One New Arrival

Here is Sam, one of two recent additions to our homestead. Sam came to us from a local auction that Ann went to. With the extremely high hay prices in our area due to the drought, 'hobby' type animals are not worth much at auction. Ann bought this little guy for $10.00! While he is no show animal and does have some conformation problems, he was to nice to pass up. He is very docile, leads well, picks up his feet, and trailers easily. He is only two years old, so has a long life in front of him. The grand kids all approved.

A pony cart is now on the shopping list as well as a saddle for him. He carried his own hay back to the cabin with two bags set over his back. I think he will easily earn his keep around here.
I finally got my elder flower wine bottled one day last week. It needs a little time in the cellar to mellow out now but should be good by Yule. I'll be testing it at any rate! Not quite as good as last years but I think it will improve as it ages. Since we robbed the bees last week I can now start a batch of mead.

Here is a shot of our late afternoon sky a week or so ago. I heard that they had a bad dust storm out in the Dakotas which causes the cool color here. Bad for them, scenic for us.

Garden Clean-up

Here are a few of the last things coming out of the gardens this year. These cabbages are going to be made into sauerkraut as soon as we get time. They will keep in our root cellar for a couple weeks just fine. Now we have to get the gardens cleaned up and prepared for next spring. I planted 120 cloves of garlic in a raised bed last week. Those will get a nice blanket of rotten hay later this week. I still have Jerusalem Artichokes to dig and little ones to replant for next year. Other than that it is mostly just clean up. I've started spreading llama manure around on some of the garden and will finish that today if it does not rain too much. I like to get the manure on in the fall and worked in so it is broken down some when we plant. I'll also do a soil test to see if  we need to spread any lime on. I have a lot of fallen leaves to use for mulch , or I should say I will have, they are not raked up yet! Guess I better add that to my never ending list of stuff that needs to be done. As soon as I get a chance to snap a couple of pics I'll introduce you to the latest members of our homestead.

Here is a pic of a mangle or sugar beet. We put in a patch of them most years as feed for the critters. Cattle love them but they have to be cut up for them. We tried making our own sugar last year but that was a flop. Wanted to try again this year but we didn't have the rain we needed to get a decent crop. Not thinning the planting on time just aggravated the lack of moisture.This one, about 8 inches long, is sadly one of the larger ones. On a good year it would be a runt. If you like a challenge,organic gardening would be a good hobby for you. Just about the time you think you know something about raising a certain crop, mother nature throws you a curve ball and it all goes out the window!

Honey Thieves

We finally got around to stealing some honey from our bees. The drought conditions over most of the summer made me wonder if the bees would have been able to find enough nectar flowers to end up with much honey. Neither of the two hives seem to have had any trouble, both had a full box we could abscond with and still leave enough honey to feed the hive through the winter. Both hives are now down to two boxes which should be the optimum size for them to overwinter in.So far the Warre' type hive seems to be a success for us.( see third or fourth link at side for info about Warre' hive)

Here are a couple sections of comb we kept intact to cut comb honey from. The bees in this hive followed the top bars very nicely and had few connections between combs. The other hive was less obliging and had a very interesting labyrinth of comb.Both hives had moved brood rearing to lower sections of the hive and were using the top box strictly for honey storage. There were a few cells that still held pollen, the uncapped ones you can see on both combs. We took a total of 30 pounds of honey from the two hives.

That is a small amount compared to standard boxes but I am happy with what we got. If we can get these bees to survive the winter I will be overjoyed.
 Just to show how good bees are at finding anything sweet, here is a pic of one of the boxes we took off .This is less than 12 hours later and a quarter of a mile away. Within three hours of finding the box they had all the bits of honey left in the box cleaned up and returned to the hive. There were several hundred bees working there continually.

Jerusalem Artichoke

Jerusalem Artichokes are a native perennial plant that can reach over eight feet in height. As you can see, using the five foot shovel for comparison, mine did that easily this year. Helianthus tuberosus, is a sunflower and not related to artichokes at all. They are grown for the edible tubers they produce in abundance even in a dry year like this one was.  Most text about Jerusalem Artichokes say you can use them any way you use a potato but they are not that good boiled having a somewhat watery texture when cooked that way. I think they are good in a stir fry, they have a texture similar to water chestnuts then.The tubers store their carbohydrates as inulin rather than starch so they are a good choice for people who have issues with carbohydrates and may be helpful for people with diabetes.
 The flower is about three inches across but looks more like a daisy than a sunflower. Here in zone three they seldom flower before frost but that has little effect on tuber production. The tubers are dug in late fall giving the plant as much time as possible to fatten the tubers.

The tubers in this pic are about average size, large being about like a medium size potato. Each plant will have a dozen or so tubers. The small ones go back in the ground immediately for next years crop. Any you miss will send up plants next year. They grow best in full sun,average garden soil seems fine. I throw the stalks over the fence to the cows and they seem to relish them. Even the big stalks get eaten after they have eaten the leaves off. Artichokes don't seem to have many problems with bugs or diseases. I have been growing these for over twenty years from the original tubers I planted. A fun and easy addition to the garden even if it is not exactly a main crop.

Roasted Dandelion Root

Here is a pic of a nice big fat dandelion root just perfect for roasting. Roasted dandelion root is often called a coffee substitute but I don't think many hard core coffee drinkers like myself would agree with that. I do however think it makes a good additive and flavoring to real coffee. I think it gives a flavor very similar to New Orleans style chicory coffee. To me, it seems to make the coffee very smooth,and slightly nutty flavored. Since it grows almost every where and is easy to process I think it is a good plant to add to my wild food store house. I would be very careful about where you gathered your dandelion root, avoid any area that has might have been sprayed with herbicides,etc.
 I roast the roots as soon as possible after gathering them. If they are left to start drying out much of the sugar in the roots will be converted to starches. Roasting immediately will caramelize those sugars resulting in a much richer, fuller taste. Chop the root into pieces small enough to fit into your coffee grinder while the root is raw. It will be as tough as wood when it is dry but very brittle. It should be roasted until it is  quite dark, almost black. It will powder in your coffee grinder rather than being in little crumbles. We substitute one tablespoon of the powdered root for one tablespoon of the coffee. This is with a regular percolator so you may need to experiment with other types of coffee making.

Walnuts and Butternuts

All of us busy, busy squirrels are gathering nuts for the winter. This pic shows the contrast between a black walnut, on the left, and a butternut on the right. Both are delicious but I think the butternut is far better for eating out of hand. Black walnuts are best in fudge or any type of chocolate baked goods. The pic can't show the other very noticeable difference between the two. The hull on butternuts is very sticky when they are green, the black walnut's is not. This was a poor year for butternuts here so almost everything we gathered this year is black walnut.

Here is our pile of goodies, all in the hull of course.The full bags weigh about 75 pounds. Right after this is when the big job of removing all those hulls started. We put them in a shallow box and stomp on them to smash the hulls. The nuts are then separated from the hulls and laid out to dry. If you don't wear rubber gloves while handling the hulls they will give you a nice indelible brown color on your hands. The hulls give off a substance that inhibits the growth of many plants so I am careful about where I dump them.

This is a pic of some of the country side on one of our road trips. The fall colors were not showing well then but have gotten very nice since then.
 Well, back to gathering nuts for me, winter is not far away!