Homestead Happenings — Thanksgiving On The Homestead

Posted on December 2, 2020 by Mary

What goes on on the homestead in late November? Thanksgiving prep and celebration, of course!

This year was on the smaller side. Covid. As a pretty good-sized family, though, it’s never what one might call “small.”

Getting Ahead by Prepping Ahead

When you grow much, most, or all of what you eat, holidays like Thanksgiving can take a bit longer to prepare for than they might in a more conventional household. A lot of these foods have already seen some prep early on in the year during canning or preserving. Here on our homestead, I don’t pre-can things like pie fillings, and seldom are sauces (cranberry sauce, for instance) canned ahead.

I do grow pumpkins and squash and love to make homemade, completely from scratch pies with them (in fact, I’ve been years tweaking commercial recipes to get one “just right” for homegrown pumpkin pie—we will talk about that in another post). Pumpkins and winter squashes store so well that I don’t usually put the time and utilities into preserving them (it’s not really considered safe to can pumpkins and squash as a puree so if I do preserve them it’s in the freezer, which I find a little less preferable to freshly cooked or roasted–too watery).

The bottom line is that if it’s not coming out of a can or off a grocery store shelf, it’s going to take a little more time and effort to turn those homegrown goods into your holiday meal. The results, though, are oh, SO worth it!

Fresh Turkey for Thanksgiving

Some of our homesteading was sidelined a few years ago due to a catastrophic injury in the household. During that time we did not give up, but we did scale way back. I made pains to keep some semblance of backyard farming going in an effort to maintain a lifestyle that was recognizable to us, a lifestyle we’d always enjoyed, and also to maintain the mental health of the household. And so, we have not raised our own turkeys here on the homestead in at least three years.

We do, however, have excellent local farms for whom household members work part time, and so we were blessed with the gift of appreciation in the form of a farm-fresh turkey. This nearly 24-pounder was one of the first prepping projects when he went into the brine. And he was worth the extra time and effort.

As for the rest, the pictures can take over the talking. As always, though, comments and questions are quite welcome.

Hoping your Thanksgiving was a delicious and blessed as ours on our homestead, and that the remainder of the year and the upcoming holiday season is full of peace, joy, and tranquility!

Fresh herbs, salt, sugar, water, GARLIC!, to brine the turkey.

Early November Homestead Happenings–Goodnight Garden and a Good Cup of (Elderberry) Tea

Posted on November 6, 2020 by Mary

with Special Thanks to the next Veal

By November in New England, many of the outside tasks of homesteading are coming to an end. We’ve had some frosts and even some snows, though it seems Mother Nature cannot make up her mind, and here I sit inside trying to keep myself seated and not out playing in the mid-60 degree weather.

There is always something going on on a homestead or backyard farm. As the winter starts to settle in, those tasks and chores are sometimes less obvious. As a writer and homestead information publisher, this is the time of year that I “get down to business” a little more steadily. I try to refocus my time on writing, publishing, and information sharing, which is one of our means of support that carries us through the more active warm weather months. Still, some final gardening and harvesting tasks remained before the coldest temps set in.

Final Garden Harvest 2020

I’m not going to lie. By the time September and October roll around, I’m looking forward to a frost. I don’t publicize that secret wish and it’s not something I say out loud in local circles with friends already whimpering over the snow and cold that lies ahead, but by that time I’m a little tired of weeding, harvesting and tending the garden.

There I said it. And the best way to get out of gardening? A good, hard, killing frost. It seems those frosts come later and later in my area these days, though.

Does this make me a bad backyard farmer? A hypocrite homesteader? An imposter gardener?

I think what it makes me is someone who appreciates the cycle of life and loves a good set of seasons, ready to move into the next season…which will eventually grow old, too, just in time for me to get the itch to garden and tend and grow again next spring.

So what HAS been happening on the homestead this week? Final garden harvesting, digging some herbs to grow inside this winter, working on an Elderberry Tea book, submitting my first article as a contributing blogger to Mother Earth News (waiting for a link to share!), and saying “Thanks” and goodbye to the veal–humanely raised, not in confinement, respected, well-treated, and appreciated. Today, though, it was time to see him off. Raising veal is one way to maximize the use of our homestead dairy cows and their milk and to affordably, healthfully, feed the family. (More on raising veal in another post.) Questions and respectful comments welcome, but abusive, rude comments will not be approved.

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Homestead Happenings – Cover Crops and Dairy Day!

Posted on October 26, 2020 by Mary

This week has been a mix of late fall garden close-up and indoor preserving. Featuring prominently in that preserving? Home dairy day!

