plucking the feathers).  To everything there is a season and on our farm this year the season for meat chickens has come to a close.  

Please Note: Due to the How-To nature of the topic, this post contains somewhat graphic images of the transition from a live chicken to a kitchen-ready carcass.  This is not meant to shock readers, but rather to educate those interested in the step-by-step process of a truly local, farm-raised, homestead kitchen staple.  

Field Trip for a Grown-Up

There's nothing like a good field trip! I've been a sucker for them as long as I can remember. I have vivid memories of my elementary classes in Connecticut going to The Nature Center, The Norwalk Aquarium, the local planetarium, the living history museum at colonial Sturbridge Village, the Peabody Museum of natural science, and the cloisters near New York City. One particular fourth grade field trip to the P.T. Barnum Museum commemorated the life and showmanship of this original circus-master from my home state. Who doesn't want to see a mummy, the clothes of a dwarf and his dwarf wife, photos of Siamese twins, and a room-sized model train village all under one roof!?! It was such an awe-inspiring outing for me that I insisted my family return to the museum where I proceeded to recount the entire tour (probably verbatim). Even in college I relished the opportunity to go out into the world and experience what the lectures and notebooks had been brimming with. I made it to the Cumberland County Jail (that was a fun one to call home and report about), a water treatment plant, a landfill, and the incredulously creepy village of Centralia, Pennsylvania where an unquenchable fire has burned for decades in the coal seams under the town. I realize that us grown-ups have to focus on work and the everyday busyness of life, but I'm a firm believer that we all need field trips, even if we sometimes call them vacations.

Prime Time Gardening

There are cutesy sayings out there stating that everything we need to know in life we learned in kindergarten. I often read those and roll my eyes...but I sure hope I can summon my "Works well independently" ways alongside my "Works well with others" skills because I've just signed up to grow a massive garden with my husband's family.  I'm about to embark on a substantially coordinated, many-month endeavor with none other than...my in-laws.

The Scene: Garden Plot 2013

To Everything A Season

Ah, January -- the annual restart button.  This month is one of the slowest and quietest for me. The New Year has been ushered in and with it the urges to re-assess, start afresh, and give it another go. Though it's an informal ritual in the first weeks after the new year, I enjoy the mental exploration of the twelve months to come -- the seasons, the garden, the family occasions, the trips to be dreamed-up, skills to be acquired, information to be gathered, and experience to be gained.  And yet a small part of me senses that before I know it a new calendar will grace my kitchen wall a fleeting twelve months from now and I will start all over again. The day and age we live in is a lightning-paced one.  It's a reality I don't particularly care for but would rather face than ignore. While I won't argue that time flies when you're having fun, I think there are more options to that ending...Time Flies when you don't want it to. Time Flies when you're busy. Time flies when you're not paying attention. Or how about just plain 'ol Time Flies! I've chosen a simple lifestyle with connotations of "slowness" and I still ask myself, "Where does the time go!?!" more frequently than I'd like to admit. So what can I do about it?

All the World's A Stage

Do you ever picture what people used to do with their spare time before there was a television in every home?  Remember with me a time when young and old, rich and poor would crowd together in a theater to witness the newly penned sonnets of Shakespeare or Marlowe.  Envision centuries earlier when masses of Greek citizens would fill the seats of an outdoor amphitheater to listen to oral histories, comedies, tragedies, and mythological feats of heroes and Olympians. Just as significant, consider the countless smaller gatherings since time immemorial when tribes, communities, and families would assemble to sing, play, and dance to the tunes and stories of their forefathers. In colonial and post-colonial America immigrants and slaves brought with them their fiddles and fifes, drums and guitars, rhythms and rhymes to ensure that their homeland was never too far away. These artistic threads have been woven into a fabric that can still be appreciated today.  But is it?  And what's the big deal anyway?

Shhh...I don't think pictures are allowed at the Symphony!

Annie Get Your Gun

I'm not sure if it's a kid thing or I was just an odd child (perhaps both?), but I used to take the same books out of my elementary school library over and over and over again.  Granted I had a few dozen in the rotation, but for whatever reason stacks of gem and rock books, Native American and Ancient History books, and biographies always made it home with me...even if I'd read them and studied the illustrations countless times before.  Annie Oakley's dusty rose-covered life story was one of these favorites.  The black and white sketches would come to life for me as I envisioned her little 5-foot frame wielding a cumbersome firearm with deadly accuracy.  Gosh, was she cool!  In my neck of the northern woods I didn't know anybody but the police who owned a gun and I was in high school before I had an acquaintance who had been hunting.  Now that I'm living in the rural south I'm almost embarrassed to admit it!  These days I'm not exactly a pistol packin' mama, but I see the merit in getting cozy with some gun powder and lead.

The Skinny on Fat

Growing up we had a large pantry in the kitchen.  It wasn't a walk-in, but it was very deep and had lots of cubbies and shelves. The main level was knee high and when the shelves on it were rolled to one side I had the perfect nook in which to sit, hide, or snack -- and sometimes all of the above.  I remember one such occasion when I spied a large cylindrical tub with a blue label and a delicious-looking piece of yellow cake with white frosting on the front.  In childish wonder I pried open the plastic top to reveal the treasure within.  Frosting!  In plunged my pointer finger and out it curled with a delectable glob that headed toward my tongue without hesitation.  DISGUSTING!  Many of you probably realized a few sentences ago that this treasure chest would not contain frosting and was in fact a tub of vegetable shortening.  I repeat...Disgusting! This is my first memory involving the wonderful world of fats.  Jump to last Thursday morning in which I began the process of rendering lard -- yup, the forbidden fat of yesteryear.  I've got a simple step-by-step photo-filled guide posted below.  But first, I'd like to take a walk down a rather fatty memory lane to explore both how fats have fallen out of favor with the masses and why the right kinds of fats are actually a life-giving nutritional necessity.

Meet Me At The Fair

"The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas."
- George Santayana, early 20th-century philosopher and writer

Well, folks, I just got back from a lovely trip, not along the Milky Way, but along the interstate.  For three whole days I gorged myself on all things sustainable living, do-it-yourself, homestead style, healthful habits, and renewable energy.  At the moment I'm literally stuffed to the gills with information.  Where did I run off to?  The Mother Earth News Fair in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania.