Tools of the Trade

I admit that I am no expert when it comes to homesteading but, I do have a couple of years under my belt and have gone through some trial and error which I'm hoping you can gain some knowledge from.

When it comes to gadgets in the kitchen I'm of the mindset that less is more. I do not like clutter on the counters. I prefer small appliance that I can slip into a cupboard or onto a shelf so their out of sight. This isn't always logical of course. But thankfully our kitchen is set up in a way that next to our fridge there is an expanse of counter that used to have a microwave on it, until we got the one over the stove fixed, and that we don't really utilize for much. This is where I store my most used appliances, including the coffee maker(!).

For you today I have four appliance that I deem absolutely necessary for successful homesteading. I'll tell you what I have, including the brand and what I use it for. Of course you will have to figure out what is most useful to your form of homesteading but hopefully this will give you some good ideas.

First up: A stand mixer

 

 

I have a kitchen Aid professional 600. It has the largest bowl and motor that they make. I don't necessarily think that everyone needs one this big, because this version is expensive, and if I was only using it for homesteading then I would have gone with a smaller one. But because I also bake and do other things for customers with it I needed something that was going to stand up against batch after batch of frostings. It comes with three attachments, a whip, a paddle and a dough hook. I use all of them, often. You can also buy a bunch of other attachments for it that will plug into its auxiliary port (?) I have one that grids oats into flour but there are literally tons of them. I love kitchen Aid appliances I think for the money you spend you really do pay for a quality product, and they always look cool. I use mine for making large batches of bread dough, and mixing up things like butter and of coarse for any baking that I do.

 

Second: A Food processor

 

Again I have the Kitchen Aid 11 cup food processor. I got this as a gift this past Christmas and honestly I don't know how I lived without one. I uses this on an almost daily basis. It is vital for mostly everything we do around here. It came with three blades and two slicing disks. I use it to make the dough for tortillas, for grating cheese, for making peanut butter and for making pie crusts. I flippin love this thing. And you might notice that its the exact same color as my mixer, which I also love - Color Coordination!!

 

Thirdly: A Dehydrator

I use this on an almost weekly basis. This is the Nesco digital dehydrator and came with four trays, but can hold up to 12. It is extremely quiet, you hardly even notice that its on and has a digital display that tells you the time you have left and the temp. I use this for the obvious things like dehydrating fruit (our favorite so far is Mango and Pineapple!) and herbs. A used to be a big fruit snacks eater, he would take two packs with him everyday in his lunch. But now that we have this I dehydrate some fruit on Sundays and he takes a sack of those instead. A healthy and unprocessed alternative.

The last thing on my list isn't really an appliance but I feel like it is necessary to making our homesteading project a success- a well organized success: A label maker

 

This is the DYMO letratag and I am a label maniac. HI my name is STEPHANIE and I am addicted to labeling things.... really I am. But I feel like it really does make things more organized and useful. when you know where everything is and what's in every jar then when it's time to make dinner its a much more streamlined process.

 

Here you can see I've labeled our spices (which we get from our local Amish store) and a couple of quart jars that I store beans in. Now see if these weren't labeled you'd have to pull out each one and look at the lids to make sure you are pulling out the right one. But now you can see them when you open the cabinet and just get out what you need.

Label maker = VITAL!

I guess you could also add a canner to this list but since I only use that for harvest season I don't really find it necessary all year long.

And there you have it my four vital tools for homesteading. What do you find vital in your kitchen?



To Homestead or Not To

Homesteading is a word that's being thrown around a lot these days, but what does it mean and how can you adapt it to fit your lifestyle?

Well I can answer the first questions but the second one your have to come up with the answer on your own, all I can do is tell you how I make it work for us.

