Homesteading is an attitude!
Read on as I blog about it.

5/8/09 - Fast forward 6 weeks.  What's new?  Phyllis' tomatoes have gone ape shit and are growing like crazy.  We also have pepper plants, broccoli and corn.  The snow is melting off of SilverStar Mountain which means we can soon get the veggies out of pots and into the ground.  I still need to get Jeff's sunflower seeds into the ground.  They are a favorite treat visually and also for eating by Jeff and the feathered or hoofed critters here.  Strawberries are blooming!
It's been a hard couple of months at the HedgesHomestead.  Our veteran Rottweilers Sam and Rosie, both Champions in the show ring and the most excellent companions, passed away.  Our 9 year old male Red also passed on, and just last week we received word that his brother Hudson had also passed.  I can't thank enough the veterinarians at VCA SE Portland Animal Hospital, especially Dr. Chris Bonnell, for the awesome care they provided my dogs over the years.  Cancer is an ugly disease we were lucky to avoid for the 14 years we have owned Rottweilers... until now.
 

3/28/09 - Okay, I have neglected my blog.  No surprise there as this winter we've enjoyed a few periods of no power, accumulated over 4' of snow since Election Day, and had some great periods of flooding.  We had a couple trees fall during ice and wind storms.  I lost the roof to my kennel setup which necessitated moving the dog-runs into the shop during an ice storm.  A tree landed on our ag building but since no rain or snow made its way indoors, I think we dogged an ugly mess there.  Who wants to put up a new roof in the  middle of a storm?
What else is new?  My buddy Phyllis lost her greenhouse so I am working with her to get seedlings going.  So far she's brought up 7 varieties of heirloom tomatoes and one variety of peppers.  18 of each type.  This is my first time doing tomatoes from seed and as Phyllis predicted, it's not so very hard after all.  I think she put some magic in the starter soil though because I set up some other seedlings at the same time and they have done nothing while her veggies are already 2" tall!

10/29/2008 I got 4 jars of apple pie filling made and 3 jars of apple butter started.  Picked a couple dozen green beans off the vines.  Things are definitely slowing down there but i'm really pleased with how the beans did.  The last thing I am waiting for is a few more tomatoes to ripen...  Tomorrow it is supposed to start raining so I know we'll be pulling the plug on those vines pretty quick.  Next year I need to make some changes to where I plant tomatoes and which varieties to choose.  Our summer season - at least the hot part of it - was so short!

10/28/2009 - My micro greens are tasty!  I pluck a few each time I sit down at the computer and munch on the mixed greens.  you can definitely tell which are radish! they pack a powerful yum.  My windowsill lettuces are about 1 1/2" tall right now.  My coldframe lettuces are about 1" tall.  They just look like sprouts right now at 20 days "old".

10/23/2008 - Picked apples from a tree alongside the road.  About 3# worth.  They were rather ugly and a bit sour so I just cooked them down, mashed them, and presented the birds and goats with a neat homemade applesauce treat.  The chickens were definitely pleased. :-)

10/09/2008 Started a batch of alfalfa sprouts in an otherwise unused canning jar.  On Monday I hope to have some fresh sprouts for a sandwich!  Planted garlic cloves in the oval flower bed.  Used kabob sticks that I stained green so mark where the cloves are.  Will be fun to check them out come August'09 and see what we have grown.  Brrr... it was cold at only 40 degrees this morning and I'm eyeing the hottub through the window by my computer setup.... it would feel lovely to be using it on these cold mornings... I'm truly considering filling it back up and turning it on and saying to hell with the electric meter... will keep you posted on whether or not I give in. - Oh hey!  I finally added pictures to the Simmoms Family Fun Day section down below.  Check them out!

10/08/2008  Installed another cold frame and planted some winter greens.  It was very cold this morning - only 38 degrees F - and so I am not sure if this project will be a success.  Worth trying though as I do love lettuce!  In the house, our micro greens are sprouting and already have first little leaves.  Ok at 10AM the outside temp has risen to 47 so I am hopeful for our winter greens.

10/07/2008  Harvested green beans.  The rains this weeks have made the beans grow fast and big!

