Building a Bucket Ladder/Poor Man's Greenhouse

One of my projects that I have long wished for is a greenhouse.

Living in a wind tunnel and bald prairie makes a greenhouse difficult.  Add in the occasional late season hail and it becomes a little more tricky.

So, we've been finding different options.

I found a picture of a person's bucket ladder, and Perry decided he could make that into a greenhouse type of thing.

Each level (there are three), has 7 buckets in it.
For a total of 21 five gallon buckets.

Each bucket has drainage holes drilled in the bottom.

We then covered the whole thing in greenhouse plastic.  The front rolls right up for ventilation.

This spring I will be getting a 3 tonne load of topsoil.  I will mix equal parts peat, perlite, and top soil to fill the buckets.
Top dressing with the plentiful organic matter my animals have donated.  Haha

This spring I didn't get to plant early, I could have my hot crops out there right now (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, etc).  It is reaching close to 40 degrees Celsius in the day, and about 5 to 10 overnight.

This fall though, after my hot crops have finished, I will be planting one of the ladders full of cold crops.  (Kale, chard, brassicas, etc)  It should extend my season almost to February if the winter isn't too harsh.

I am very excited.
I will update with pictures once the plants start growing and give you better critique on what is or isn't working for me.

Side note: each bucket ladder cost an aprox $200.  That is an excellent price for a poor man's version I would think. 

Here is a small video of my llama saying hi.  😉  Ignore how loud and obnoxious my voice is on here.  Sorry.  🤦‍♀️

Food Storage Fun - Sourdough Starter

With the time spent in social distancing across the land, there have been many who have asked me sourdough questions.

I am by no means an expert.

I just really enjoy playing in the kitchen.

I also love food.

So, I thought I would put a few thoughts down on paper (well, screen) here for you in hopes of encouraging you to try this too.

There are many, many people who suffer when eating today's bread/gluten products.  I was one of them.  So, I went in search of an option my body wouldn't rebel over and found "natural yeast".

I won't bore you with all the cool science (you can totally read about it in so many places), but if I use my natural yeast (sourdough starter), I do not suffer.  It is easily digested by my body.

So...

How to begin?

I would start here:

Buy this book.

I get nothing out of it if you do.  I don't get any money or special stuff on the side.

It is just hands down the best book I've seen or bought so far about sourdough.  (And if you have seen my book addiction...you know I am not saying that because it's the only one.  Haha)

There are so many wonderful recipes and step by step pictures and tips inside this book.

You won't regret the purchase.

EDIT TO ADD THE RECIPE:

I've made a tonne of things with my mother starter.

Including bread, tortillas, english muffins, pancakes, cake, loaves and muffins, crackers, and even doughnuts!

So...I made you a very, very simple pictorial on how to capture your own wild yeast starter.

Because, social distancing.  😉

First, you have to use whole grain flour.

I ground some hard red wheat, hard white wheat, and a little rye for mine.  You can do just about any whole grain, but wheat, rye, or spelt work best for wild yeast starts if you've never done fermentation in your house before.

Next, you add equal part flour and water.
I started with half a cup of each.
In a clean, glass jar.
Mix it up and set in a warm corner.
Cover it lightly with a covering (keep the bugs and dust out), but make sure it isnt tight.  Tight will make it so the gasses can't escape.  Ask me how I know. 😂

Every day, for the next 3 to 5 days, take half out - throw half away - then add in equal amounts water and flour to the remainder.  This is creating a lovely place to grow yeast.

It will start to bubble.

See the bubbles?

It will also create a layer of liquid as it sits overnight.

This liquid can be stirred in, then do your half off and feed...or you can drain it off.

I drain mine off because I like my starter to be less tangy than some enjoy.

One note here.

At about day 2 to 4, you may think your start stinks.
It will be quite strong.
I don't particularly enjoy the smell of mine the first few days of feeding.  My kids tell me it reeks.  But it straightens itself out after a couple more days and become less tart.

This is freshly fed and ready to go.

After 5 to 7 days, your starter is ready for use.
Start with something simple like pancakes to test out effectiveness.
If it needs a few more days, then feed a few more times.
Or, it might be ready to go and you've got so many recipes to start playing with!

Enjoy and good luck!

Summer Tea

I wrote this a while ago for my dear friend Tessa over at Homestead Lady (link here), (who just so happens to have a wonderful sale on her book all about prepardness.   Grab it if you want an excellent work book to help you along!) but as garden season is coming, and so many of us are planning our gardens, I thought it might be worth publishing here as well...

Last year found me in my garden running from herb to herb, desperately trying to save my little friends before they succumbed to the frost.  

I had a large, very large box, that I cut into as I went. 

Freezing my hands off.

After I thawed, and washed all the herbs of their dirt, I noticed I had a massive pile of goodness I didn't know what to do with.  I already had quite a bit drying, and this was extra.

Enter Summer Tea.

I had quite a selection of quite a few little things.

I collect mint, so there were 11 types of Mint.  2 types of Pineapple Sage.  2 types of Lavender.  8 different Basils.  Rosemary.  Catmint.  Monarda.  A few leaves of Yarrow and Mullin.  And so much more.

From that, I just slapped them into a very large, flat box.  Turned them once a week to break up the moisture, and kind of forgot about them.