In a nutshell- Homesteading is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. Basically DIY to the extreme. Need chicken stock for chicken noodle soup- make it yourself. How about tortillas for taco Tuesday- make them yourself. Anything that can be made from scratch is. This can come in many forms for example if you have a garden, instead of simply using the harvest to feed your family for the summer and then letting the rest go to seed, you would can or freeze the extras to feed your family for the entire winter. Or Adding corn to your garden planning and then hanging the cobs in your basement to dry out so that you can make cornmeal later. For a lot of people Homesteading doesn't just pertain to food stuffs it also can mean making textiles like clothing or blankets or even crafts.

You might be saying "Sounds like FUN!" but, more than likely right about now your saying something like "Sounds like a LOT of WORK" and you'd be right, although I tend to think that both statements are true. Now, I tend to feel only adequate in the crafty department so I don't do the whole make my own clothes or blankets part but, I do put a huge emphasis on the food part.

Being on a farm, food is always on our minds. Food for the chickens, food for the pigs, food for the cows. And for a while food for ourselves was kind of forgotten. It was nothing to us to be out in the field late at night only to come in and run to town for Wendy's because we were starving and wanted to eat now, not an hour from now, but we always felt like crap, the convenience was worth it to us at the time. But that was then, back when we both had moderately well paying jobs, back before I got laid off and decided that I wanted to do something that I would enjoy. If I was going to work for the man, I was going to at least enjoy doing it. I love my job now, I am the executive baker at a small town bakery and I enjoy getting up and going into work every morning. But, that has a cost and the cost is making only a little over minimum wage. Homesteading for us was grown out of necessity mostly. The other haft of that equation is that we woke up one day and realized that we were tired of always working to feed the animals. We had this big beautiful farm and it should be working for us too. We'd always had a garden but now it was time to get a little more use out of it.

Both A and I are planners. Every winter we sit down and plan out the layout of the farm. Which field is going to stay hay, where the corn is going to be planted and the soy beans and the potatoes. We love when seed catalogs come in the mail, we pour over them dreaming about the exotic varieties of beets we could be planting(we don't even eat beets, YUCK) we make a huge list of all the seeds we want and total them, and then reality punches us in the face. Seeds can get expensive, especially if your buying new each year and not saving your seeds (the process of using part of this years harvest to create next years seeds) Which when your starting out is something that you wont be able to do, unless of course you know someone who's already saving their seed. We try to save seed when we can but it doesn't always work. You might find a plant that doesn't thrive in your type of soil or a vegetable that you thought you would love and use a lot of but, just really aren't that into. The best way to go about it is through trial and error. We still haven't found a cucumber that does well in our soil and makes good pickles so, each year we plant a new variety. And that's ok with us, we don't mind waging a war on the balance between taste and efficient garden production. Besides, the spoils of this war are often quite tasty!

Ok, so here is a basic run down of what our garden looked like last year and how we plan to tweak it for this upcoming spring, or at least what we hope to accomplish.

• Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Summer squash
• Zucchini
• Peas
• Green beans
• Sweet Corn
• Cucumbers
• Pumpkins- We use these not only for decoration around Halloween but for pies and as a sweet treat for our Chickens, who LOVE pumpkin!
• Watermelon
• Peppers- Both Hot and Mild
• Lettuce
• Kale
• Winter squash
• Rhubarb
• Asparagus- This is a long yield plant. That means that the first year you plant you wont get anything, the second year you'll get some and then the third year your crop should explode. You only have to plant once and the seed lasts for 30 years (yep 30!)

I also help my grandparents in their garden in exchange for Pears, they have two trees, and whatever typically doesn't do well in our garden. I also trade a service or something that we have an excess amount of for things like apples with someone I know who has an orchard. Almost everything I can or freeze or make into something else. For example, the tomatoes I turn into pizza sauce and ketchup as well as leave whole for recipes like chili. When harvest time comes around in the fall we are very VERY busy. But thankfully I really enjoy doing it, its a labor of love for my family.

