Homestead Update 11/11/17

Fall finally arrived here at the homestead and the trees are starting to show their colors.

I planted an acre of greens in the back bottom right before we received an inch of rain and I got a tremendous emergence! I have more German Mustard, Florida Mustard, and Turnips than we could ever pick. Oh well, I am willing to share them with the deer and other wildlife.

I still have some flowers blooming in the wildflower garden, but I don’t know what they are. The flowers look like cosmos, but some of them are 8 feet tall! Hopefully, next Spring I will have a good emergence from the flowers I had this this Summer that went to seed. And yes, I know that bee hive is leaning badly, I will get out there and straighten it up today. Keep prepping everyone!

Homestead Update 5/14/2017

I have 30 gallons of used motor oil that I drained out of my dirt bikes and ATVs stored in unapproved 2 1/2 gallon jugs. I need to pour them over into a five gallon container and carry the oil to the recycling center. I picked up the yellow bucket out of a farmer’s junk pile then I spotted the black bucket on the shoulder of the road so I stopped and picked it up. But wait a minute, this bucket is not empty, it’s completely full. This bucket is brand new, never been opened. five gallons of free oil for my Kubota. It probably fell off of some farmer’s service trailer as he was driving past. SCORE!

I made some sugar water feeders for my bees out of used plastic jars and scrap wood.

I made a little wooden stand with hardware cloth covering the opening where I put an old plastic jar with tiny holes drilled into the lid. Works perfectly! I transferred 2 of my newly captured swarms into hives this week and I plan on getting more this week. I need to go through my old hives and see how they are doing and possibly harvesting some honey. I have several people wanting some! I’ll keep you updated, until then, keep prepping everyone!

Homestead Update 12/11/16

Once again, I haven’t accomplished much around the homestead lately. I did cut up two small trees that died during the summer and I stacked the wood on the back porch in the stand Sweet Thing bought at Big Lots. The temperatures fell into the teens this past week. I know you Yanks probably consider that “light jacket” weather, but around here we consider that bitterly cold! I told Sweet Thing it was time to light a fire in the fireplace, but she said “No!”

She already had the fireplace decorated for Christmas and she refused to take it down unless the power goes out and we absolutely had to have the heat. I guess I’ll have to wait until after New Years to have a warm, cozy fire.

My niece bought a house recently and the previous owner subscribed to a garbage service which she wasn’t going to use. She called the company and told them to come get this big, green, heavy duty, rolling garbage can. They told her to just keep it because it would cost them more to send a man out to pick it up than it would to just write it off. She asked if I wanted it and I said “of course I do”!

One of the young men that works for me recently bought a house and he wanted to dump into my back gully some old carpet that he tore out while he was remodeling. He also dumped this wood and fortunately I discovered it before it rained tonight! There was a good 2×4, 1×4, 2×8, 2/3 of a sheet of interior paneling, 1/2 a sheet of particle board, several smaller pieces, a roll of hardware cloth, a package of gutter leaf guards as well as this solid wood door. I asked him why he threw this away and he said he thought I didn’t like particle board. I said I don’t really like it, “UNLESS IT IS FREE’! Then I will take all I can get. This heavy wooden door is way better than the back door I have in my shop right now so I will replace it with this one soon. I told him not to throw away any more wood without checking with me first. I have several projects I can use that wood on. I will keep you updated on my projects, until then, keep prepping everyone!

Homestead Update 9/11/16

Just a quick post to let you know how things are going around here. I looked out of the back door recently and I saw 9 turkeys grazing across the yard. I finished planting the deer browse and turnip green patch in the back in anticipation of the 80% chance of rain the weathermen were promising. After I hurried to get it all planted, we only got 1/10 of an inch of rain so the seeds will just lay there until we get some decent rain.

I started feeding bees with a community feeder. I hope to install the individual no-drown feeders in each hive tomorrow.

I encountered this grain truck as I was making my rounds this week. The truck came around the corner of this intersection and the trailer full of corn collapsed. I bet the driver said “Darn”!

I also encountered these pigs feeding in the edge of one of the cotton fields I check. After I took this picture, I chased them back to their pen where they belonged!

I also saw this Mini-Mansion that had burned during the past week. It reminded me to check my fire extinguishers when I got home. You always need to be prepared for fire safety. Keep prepping everyone.

No, I didn’t forget this was the 15th anniversary of the attack on 9-11. I have been watching the lip service the politicians have been giving this event over the weekend and I have been disgusted beyond words. I don’t know exactly what needs to be done with these terrorist; there is not one, easy solution. We might be able to stop the big organized attacks, but there is no way to stop all of the lone wolf attacks, so I guess we will just have to learn to live with those. We should have left Saddam in charge over there, he kept those people in Iraq under control. They were too afraid of what he would do to them to start any bull. Maybe we need to take a lesson from him? God bless America!