10/05/2008  Planted microgreens in a little plastic dish with a matching top.  I've placed it in the south facing window ledge.  We'll see if the cats leave it alone as this is a favorite place to nap.  Harvested more green beans, yellow squash, tomatos and put up 2 gallons of cukes that will soon be sweet pickles.  I love refrigerator pickling!  Pulled 8 wheelbarrows full of material from the barn to add to the compost pile.  This was very nice material and I look forward to using it in preparation for our 2009 gardens.  Had my first empty jam jar returned to us with requests for a refill.  Wow, that made me feel good!  We're sharing our xtra garden produce and creations with my mom and stepdad.  So far I've gifted jars of jam to several other family members and friends too with some nice remarks.  I'm becoming so domestic. LOL

09/22/2008  Huge whooppieeeee!  I went a little nuts with the electricity this past month.  We cut our electric useage 40% compared to last year!  What two things did we do that made such a difference?  1) We drained the hottub for it's quarterly deep clean and just didn't fill it back up.  2)  I started turning off our electric water heater each day once we were finished with showers and turned it on only 30 minutes prior to bathtime in the mornings.  That meant getting up a half hour earlier than normal but I decided it was worth it.

9/7/2008 Today I picked a yellow squash!  There was an unwelcome guest visiting the garden lastnight and there is quite a bit of devastation to our veggies.  I didn't mind so much that the lettuces were attacked - they were getting a little bitter now anyhow.  So Jeff pulled them up and gave them to the birds for a yummy treat.  The chickens and ducks have been very good about staying out of the garden.  They have one thing on their mind right now and that is blueberries.  Well the boys have a second something on their minds too.  So the squash will be sliced up and put in a italian-type dressing to marinate for a day or so and then on to the grill it will go.  So far, grilled and pickled squash are the only way I like them.  Another batch of blackberries and blueberries when into the dehydrator.  I found a simple recipe for making granola bars so I will try to make some of them this week.  I need to buy more oatmeal.  I wonder if my garden tomatoes will ever turn red?  I stopped buying pasta sauce about a month ago thinking I would have tons of fresh tomatoes to use... Set up a jar of pickles in the refrigerator today too.  Ok, off to buy more canning jars and some pectin.  I hope to pick enough berries today to make some freezer jams.  Jeff eats toast almost every day for breakfast so it will be nice to have some homemade jam for him to use.
Electric meter update. Since August 21st, we've used only 344kwh.  We're 18 days into the billing cycle and doing really quite well.  We're running the dishwasher only twice a week and the dryer trying to use only twice a week.  A nice sunny spell has helped dry clothes much faster outside and today we had a lovely breeze that allowed me to dry two loads outside.  I love the way our sheets feel and smell when they've dried out on the clothes line.

9/6/2008  I work a long shift today so don't have time to do much.  I did however mix up a batch of honey butter with cinnamon.  I served it with bisquits and Jeff liked it quite a bit.

9/5/2008  First time making pesto sauce.  I should have planted more basil.  Will know better for next year.  Warning:  don't go so crazy with garlic next time!  Tasted good though and was nice with a simple pasta and bread dinner.

9/4/2008 Today I had an unplanned day off from work so I picked blackberries.  I used the propane grill to boil water so I could "check" the fruit as per Mother Earth News... and then into the freezer until I have time to do something with them.  I used the hot water to pour on some weeds and then once the balance cooled I used it in the garden.  Picked two cukes from the garden!  Oh, an update from my experiment with the candied cantaloupe.  I used too much ginger and I didn't care for the texture of the treats at all.  My chickens liked them quite a bit. <grin>

8/31/2008  I've been using the hot water heater for only 30 minutes - 1 hour each day now... it is shut off at the main breakers the rest of the time.  I also turned off and drained our hottub.  All this since the 21st of August.  10 days into our "test" and we've used only 200kwh!  If we stay on target then we might have a record low electric bill of only 600kwh for the month! 