So how has this impacted my grocery bill? Well when we were both working for the same company and had a more steady stream of outside income I would typically spend about $75-$100 a week in groceries. And we were still eating out at least once a week. Looking back at it know it makes me sick to my stomach. Thankfully life kicked us in a more positive direction. Now I spend about $25 at a "Grocery" store and $30 every two weeks at the Amish store near us where I stock up on staples for a more reasonable price. That's a big difference. I make a lot of things from scratch, and I spend a lot of time planning out our meals, it takes quite a bit of time and effort to stay on top of everything. But we also go without quite a bit too. We no longer eat out, or at least we try not to. If A is hungry for pizza (which is often) then I will whip up a batch of pizza dough and we'll have pizza and breadsticks for dinner (don't worry I plan to share the recipe!). But there are times when we just need a break so we head into town and grab a pizza from one of the many pizza places. We try not to get upset when we break down like that and instead look at it as a reward, one that only happens every once in a while.

You might be asking yourself at this point what about meat? No we are not vegetarians. In fact A feels like if there is not a meat served with dinner than it can't really be called dinner. Don't even get me started about the number of times we've argued over instituting a "Meatless Monday", so far it hasn't happened. Since this post has already gotten longer than I was planning, I'll leave that question for another post.

One of the most important things I've discovered about this whole homesteading process is that its a learning process. It doesn't happen over night and what works for me is not necessarily going to work for you. Not everyone has the luxury of a farm at their finger tips. You might actually only have a couple of pots on your patio. To you homesteading might mean keeping a look out for when tomatoes go on sale at the store and snatching up a bunch of them and then spending the day canning and freezing them. Be patient, this wont happen overnight and it might not even happen in a couple of months or even a couple of years. There are unlimited amounts of resources out there for you to lean on, I know I do.

Do you have questions? Please ask them in the comments, I swear I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability, but I'm still learning too.

Homesteading is different for different people, it's all about finding the balance that fits into your lifestyle and goals.

How do you homestead?

What I'm Reading/ Listening to

In the precious bit of quiet time that I have I enjoy picking up a good book. Books to me are like a bowl of candy. Each one has its own flavor and if I'm honest I tend to enjoy them all. I am a serious reader. My kindle alone has something like 400+ books on it. And that's not even counting the bookshelves I also take up space on. Whenever I am reading a good book I am loath to put it down for things like, doing dishes or cleaning the house or that pesky little thing called driving. People tend to frown on you if they see you driving down the road with your nose in a book. That's why I also have an audiobooks account. This to me is one of life's greatest inventions. I love that I can listen to a book when I am working in the garden or riding on the tractor or driving to work. I utilize Audible which is an amazing website where you purchase an monthly subscription of credits that you can use to purchase books. I use it all the time, my WISH LIST is a mile long and getting longer everyday.

Ok so hopefully your curious now about what it is that I'm reading/listening to. If not then go ahead and close the post, no judgment or hard feelings. I tend to go through books quite fast so posts like this might be often, hopefully I can encourage you to find your next great read!

What I'm reading:

The Memory Box By: Eva Lesko Natiello

I only just started this book but so far its interesting. The basic premise is that a suburban mom searches her name on Google, and finds nothing. Then she searches her maiden name and finds a whole lot more than she bargained for, none of which she remembers. I picked this book, even though its not my usual choice because of the premise, our online presence nowadays is so important and maintaining a good reputation can be a challenge. I plan to update with a full review once I've finished.

UPDATE 2/8: I am now about 1/2 way through this book and I have to say that I have done a complete 180 on this book. The more I read the more exasperated I become with the authors way of writing. It feels almost disjointed from the characters. I plan to finish though because I've never not finished a book (ok well there was that one time.... but it was only once).


What I'm listening to:

The Night Circus By: Erin Morgenstern. Read by: Jim Dale

This book is FANTASTIC. Its all about a circus that only runs at night. I know that doesn't give you much to go on but to say more I feel will really give away too much. It has a little bit of everything, Romance, intrigue, mystery, family drama, death. I am really so surprised that this book hasn't generated more attention, it really is an underrated book.

