[KansasTerri]

I have been gone for a bit, the reason does not matter at the moment.
We got jobs first. THEN we followed the main roads to a reasonable commute and started looking for a place.
See, starting a homestead is expensive. Since we both were working we could afford to buy the home on an acre, buy tools that we needed a little at a time, and some fruit trees, and such. On weekends there was the garden to tend, we keep a few hens, we tried bees, etc.
That was 30 years ago. Our kids are now grown, our place is paid off, there is a tractor we have not had time to repair and we are loosing the good weather so it might have to wait until spring, and we really ought to set the burn pile on fire. Life is good. We wanted to fish more often this summer but we just never quite found the time.

Now you will always need some money for gas, doctors bills, clothing, TAXES, etc. Some homesteaders are able to make a fair amount at the farmers market, but our farmers market only runs 4 months a year and I never made more than $30 for a day’s selling. Many people made more but I did not. I considered expanding but then I got a chronic illness and so we decided to just eat what I raised and be happy that my husbands job came with medical insurance as an option.
It has been a GOOD life, and I do not understand how so many people can be inside all day sitting down. Still many people ARE happy with that life, including my younger child.
There is work involved in homesteading but I have no regrets at all

• This reply was modified 6 days, 13 hours ago by  KansasTerri.

[KansasTerri]

There is a youtube channel called “home grown veg”. Basically he will plant some pots of early potatos, and at the same time he starts slow growing seedlings in pots. Leeks and celery and many other seedlings stay small for a long time. Then he will harvest the pots of potatos, mix the soil with fresh fertilizer, and plant the now-sturdy celery seedlings (or leek seedlings, or-or-or) and then he will harvest them in the Fall. I do not know how long your gardening season is, but you might consider it

[KansasTerri]

I use the riding mower around the berry patch. Poison ivy will get on the bottom of your shoes, but I use cheap sneakers for all of my yard work and so I do not care. Eventually the poison ivy will get walked off.

Hey, I bet goats like black berries also.

[KansasTerri]

I went to a nursery and the staff were using their hoses with no kinking or difficulty. I asked them what hose they were using, they told me, and they had it in stock. So I bought it

After using it for a month, went back and bought a second one. Because they worked. And because there is nothing worse than fighting with your hoses when it is 101 degrees out.

[KansasTerri]

Our spring in Kansas was cool and dry. With regular watering the brocoli and potatos are doing well. but peas look terrible and the beans are just STARTING to look good. I am having to re-plant the melons and zucchini

I am hoping that now it is warmer that other veggies will pick up as well.

[KansasTerri]

I, too got fed up with the lousy quality of hose. I eventually asked a nursery what hose their staff used, and they pointed me to a commercial grade hose. It cost me an extra $15 but I have never regretted it, because it WORKS!!!!!!!!

[KansasTerri]

I do not know about the other remedies, but using honey on infections is a very old beekeeper’s remedy. It works well enough for doctors to try it on my son

[KansasTerri]

My goal for the coming year is to put my house in order: It is an older house and it needs a fair amount of repair work on the plumbing, sheet rock, etc. THEN there is the usual gardening, preserving, etc.

[KansasTerri]

It got down to minus 6, with a strong wind blowing. AND I discovered that my emergency hen house heater was simply not strong enough. It took me far too long to figure out that there was nothing wrong with the settings, which meant that I was out swapping heaters at 11 at night.

Now I know that if you crowd the chickens a bit that no supplemental heat would be needed, but I only have 5 birds in a 12 x 10 structure. And so my birds needed a bit of supplemental heat in order to keep the inside temps in the teens. I would have preferred it to be 10 degrees WARMER, but my space heaters are simply not designed for minus 6!

[KansasTerri]

Nobody knew that veggie burgers were incredibly high in saturated fat until over a year had passed. I actually have NOTHING against lab-grown meat, I just want the OTHER guy to be the guinea pig until we know if they got it right (like iodized salt) or if they got it wrong (like veggie burgers)

[KansasTerri]

Are people still interested in this thread? As a handicapped person I am keenly interested in making jobs easier, and I am down to about an hour in the kitchen.

While I do spend about an hour, there are just the 2 of us and that helps. My BIG thing is efficiency and using meals that are a snap to prepare. For instance I mix the cornbread in the pan that I will cook it in, and I just set it on the table with a spatula so that people can serve themselves. I DID buy a 2-handled frying pan because it is prettier: I saw Wanda using one on Deep South Homestead and I liked it. By mixing everything in the frying pan I eliminate a mixing bowl and small savings of time will add up.

