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Propane Flame Thrower Weed Control Video
Clearing the weeds out of our gravel parking lot for the Homestead Stand. Using a propane torch is an easy and more natural choice to kill weeds. No pesticides required. No weed eating required. Burning broom sedge is a good way to add bio-char (charcoal) to low humus soil. It seems nature has been designed to heal itself. Broom sedge has no grazing value so it grows in large dry stands on the thin soils of ridges and overused land in Virginia. It sits there just waiting for a ignition source. This is a rugged pioneer plant than is early on the ladder of natural succession back to forest. Any…
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Naughty Hens, Securing our Stand Video
In this daily update video, we secure the border of our Homestead Stand and the surrounding gates and fences to keep our chickens from wandering out into the road. Alongside that maintenance, we’re planning to move dirt from our aged manure pile to build up beds in order to plant potatoes and comfrey. Subscribe to keep updated on our journey and learn some new things along with us.
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Planting Yukon Chief Sweet Corn Video
In today’s video we demonstrate how we’re planting our corn this year and what we do to get it in so early, just a few days past the spring equinox. In this example, we’re planting Yukon Chief Sweet Corn which is known for its early maturing at 55 days and its dwarf stalks, coming in at three to four feet in height. Going against tradition of a much later planting time, we’re planning to have these stalks grow in our large greenhouse. Stay tuned for the journey in future videos!
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Food Forest Walkthrough Video
In this video we walk you through what our food forest looks like around the spring equinox of 2021.
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We’ve Got Eggs!
It’s that time of year again when we are inundated with eggs — SPRING! And we are happy to share them with our neighbors out of our roadside homestead stand. Last spring our flock was very small — we just had enough to meet our own needs. This year is a different story. We hope to offer a variety of homestead-produced items in the stand this year. But for now, all we’ve got are eggs… For those of you in the local area: Come on down and get you some free-range, farm-fresh, pastured eggs!
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Our Greenhouse Patio
This year, we made great strides in remodeling the large greenhouse attached to our poultry house. While it is still under construction, with plans to create & use an aquaponic system in it, my husband thought a small patio area within it as well would make a nice respite, particularly in the winter months. And so far it has served us well. 🙂 With temperatures in the 40s and low 50s outside… We are able to enjoy some leisure while soaking in the sun and enjoying some free heat. What a blessing! We look forward to getting a lot of use out of our new outdoor, indoor living space. 🙂
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More Chickens!
In the winter of 2019/2020, sadly, we lost a lot of birds (chickens & quail) due to predators and feeding complications while we were away from home. Finding help in the spring enabled us to make some improvements on the property, to include our poultry housing. Improvements included redefining interior space, leveling the dirt floor, replacing insulation, sealing up holes where rats/snakes were getting in and fixing water leak issues. We were making ready to build up our flock of chickens again. As news spread concerning COVID19 in the spring, the demand for both birds & eggs in our area went up tremendously. So, we got busy renovating our brooding…
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A Walk in Our Woods
In early November I took a stroll through our woods to see the last remains of color on the trees. Here’s a brief tour of the highlights. I feel so blessed to be living in this place. What a beautiful world our Creator has made for us. Wouldn’t you say?
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Storing Onions Without Braiding
We’ve been growing onions in our garden the past few years, and I came across the following video from Homesteading Family that taught me something new. In the past I did the braiding method, and she’s right, the stems lose their integrity over time. I’ve also stored them using pantyhose before, but this method looks more promising: stringing them up. I look forward to trying it out. Of course, the key is to make sure the onions are cured properly (neck & stem of the onion completely dried out) — something I haven’t always been diligent at doing in the past. Going forward though, I aim to do better. 🙂…
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Morning Feeding with Doobie
Doobie is a rat terror and also a rat terrier. Quite remarkably, we have trained him to not attack poultry. We started with chicks 4-5 months ago after getting down to less than a dozen old laying hens. The first batch of these girls will be laying fairly soon.