The reader is Jim Dale who if your familiar with audio books also narrated the Harry Potter Series, which is one of my all time favorite series. He does an excellent job giving each character their voice and really draws you into the story. Most of the time my drive to work goes by so fast that I sit for a couple of extra minute just so I can finish a section.

This book is definitely on my MUST READ list!

 

* All of the above opinions are my own, I was not given free copies nor was I asked to write a review. 

This Land, This Life, This Home!

Living off the land is not a simple thing. It's not always easy, because let me tell you Mother Nature doesn't always cooperate. But it is rewarding. I don't know about you but pulling something out of the ground that I helped create, grow, nourish gives me a warm tingly feeling in my heart.

That's what we do here on our farm the Rolling K. We try to live off the land. I say try because we don't always succeed and things don't always go according to plan. We try as best we can to roll with whatever mother nature throws at us.

Ok so lets start with some background information. Let me say up front though that I understand not everyone is in the same position that we are, so the information I share isn't going to be useful to everyone, I just want to share what we have and utilize to make our life work for us.

We live in West Michigan on an 80 acre farm that has sandy, clay and rocky soil and more swamp land than any one person needs to see in their lifetime. With four distinct seasons there is always a lot happening on our farm. We spend a majority of our time getting ready for winter, because if you know anything about the Great Lakes state than you know we spend a majority of our time covered in snow. We typically have at least 100 chickens, though we do pare down in the winter, pigs and cows in terms of livestock. We have your typical large old style farm barn where we store equipment and hay in the fall and winter as well as our cows, as well as a large chicken barn were our girls, and their 3 fellas reside. Our pigs have a separate pen, but this area is something that we are currently in the process of renovating. We have numerous tractors and other necessary farm implements. Each spring we plant field corn, potatoes, soy beans, oats and a large garden. We use most of our crops to create our own feed ration for our animals, though we usually still need to have something added at the farmers elevator to make it complete. Our main goal is to become a closed system- meaning that we would not need to leave the farm for anything that the farm itself would need, in terms of feed and livestock etc.... Obviously we'll have to still run to town to get gasoline and diesel and whatnot.

All of that seems like a lot when you write it down on paper but in reality we are not rich. At least now in cash money. A, my partner in crime and I both have full time jobs off the farm in order to get by. He works for a company that manufactures custom birdhouses and I work for a small bakery as their executive baker. I also run a custom cake and baking business out of our home. Having that many irons in the fire along with the farm makes us very busy people. Especially given the fact that we do as much as we can by ourselves. If hay needs to be done this weekend than A hops on the tractor and I jump on the wagon and we head out to the field and bale hay. Honestly though this suits us. We love the fact that at the end of the day we can look at everything we've done and truly feel accomplished. Living a homesteading life is our passion. That doesn't mean we take it to the extreme and make our own fuel and clothing, although we have a lot of respect for the people who do live a life like that, that takes some gusto people. We just make it work for us. We eat from our pantry and freezers as much as we can. We spend the summer and fall putting away food for the winter and spring. But, we also go out to dinner sometimes (this is getting less and less often lately) and we have debt, quite a bit of it actually in the form of a house, and a tractor. It might not seem like a lot compared to most American's but its almost more than we can handle, especially given the fact that I make just a little bit over minimum wage. That's forced us to get.... creative with our money, I plan to get more into that in later posts so stay tuned.

So what is this blog going to be about? Well A and I both feel like we have a lot of knowledge to give. On how to run a farm, the most efficient and cost effective ways to tackle big projects and how we make homesteading work for us. And I needed a creative outlet to share what I'm making, reading, creating etc...

We're a small family working hard at making this one life our best life! I hope you'll follow along on our adventure and hopefully learn something you didn't know you could do!