8/22/2008  OK, today I was inspired to do something with the bananas I purchased at the grocery store.  I like bananas, but I don't eat them all that often.  So in reading my Mother Earth News magazines I decided there must be a way to make dried bananas that don't taste like crap.  I decided to dip them in a sugar/cinnamon mixture.  We'll see how it turns out.  Also, I am drying some cranberry-juice soaked kiwi, nectarine ,and apple slices today.  My dried blueberries from yesterday turned out just okay.  They took a lot longer to dry than I expected.  Some brilliant person (me!) placed the basil trays under the blueberry trays.  Now I have dried, blueberry-infused basil.  I have no idea what I will do with those.  Maybe feed to birds. LOL
     The sun shined all afternoon and we reached 80 degrees.  I did a little weeding in the garden.  I sprinkled more oyster shell around the lavender.  The strawberries all have leaves again - even though a beautiful doe and spotted baby strolled through the yard.  Why are the blackberries so late this year???
     My Harbor Freight 15% off coupon expires on the 25th... I need to decide if I am going to buy another one of their 45watt solar panel kits or not.  Mine is useless at this point if I don't buy another controller...

8/21/2008 Today I received inspiration from another Hedges.  I should dry some of the basil, mint and lavender that I’ve been growing.  Our summer growing season started much later this year than in previous times… our tomatoes, corn, squashes, beans and cukes are only just beginning to produce fruits.  Our strawberries are long done for the season thanks to the deer.  Our wild raspberries appear to be finished.  Our blueberries are now turning dark blues.  Our lettuce has decided to bolt thanks to two weeks of hot, hot temperatures.  Yet now the last three days have brought lots of rain so the garden looks green but quite wet.  At least the rain makes the ducks happy. 
     I’ve referred to some of my more recent Mother Earth News magazines so I can decide what chicks to purchase for next year.  I am not concerned about a meat bird, but rather a good laying hen.  My Rhode Island Reds, Buff O’s and Golden Sex-Link did very good for me the last three years and are quite sweet.  I purchased Silver-Laced Wynies in 2007 and do not care for them – they are bitchy and not very friendly.  My favorite hen though was Speckles, a Barred Plymouth Rock.  She was a spectacular hen and I do so miss her.
     I have to tell you though that the most fun I had today so far – it’s only 10AM after all – was deciding I would use fresh-collect rain water to do laundry.  The barrels are full-to-bursting this morning.  I had only a small load needing washed so I carried by buckets 6 gallons for the wash and needed the same for the rinse cycles.  Jeff merely sighs and rolls his eyes at me.  But other than the little bit of energy used to wash and spin the laundry clean, it was a free trip.  Yahoo me!  Simple pleasures.  LOL  K.Hedges discusses water usage on her blog and so I decided to try and calculate our usage so far this morning…  I do not need to count the water used for the livestock or our dogs today because the rain barrels are full.  It is very clean water.  I made a pot of coffee, took a 4-minute shower and Jeff a 10-minute shower.  Our shower head claims it uses 2.5gpm so 10g so for me and 25g for Jeff.
     I don’t see a way to reduce our gas for cars by any more.  I already use our Civic which I am averaging 40mpg thanks to the ability to cruise nearly 7 miles of my 30 mile commute to work and about 2 miles on my way home.  That’s 8 gallons per week just in commute.  When Jeff drives his motorcycle, 3 gallons of gas lasts him well over a week.  In the icy and rainy months though, the use goes way up because we frequently need to use other vehicles.

08/02/2008 - SIMMONS FAMILY FUN DAY and also my birthday!  How come I am the one cooking?

I hope you enjoy the pictures below!  I also added three of Charlie on his swim adventure with us.

He also got to take a ride on, and "help" drive a school bus!  He was so tired by the end of his adventurous day with Grandma and Auntie Carlie.  He fell alseep in the car and didn't wake up until it was time to carry him into the house.  He is such a wonderful boy!!!

AUGUST'08 UPDATE:
STRAWBERRIES - Re-leafing - is that even a real word? And so we keep our fingers crossed that we get a late summer harvest.  In the meantime we've transplanted three dozen "babies" to small pots in preparation for relocation or sale.
BLUEBERRIES - I SEE BLUE BLUEBERRIES!
RASPBERRIES/BLACKBERRIES - I love the wild berries!  They are tasty and the plants are a little more tame than last year.  Our berries range from a pretty red to a incredibly dark purple.

