Homestead and Folly

It is one thing to read that rabbit meat is the most efficient source of protein and makes the most sense to raise, it is another thing to chomp down on a piece of rabbit meat. It is a challenge to eat something new and a challenge to eat something I found cute and cuddly. We didn't try to eat our rabbit meat right away but instead got some emotional distance from it by keeping it in the freezer for a few weeks. Try as we might, we couldn't help but get attached to these animals, we know they will be food, but we can't help interacting, talking to them and getting to know the ones that stand out. I was determined to get used to rabbit meat, never having tried it. I took some out of the freezer and figured I would make something that would be so yummy, I wouldn't even know the rabbit was there, rather than focusing right off on it's unique qualities. It was my husband's turn to cook and we decided on our favourite curry recipe.  It tasted wonderful but I...

 A few years ago I ordered slips for sweet potatoes from a seed catalogue. They came on time and with a warning that said not to plant them right away but to get them used to the air and the light gradually. I did that and then planted them one warm evening. They grew and I thought I had successfully planted sweet potatoes but then over the next few days I watched as every single one of them died. After testing the soil and re-thinking all of the steps, and receiving some advice, I realized I hadn't let them adjust long enough. I ran across an Internet article on starting your own sweet potato vine indoors and after reading that, I can't believe it hadn't occurred to me before. This year I am determined to do it and as I wait for spring, I have started a sweet potato growing indoors. I read several blogs on how to accomplish this and it sounded so easy. Most people said it is "so easy a child could do it" and that many people remember starting vines...

  Chicken Pinata We finally got rid of that trouble-making rooster, Thomson. He was terrorizing the hens and they didn't want to go lay eggs in their nesting boxes. They would cower in the corner. He wouldn't just mount them but would stand on them at length while he ate supper, until our head rooster would chase him off. He is now a six pound roasting chicken in our freezer.  Today the chickens seem much more comfortable, even if it it was 14 below freezing this morning.  I brought them some kale and hung it from a rope. They all gathered around and munched it up, making it swing back and forth, playing chicken pinata and buck-bucking, glad to have some greens. Surely our egg production will go up without the "hell in a feather boa" rooster to terrorize them. Like Earl, Thomson had to die.

Pile of baby bunnies I wish I could proclaim "spring has sprung!" like some of my twitter followers, but the best I can do is "surely winter can't last forever, right?!"  I am clinging to the small things like the time changing and being able to do a few extra chores in the evening, baby bunnies, an occasional sunny day when the temperature hovers around freezing instead of twenty below, and the sound of the woodpeckers that have started to return. The signs are subtle but they are there if you look for them. I have a lot of outdoor projects and plans but I am waiting until the weather turns warmer,even a little. It isn't that I couldn't build a window box right now outside but when the weather gets nice I will enjoy it. I could go fix the flapping plastic that mostly blew off of one of my hoop houses in the last big storm, but lately it is all I can do, to do just the necessary chores, and that is it. There are some days I spend all day outsid...

A winter sun rises on a difficult day We bought some breeding rabbits, housed them, fed them, cared for them and then it was time to kill and eat them. They went from squiggly little grub-like babies to cute fuzzy bunnies hopping about, to fully grown rabbits. The day was cloudy but not cold with plenty of snow on the ground. We had decided today was the day as the rabbits were big enough to eat now and the weather lately had meant that it was taking more and more work to care for them, not to mention, we were going through expensive feed like crazy. The mother rabbits were due to kindle in a week and there simply was no longer room for these grown rabbits. Just getting over a cold, I joined my husband outside after he had killed the five rabbits and he had them laying in a row in the snow to keep them cool. After a failed attempt at trying to gut them on a table, which was really hard on the ol' back, I got some rope, and using the wood beams of the wood shelter, we ...

One Day in February 6:45 Wake up, put wood on fire, feed child, fill water container for rabbits, water container for chickens, step in melted puddle by front door with socks on, curse, but put shoes on over wet socks, no time to change them. 7:30   Race out door to get child to waiting bus at end of driveway. “Sorry driver”, late again. Back up stairs, get full water container for rabbits, and walk to first rabbit tractor through deep snow. The crust of the snow on top is not strong enough to hold my weight, so my boots plunge down, down, down, until fwamp, the snow is  up to my knees. Fwamp fwamp fwamp. Lift lid, take out frozen water dish, slosh warm water inside, then turn over repeat until ice puck falls out. Place dish on ground, taking off woolen mitten so it doesn’t get wet, pour water in, lift and place in hutch, add food pellets to food dish which hopefully you remembered to get before crossing the yard, pet bunny “good bunny” you say. Open their door s...

Someone asked me recently "what makes this generation of small farmers and homesteaders so different from the 'back to the land movement' of the 70's?" There are many differences and although there may be similarities, that movement existed in a different time with it's own political and societal pressures. What makes me think I can succeed while many have abandoned their attempts so many years ago? The biggest difference, it seems to me, is the Internet. Generations ago, farming practices were passed on from parent to child but after industrialization, that has all but stopped for most of us, so how is it any of us have the knowledge to even attempt raising livestock, garden or build our own sheds, barns and houses? We look it up, we find diagrams, instructions and video of other people who know how and we follow their lead. We then Blog, make our own videos and share our experiences with cyberspace and the tradition continues. We legitimize our at...