Fall Cover Crop for Springtime Weed suppression, Nitrogen Fixing, and No-Till Plantings

This week saw a little cover-cropping–I’m trialing cover cropping with a mix of white and red clover and planning to do some no-till gardening for selected plants through the clover in the spring. A recent Mother Earth News issue had a great spread on cover crops for the garden. In it, they talk a little about no-till gardening through the clover for some crops. I’m thinking this makes a lot of sense for tomatoes, because for many years now we’ve fought a lot of tomato blight here in New England gardens. Since blight initially starts with spore-infected soil splashing up from rain and watering and then spreads up the plant, controlling the splash is one of the best preventative methods to help control tomato blight.

clover fall cover crop — Tiny sprouts of white and red clover. These fast-germinating seeds were quick to pop with a little rain the day after spreading (under one week!)

Clover Cover Crop for Elderberries

I am also playing with using the same red and white clover mix under a small stand of elderberry bushes. Elderberries do not compete well with other weeds, especially large ones that can choke the plants out. Clover, however, is low-growing and is also a nitrogen-fixer. My theory is that the clover will remain low enough not to compete too much with these large, well-established bushes but will suppress other, more problematic weeds. The clover can be mowed, so even if some weeds come through they should be pretty easy to control with regular mowing. And along the way, the plants will get a nitrogen boost from the clover, something that older elderberry bushes tend to need.

Honey bees love a good stand of clover, too, so one other big benefit will be drawing more bees to the area of the blossoming elderflowers. Sounds like a win, win, win, but it is an experiment, and we’ll see!

Making the Most of That Dairy Cow

The other big project this week was taking a day to do dairy. We milk a lovely little jersey cow here for milk and dairy for the family. To be sure, her four to five grass-fed gallons a day are more than we need; and keeping a dairy cow is not really what you might call “cheap,” especially if you don’t have an abundance of hay land and pasture.

separating milk for butter — Separating cream-line milk for cream to make butter. Best to use milk between two and ten days old. The separation line is clear to see, and a simple siphon of a dedicated piece of tubing is a cheap and easy way to separate cow’s milk at home.

The best way to continue to justify keeping our backyard dairy cow is by maximizing the use of the milk. I’ll be the first to admit that life gets in the way and this is an area in which I could always do better, but between growing a humanely-raised rose veal, seven or more of us drinking fluid milk, and using the excess milk for cream, cheese, and butter, it starts to become a little more of a profit-leaning project. And so today’s pictures are heavily weighted in milk and dairy, with maybe a few others thrown in.

As always, I’m interested to see and hear about your #HomesteadHappenings, and eager to to hear what questions you have that I can answer in comments and/or future posts.

Homestead Happenings in Late October

Red and White Clover Cover Crop popping through!

Homestead Happenings. homemade dairy, butter, and cheese. Cover crop clover in the garden and elderberries. — Red and White Clover Cover Crop popping through!

Happenings on the Homestead

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Mary

Just lately it’s occurred to me that while information-sharing is certainly at the heart of homestead blogging and publishing, we might perhaps be overlooking some of the smaller daily doings of the backyard farm and homestead.

A Look in the Homesteading Mirror

This came to me while in the garden this late summer and early fall, looking around at the produce and projects in their various stages of completion. I think it came as more of an awareness in large part due to new membership in a number of online forums (mainly Facebook groups).

I think this was particularly true because this year with COVID and growing concerns over food security, with people with more time and inclination for reviving “Victory Gardens” and so many newcomers reaching out for help with first-time growing and gardening; many of us more seasoned homesteaders had a bit of a mirror shined upon ourselves and our daily lives.

Questions and answers that might have seemed obvious and unworthy of discussion are proving on these forums, more and more, to be very much a topic of interest to these “newbies” but also just in conversation amongst ourselves. This in turn led me to think that maybe there is a place for the more, dare I call it mundane, but more appropriately call it commonplace, chores, tasks, functions, and productions of the self-sufficient leaning homestead and small farm.

Let’s See Homesteading for What It Really Is

Maybe, just maybe, every single post doesn’t have to be so involved. Maybe not all posts have to teach or instruct. Maybe quick posts that give more of a glimpse into the everyday can do just as much to help people sort out their options and see what plans and projects might work for them on their farm. Maybe they’ll just be a bit of fun, but maybe they’ll help others actually see more of what life on a modern “homestead” looks like.

I’ll call these posts “Homestead Happenings.”

It’s pretty likely these will be, in large part, collections of pictures with not as many words (something I’m sure plenty of people might even appreciate!). Sort of Instagram for the website, archived and available.

Show and Tell #HomesteadHappenings

I invite you to scroll through, take from these posts what you will, and even send me links to your own version of Homestead Happenings, so we might all see what each other are doing and what great ideas (or even just good old-fashioned basic ones) are out there. Certainly, if you see a picture or subject that intrigues you, that you’d like to hear more about, leave me a comment or send me an email. Maybe some of your interests will grow into more in-depth posts on topics that prove to be of interest.
In this spirit, I leave you now with some of the most recent pictures from around the homestead and kitchen.

Late summer and fall are great times to be on a homestead in New England!