JULY'08 UPDATE:
STRAWBERRIES - drat those deer! They got into the strawberry circle and ate the leaves and berries off my plants! I am mildly ticked off. Lucky for me we have a few baggies in the freezer of our yummy strawberries and enjoyed several bowls of fresh berries before the wildlife ended our season. I see a few new leaves popping up so maybe the everbearing will surprise us later in the summer.
BLUEBERRIES - loaded with berries I can't wait for them to turn blue!
RASPBERRIES - the wild berries are popping up and I see a little pink on the berries. These tend to have a bit drier texture and a little less flavor than the cultivated berries. Should still make some nice jams and jellies if they ever make it to the stove. It's hard to resist popping them straight into the mouth!
JUNE'08 UPDATE:
BLUEBERRIES - trimmed, leaves are budding out and there is a hint of flowers soon to arrive. We had a fantastic 2007 crop. Leftovers after picking, packing, freezing, eating and selling were happily consumed by the chickens and ducks. They did an excellent job of picking up the tasty berries, did a little weeding, and did some fertilizing in the patch too. Waste not want not.
STRAWBERRIES - Flowers are presenting and I look foward to some plump, juicy and sweet berries this spring clear into fall.
RASPBERRIES/BLACKBERRIES - We'll see what the year brings us. Who ever though growing blackberries would be so hard?
SUNFLOWERS - In about another 2 weeks I will have 75 sunflower seedlings and starts available. I had hoped to have them ready by Mother's Day but a couple freak snowfalls and freezes killed several weeks of effort. Oh well, we live and learn.

Look!  Our vegetable garden is taking shape!  We transplanted 4 dozen of our strawberry plants in amongst the vegetables.  At first I thought we had too many seedlings for the 24'x24' garden space Jeff built for me... now I see I need a few more veggie plants!  So we put in some corn, lots of tomatoes, some zucchini and squashes, pole beans and cukes and cantaloupe.  Oh yes and the lettuce have been moved to the garden plot where hopefully no slugs will attack them.
6/10 update: Plant a garden and the rains will come! Like we ever really hurt for rainfall here in the foothills of the Cascades. ha! Anyhow the good news is that our rain barrels will fill and I won't have to drag a garden hose all over the place to fill buckets and water plants.
ALERT!  Vegetable garden growing like mad!
August 20th update - Did you ever see the movie “The Ruins” where evil vines were killing people?  I wonder if squash and zucchini are closely related?  Or maybe it’s just the excellent feed they’ve been provided from our HedgesHomestead Compost?  The vines are traveling well outside their planter areas, cukes not far behind.  CHECK OUT my tomato plants!  They are huge!  Our lettuce is about done for the season so I might try a second planting from seed.  We should still have about 8 weeks of decent weather (though you wouldn’t know it today with it raining and only a forcasted high of 70 degrees).  Bean plants are flowering and I see little beans growing along the trellis.  I don’t think anything will become of our cantaloupe plants but they are producing little yellow flowers.  Thank goodness for a summer sprinkle to deeply water the soil.  Our water barrels only last so long and so we've been supplementing the garden.  Without a little rain there would be no rainbows!  At the Hedges Homestead we have installed two 55g water collection barrels and several smaller collection units for a total capacity of 150gallons.  We use this freshly collected water to hydrate our flower gardens, vegetable garden, berry patches and also to maintain levels within our livestock yards.  I’ll publish some photographs soon!
October'08 - The Garden did very well for us.  Things I will change for next year - trim the hedge along the west side of the main garden box down by about 2 feet.  I think it was so tall that our tomatoes did not receive enough late afternoon sunshine and that is why we have green fruits outweighing reds.  Also, I think we will not bother with corn - our season is too short for this food.  I need to use more of the north yards that receive less filtered sunlight.  Beans did very well for us as did the yellow squash.  We are now harvesting the spaghetti squashes and are having some fun mixing it in with pasta and sauces.  Cukes need to be planted farther away from the squashes!

2007 WRAP-UP

Ducks & Geese:  In 12 months, "Saucy" (Blue Swedish Female) won three Best of Breeds! "Calvin" (Cayuga male) won one Best of Breed and one Reserve Champion. And from our 2007 hatch, "Kevlar" (Khaki male) won one Best of Breed and one Reserve Champion. We are very pleased with the typiness of these ducks and thrilled with the overall personality of all our ducks.  The Tolouse Geese enjoyed their first show as well. Well "Honda" (female) had a rough start when she cut her foot at the show. She was pretty frazzled in the beginning and fought pretty hard when we treated her wound. But by the next day she seemed to enjoy the show. "Screaming Eagle" (male) was Best of Breed!