Homestead Update

I was feeling well enough to get out and do some light chores this past week. I started discing an area in the back where I plant the deer browse and turnip green patch. The ground was so hard and dry, the disc was just rolling along on the ground without doing much cutting. I took some scrap wood, made a tray on top of the disc, then placed 4, 80 pound sacks of Quikcrete on top for some additional weight. Now it will sink down and cut much better on each pass.

I made another wire barrel to burn our garbage. The old one lasted for a year so that is much more economical than buying the DR model costing $450.00!

Since I have been keeping bees, I take specific notice of any blooming plants. I bought this plant (Texas Jasmine) from the Master Gardeners sale last May, but I still have not planted it, it still is in the pot. The Master Gardeners have a sale each spring, and this year the sale was from 8:00 until 2:00. I learned from past experience, if you wait until 1:00 to get there, they are practically giving things away so they don’t have to take them home. They had some red wagons to place your purchases in then you could roll them to your vehicle. After 1:00, you could fill a wagon with everything you could get in one, and the total price would be $10.00! I bought 20 pots of different plants, but since I was confined inside due to my illness, they are all still in the pots. I did manage to plant 2 apple trees last week that I bought at Lowe’s.

I took this picture of our fruit trees while I was mowing late one evening. The trees are doing pretty well considering the lack of care I have given them. They are 2 years old now, so I think the root system should be well established. I am going to prune them back and shape them into the proper configuration to produce a maximum yield. And oh yeah, I still think Colin Kaepernick is a disgrace! Keep prepping everyone!

If Colin saw this, a bolt of shame should strike him right between his eyes, like a bolt of lightning from the sky, causing him to drop to his knees and weep in shame. Do you think that would happen? No, he is too much of an egotistical, narcissistic dog turd to feel any empathy for anyone other than himself.

Homestead Update 4/17/2016

I decided to try my luck with raised bed gardening. I know I am going to be too busy with my job this Summer to really have a garden so this may be the next best thing. I have been reading about this method and everyone said to fill the beds with a mixture of topsoil, sand, vermiculite, compost, and manure. HUMM? I have plenty of topsoil and sand but nothing else. But wait a minute, what is that behind me underneath all those trees?

Underneath the trees lies 40 years worth of leaves and branches which have fallen and laid there composting as Mother Nature intended. After you scrape away the top layer of uncomposted leaves you find this fine, black humus. So I just took my front end loader on my Kubota and found a few good open places among the trees and scraped off the top two inches and had several scoops of this fine compost which I dumped into the raised beds. I did have a few bags of composted manure left over from last year which I spread over the top of the beds. I’ll probably stick to tomatoes, bell peppers, carrots and onions this Summer to see how this turns out.

On the bee keeping front, the turnips I planted last fall are blooming and the bees are working them heavy.

On the other side of the open lot where I planted the deer browse, the clover and wild flowers are blooming. I think that is crimson clover, which the bees don’t care too much for, but it sure is a thick, green mat of vegetation for the deer to eat.

I decided I needed a water hydrant in the front of the house so I can water flowers and shrubs around the driveway. I had to use a shovel to dig around to locate the waterline, then I was able to use the back hoe on my tractor to dig a trench over to where the faucet will be located. I have a plumber coming tomorrow to put it in. You might remember I did the plumbing myself for my bathroom addition in my shop, but since this is the main water line running to the house, I felt this is a job best left to a professional. Keep prepping everyone!

Homestead Update

I hope you have all survived Winter Storm Jonas. After watching the news on TV and internet, it still amazes me how people can be so unprepared for even a 3 day emergency. When SHTF we are really going to have some riots and uprisings like has never been seen. I know all of you, my readers, are at least marginally prepared, and most of you are fully prepared. We had 5 inches of snow here at the homestead, with some temperatures in the low teens. At times like this, I am glad I don’t have any livestock and chickens to take care of. Sweet Thing says I can’t have any until I retire so I will have time to take proper care of them, and I can see her point. Just going out and taking care of the dogs and barn cats is enough for me. I did go out and remove the snow from the entrance of my bee hives. As of last week, I still saw bees flying in and out of the hives on sunny days. I hope they make it through the winter. Other than that, not much has gone on around here. I have been going out to visit with my farmers to come up with a plan for the coming year. They all say they didn’t make any money in 2015, and next year doesn’t look any more favorable unless the commodity prices have an unexpected rally. That doesn’t bode well for the economy in this part of the country.

