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Building-The-Chicken-Coop-With-Pallets

Pallet Chicken Coop | DIY Chicken Coop

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Our first chicken coop was functional, but left a lot to be desired.  We learned a lot from our first little coop, and we put what we learned into our second, bigger pallet chicken coop.  Things we learned from the first coop, make a coop big enough to walk in, roosters are big, need a bigger door,  and always plan you coop to get even more chickens.  Chickens are addictive, and you will always want more.  With these things in mind, we worked on designing our next chicken coop.

The first step was to acquire some wooden pallets.  Wood is getting more and more expensive.  We wanted to do this as inexpensively as possible, as we are cheap.  I got a truck load of free wooden pallets for our chicken coop by asking around. Continue reading “Pallet Chicken Coop | DIY Chicken Coop” →

canning-green-beans

How to Pressure Can Green Beans

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Our green beans are coming in nicely this year and not a moment too soon! We had to breakdown and buy a few cans of store bought green beans not too long ago. What a shame. But happily we have already canned our second batch of contender green beans this season. Contender green beans are string-less. That makes life a whole lot easier, but we also will have some half-runners coming in later. They have strings, but they are just such a tasty bean they are worth the effort. If you are harvesting your own seeds from your beans don’t plant contender and other varieties with strings at the same time or they will cross pollinate. There’s no telling what you’ll end up with the next year!

Snapped Contender Green Beans
Snapped Contender Green Beans

So, how about a little canning tutorial?

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Why You Should Choose Grass Fed Beef

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A year ago, we started buying our beef from a local farm/dealer, Grassfed Greensboro, that we could buy direct from. Over the last year, we have been very pleased with our switch to grass fed beef. We typically order 1/16 of a cow for $150 about every other month and have found out for our family of four (and sometimes 5) that works nicely. We are unable to place orders through the winter months because the cows are too lean so our last order before the cold weather set in we purchased 1/8 of a cow.

Each farm/dealer will quote the sizes and prices differently. Some will quote a price per pound based on the hanging weight. This is the weight before processing. Our dealer quotes the price per portion of cow (1/16, 1/8, 1/4, etc) based on the weight after processing. This makes it much easier to gauge how many pounds you’ll actually get. Typically a grass fed cow will also weigh less than a grain fed cow because the grain in a cow’s diet will “fatten” them. Therefore, 1/16 of a grass fed cow will typically render less pounds of meat than a 1/16 of a grain fed cow.

25 Pounds of Grassfed Beef
1/16 of  Grass Fed Cow (After Processing) 25 Pounds

Continue reading “Why You Should Choose Grass Fed Beef” →

Second-year-raspberries-canes

Growing Raspberries Year 2

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How wonderful it is to see everything coming alive in the spring. Last year in February we planted 4 bare root raspberry canes. Along the trellis you can see how much our 4 raspberry canes have grown.

Continue reading “Growing Raspberries Year 2” →

Bulldozing the land

Clearing Land the Hard Way

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Back in January our son rented us a bulldozer to clear an area of the land. As exciting as it was to finally feel like we were making some progress we quickly realized this job was bigger than we had anticipated and we had already anticipated it to be quite difficult. After seeing just how many trees we had to clear after they were dozed over we had decided to try to get someone to come and chip it for us.

One of Four Large Piles of Trees
One of Four Large Piles of Trees

Continue reading “Clearing Land the Hard Way” →

Rehoming the Chickens

Re-homing Our Chickens

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I know we have been a little MIA with only the random post lately. We’ve just been so busy trying to get several good size projects done amid all of our normal everyday responsibilities. Neither of us seemed to have enough time, energy, nor inspiration to write much. One of those projects was Jon building a new bigger chicken coop so that we would have enough space for our current flock of 6 as well as 6 more that we got at Tractor Supply almost 7 weeks ago.
Continue reading “Re-homing Our Chickens” →

Southern Style Deviled Eggs

How to Make Deviled Eggs Southern Style

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I have always loved deviled eggs. It is one those items I expect to be at every family holiday or church covered dish meal. If you are are raising your own chickens now, you may find yourself with an over abundance of farm fresh eggs. What a blessing that is. So, why not make some deviled eggs? There are several different ways to make deviled eggs much of which is due to preference. This is how I like my deviled eggs.

Deviled Eggs
Deviled Eggs

Continue reading “How to Make Deviled Eggs Southern Style” →

Homestead Cooking with Carol: Bountiful Make-ahead Meal

Homestead Cooking with Carol: Bountiful Make-ahead Meals – Book Review

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Although, for the last few years Jon and I have been working toward being more self-sufficient, prepared, and just living a simpler life, we are still far from experienced homesteaders. I must admit that we have spent hours picking, preparing, and canning our homegrown veggies to turn around and have frozen pizza for supper because we were too tired and didn’t have time for real food. Sadly, more than once we have taken note of this. Not only is it counterproductive, if we are not careful we could let such setbacks discourage us. So, when we had the opportunity to read and review Carol’s new eBook, “Homestead Cooking with Carol: Bountiful Make-ahead Meals”, we were ecstatic.

Continue reading “Homestead Cooking with Carol: Bountiful Make-ahead Meals – Book Review” →

Food, Inc Documentary

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Yesterday evening Jon and I watched the Food, Inc documentary on Netflix.

Food, Inc. Documentary
Food, Inc. Documentary

We were already aware of much of the horror unveiled in the film, yet still were shocked at times. This kind of thing is one of the major reasons we started growing our own food. We still have a long way to go before we are self-sufficient, but we do sleep better at night knowing that we are doing something.

View the Food, Inc Documentary Trailer

http://video.pbs.org/viralplayer/1402965302

Synopsis from PBS

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli — the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Continue reading “Food, Inc Documentary” →