When I do something like raw vegetable strips, then I like to make enough to last a couple of days. It is much more efficient. I do the same with salads and such, and often I do this with side dishes as well. And, making a big pot of stew is almost as fast as making a small pot of stew, and it will give me two main courses instead of one

…………

I start the day spending 5? minutes taking care of the chickens, and when I wash up in the kitchen sink I then take care of any dishes in the sink: I do try to save steps. And throughout the day when I am at the kitchen sink then I move any dishes into the dishwasher and wipe things down if it needs it. My kitchen is rarely perfect but it is not really untidy either.

After the chickens are fed and the eggs taken care of, I will set out anything frozen that needs to thaw: it is no use putting this off because if I am tired then I will fix canned chili from my preps instead. I KNOW that I will, I ALWAYS go for instant meals unless the meat is already out and thawed. And so I set the meat out first thing before I do get tired.

And while I cook I also clean up. While ground beef browns I will take care of everything, start any side dishes, and often decide what I will fix tomorrow. And I will stir the beef every now and than while I work.

But MOST IMPORTANTLY, I have a long list of meals that take little prep time and uses few dishes, and that is mostly what I cook. The EASY meals, LOL! Anything that needs hovering over, like bread, is done on a day that I feel creative.

Easy meals:

Breakfast. Eggs and fried potatos, or eggs and bacon (I fry the package of bacon and set some aside for later) or packets of instant oatmeal or cereal

Lunch. Usually either leftovers or sandwiches. Possibly 5 minutes to prepare and set dishes in the sink

Dinner. Spagetti with ground beef sauce and raw veggies. Preferrably the veggies were cut up the previous day but veggies can be sliced while the water comes to a boil. Again, I slice enough for a couple of days.

Tacos: ground beef with seasonings and cheese. Shredded lettuce, tomatos, etc on the side. AND if I shred the lettuce for tacos then I also chop more lettuce for the next night’s salad.

I chop the lettuce for salads instead of tearing it as it is very much faster and easier.

Other dinners: baked beef, pork, or chicken.A potato on the side and already-made salad or veggie strips from the fridge. Or brown hamburger and mix with cooked noodles and some sauce (ragu, OR milk with grated cheese, etc) Black eyed peas: cook the peas with spices, allow the water to reduce to where it looks ready to serve. And I mix the corn bread in the pan that it will be cooked in as I do not turn the corn bread out: I set it pan and all on the table with a spatula.

……………………..

Of course when I bring produce in from the garden that ALSO takes time, but I do not include that in my daily hour or so in the kitchen. So, I spend day after day preparing apples from my trees for the freezer and the dehydrator, but now I have apples to make fried apples (about 10 minutes of cooking time while you tidy the kitchen f it still needs it).

I also do not count the time that I spend in snapping green beans or shelling peeling and blanching carrots, but having those baggies of frozen veggies waiting to be dumped into a pan are serious time savers when I am cooking

[KansasTerri]

I got serious about prepping many years ago, when an ice storm took out our power. And then I beefed up my pantry during Covid. We are now at the use-and-replace stage, with the old items being used first: Lunch today is chili from our stores. I usually just replace what we use the next time it goes on sale. We do not have to pay full price for most of our food any longer. And I am seriously enjoying the savings!

[KansasTerri]

Remember that plants eat last.

A mulch pile uses bacteria to decompose the organic matter. Once the mulch pile has finished working and is all broken down that nitrogen is released back into the soil PLUS the nitrogen that was in the leaves and such. So first nitrogen is sucked up and then ALL of nitrogen is released into the soil for the plants.

Most people deal with this by adding something high in nitrogen to their mulched garden. Personally when I mulch the garden in the Fall I also add manure from my backyard hens. Some add chemical fertilizer.

Of course, if you mulch every year, then there will be compost that is finishing and be releasing nitrogen at the same time that the new mulch will be needing it and the nutrients will all be in balance. BUT, it takes several months for that to happen and my veggies need nutrients NOW, and so I add manure from the hens when I have it.

My soil is also clay. And, to keep the structure nice and crumbly the mulch does have to be dug in. For me, I mulch my potatos and when I harvest them the half-used mulch gets dug in at the same time. I fertilize with either chemicals or I scatter chicken poo when I think the plants need it

[KansasTerri]

I am currently harvesting tomatos and sweet potatos. It should freeze in about 3 days time, but I am letting the sweet potatos go until the last moment because the potatos are all so small! The weather this year was so bad that the 90 day sweet potatos have been in the ground for 130 days and they are just now trying to bear. The spring was long and cool, then the sweet potatos flooded even though we are on a hillside, (an inch deep sheet of water was running down the hillside) and then we had the “heat dome”. What a year!

[KansasTerri]

You are making butter and I am making cheese! It is good to have homesteading activities that can be done while the ground is frozen