I have been watching the Trump phenomenon with mild amusement. The funniest part of this is watching the talking heads on the news shows react with absolute bewilderment trying to explain his poll numbers. The Washington elite are so out of touch with the rest of America it is unbelievable. There is only one way to explain it. Good, honest, hard-working tax payers are sick and tired of the absolute cesspool  that is our government. There are many, many people in the heartland of this country that have given up on voting because they think politicians are all the same. I can certainly agree with that sentiment. Well, here is someone different, and if he is elected, he might just go to Washington and blow the whole system apart. That is probably the only way to change anything. Will all of those disenfranchised voters come out and actually vote? That is the big question. And if Trump is elected, will he actually do anything productive or just sit back and take the bribes from the establishment and become just as rotten as the rest of them? We will have to just wait and see. Keep prepping everyone!

Homestead Update 12/13/2015

There hasn’t been much activity around the homestead the past two weeks. I did manage to put up this Rubbermaid Accu-track rack system for hanging up weed eaters and garden tools. I got tired of having all of my garden tools leaning in a big pile in the corner of my workshop. Invariably, anytime I wanted a particular tool, it would be all the way in the back of the stack and I would have to move every other tool to reach what I wanted to use. These tracks have sliding holders for quick adjustment and they feel nice and sturdy.

These are some runaway goats I encountered back in October. I was driving down a turnrow of a field I check each week and I saw some animals way towards the other side of the field. At first I thought they were small deer and as I got closer I realized they were goats. I had seen some farm animals at a house I pass that is about 1/2 of a mile from this field so as I was leaving I stopped at that house. I told them if they were missing some goats, I knew where they were. He said those goats came from a house about a mile further down the road. They had been missing for 2 months but no one had been able to catch them. He told me the owner said if anyone could catch them they could keep the goats. HUMMM! I wonder if I could take some t-posts and cattle panels and make some sort of trap? I bet I could come up with something if I could get motivated enough.

The man I was talking to had these cattle behind his house. I think that black one is just about ready to go to the freezer isn’t it?

I have an update on Little Bubba. The day after my first post of him, I was telling my neighbor about him. He replied “I have been seeing some mice around my house and my granddaughter has been asking for a cat. How about I take him to my house?” He took him home the next day and now he spends most of the day inside the house and sleeps out under the carport at night. He just settled right in over there so he has a good home after all. Keep prepping everyone!

Homestead Update 11-15-15

These are my rescue dogs, Wilma and Jethro. I had to go into their pen last week and fix the PVC dog feeders I have sticking through the fence. Jethro has pawed at his enough he finally caused it to come apart after 2 years. I had to make some repairs, but now the feeders are back in working order.

I’ve started putting my Prepper library on the new shelves I installed. Those books are only about 1/4 of what I have accumulated. I think I am going to have to cull back a little bit, but I don’t know where.

For instance, that stack of red books on the shelf is a 17 volume of Popular Mechanics Do-It-Yourself Encyclopedia. How can I get rid of something as useful as that? I just need more shelf space!

My neighbor called and said he had a deal on some used metal roofing. A storm damaged the roof of a local commercial building last Spring and the roof was replaced. Since then the roof has leaked numerous times until the company decided the best course of action was to just start over and replace the roof again. Thus, they had a bunch of roofing to sell at a ridiculously low price so I said count me in! I have several building projects rattling around in my head already!

We went to the Flea Market this weekend and I bought this old one-man crosscut saw for $10. I just had to have it to mount on the wall of my Man-cave.

They also had a lot of chickens, ducks, pea-fowl, and rabbits for sale. Sweet Thing said NO! Oh well, maybe someday soon. Until then keep prepping everyone!

Homestead Update 11-8-15

Last week I was working in my shop and due to the cooling weather, the Lady Beetles were coming in by the thousands! I guess winter is just around the corner.

Although, here it is November the 8th, and we still have not had a frost. We still have tomatoes growing in containers in the back yard.

This week I did manage to get my bathroom shelves painted and installed, ready to install my Prepper library!

I also put up 8 more shelves in the new addition to my barn. I have two more shelves to put up then I will have 25 shelves, 10 feet long, two feet wide, for a total of 500 feet of shelf space. That will hold a lot of junk supplies!

I noticed these large toadstools growing out of the mulch I spread around a couple of months ago. Someday I am going to learn how to identify some safe to eat mushrooms and see if I can get some to grow in the wooded lot in the back of the homestead.

In the meantime, I am just going to hang out here and enjoy the mild weather and the fall colors until Old Man Winter gets here. Keep prepping everyone!