Come January, I was cleaning up my storage room to find some mint tea.  We do like tea at my house.  I came across this lovely batch of dried herbs.

I crushed them all into smaller pieces and put them into a large glass jar.  I used my immersion blender to crush into smaller pieces.  This made the most lovely tea ever.

This summer I grew even more medicinal and culinary herbs and made it on purpose.  Our family finds this to be very useful in keeping us healthy, and also keeping our tea addiction under control.  haha

The first year we made simple tea bags, or used reusable strainers.  This year, we even consume the leaf bits as we drink our tea.

If you have a surplus of herbals this summer, this makes a lovely way to use them up.

Flavored Rice Mixes

Do you ever just want to have something super easy for dinner?

And ready ASAP because you don't want to wait?

Hahahahahahahahaha

Let's be real here.  That is every day for me, but alas, I do not often get my wish.

This flavored rice makes my wish closer to reality though!  Quite a few years ago, my good friend Lynn passed on her recipes, and as life here goes, we modified and chose our favorite combinations.  Here are two:

Flavor #1 is super easy, and my kids favorite.

2C of rice
1C of thin pasta (broken small)
1/2C dried onions
2tsp Chicken soup stock powder
1tsp dried basil.

I like to pour some oil into a pan and brown the rice and pasta a bit, then dump in equal amounts of water, cover, and cook till tender.

It also cooks really nice in the Instapot or a rice cooker.

Flavor #2 is basically the same, but has some veggies added so it reminds me a bit of Mexican Rice.

2C of rice
1/2C dry Onion
1C freeze dried Corn
1C freeze dried Peas
2tsp Chicken Soup Stock Powder

Cook the same as above.
I have even added canned tomatoes as part of my water and that's amazing too.

I love simple mixes.
I also love food that comes right out of my storage.
Double bonus is that my kids can make this on their own!

Hope you enjoy!

Living Food Storage

It's kind of a running joke/truth when we call our little farm our living food storage.  

We don't keep anything here on our land that doesn't "work" for the food we feed it.

Just like my children.  Hahaha

Seriously.

My kids work hard for our lifestyle.

Over the past 8 years of our living here, we've tried almost every animal.

Sheep, quail, several breeds of ducks, rabbits, cows, goats, chickens, turkeys, pigs of a few varieties, llama, maybe I'm missing something so I will say etc. ;)

So, if you are in the market for a living storage, let me walk you through what we have and why...

1.  Goats

We have tried almost every breed of goat.  We can't find cashmere or oberhaalsi, and I refuse to buy a myatonic goat, so those are the only 3 we haven't done.

Over the years of trial and error, this is what we have found that works best for us:

We love the high cream output of a Nubian.  They are also some of the most friendly and social creatures around.  I joke they are my big puppies.

Alpines and LaManchas have a nice high output for us.  The LaMancha may look funny with their earlessness, but they have pretty darn hardy babies.  Alpines seem to have pretty big babies as well so that's a bonus in the colder months of kidding.

Toggenburg goats are so wonderfully hairy.  Like big shaggy beasts (as big as a goat gets anyway.  Haha).  I also love how their mohawks stand up when they are challenged.

These 4 breeds have become very mixed and mingled in our herd.  We have bred selectively for teats, milk sacks, and output, and have kept our favorites back.  But have ended up with a bunch of loveable mutts that give us massive amounts of milk each day.  

2. Llama

No post about our farm would be complete without Tina.

She came to us with some injuries and has been a steady presence since then.

I adore her.

She is a calm protector.

She loves babies and is the herd babysitter.

She is a very small eater, but is a beautiful fixture on our little homestead.

So, even though she doesn't produce food, she protects it and earns her place in my food storage.  (As do the cats!)

3.  Ducks 

Specifically Muscovy Ducks.

We have tried a few varieties of ducks and geese, but these little friends win.

They are excellent bug eaters.
Our backyard never has mosquitos, our front yard does.

They are amazing mommas.
Each one of our hens generally sits on 2 nests a year, and hatches an average of 8 ducklings per hatch.

They taste like beef and their eggs are amazing for baking.

They are pretty easy to keep contained in our yard.  Although they fly, they are smart enough to stay close to home, and that makes me like them even more.  Haha

4.  Pigs

We have tried a few different pig breeds over the years, but our favorites are Berkshire and Large Black.

Berk for their beautifully marbled meat, and their tendency to not get fatty.  They are also amazing mommas.  So conscientious around their babies.

Blacks for their totally calm disposition.  They are also wonderful mothers.

We have bred these so that we have a nice barnyard mix of both and love the cross.

They make amazing garbage disposals, wonderful ground breakers, and they eat weeds like no other!  I honestly love having all those qualities.

Plus...
...bacon!

5.  Chickens

We love eggs.

And chicken.

So, it was only natural to have chickens.

In fact, that was the very first animal we ever got here on our little plot of land.

I love the colors, textures, and sizes of all the different kinds.

I also love the egg colors of each variety.

So, we have a mixed bag here too.

A little of this, a little of that, and all bread together for a little hybrid vigor.

So there you have it.

Those are my top animals, the ones we will always have.

Our own living food storage.
With it we have fresh eggs, milk, meat.
We also have companionship and learn lessons each day from them.
We also have the opportunity to work hard.

If you have the ability, I highly recommend getting an animal or two.