Water

Water is as fundamental as air in our livelihood. Living in populated areas, you take for granted that every time you turn the faucet fresh water will come out. When we were searching for homes, having a source of water not dependent on the grid was one of the things we looked for.

When we found this place, we had never used a cistern based water system, though we knew what it was.
For those of you who don't know a cistern is simply a large underground (in our case) tank that holds water until it's ready to use.

Typical rainwater harvesting setup, and very much like ours.

 The water is held there, and transferred into the house via a pump and hoses.
The water is replenished via runoff from the roof during rain or by the truckload during a drought. We try very hard not to use option B.

Cistern

It's just a big box in the ground. With a lid. And a hole for hoses. And a thing we don't know what is...

Right now, it's a great place to store pallets we're saving. 

At the left there you'll see a bucket upside down with a rock on it. That's to keep the most awesome doggo ever from peeing in the cistern every time he goes out.

Mayhem - aka Most Awesome Doggo Ever

Seriously, his only flaw. 

The "Pee Shield". 

All of those hoses! They're all doing a job, and a very important one. These hoses transfer water from the collection barrels to the cistern. 

Back porch - carries out the majority of the house roof collection.

Garage collectors - adding these increased our collection by at least 1,000 gallons per rain storm! 

Close up of the roof to barrel system. 

Front half of the roof collector.

Another front collector.

All of those hoses run from these barrels to the cistern. There the water is held until we need it. We do not drink the water, as it is not currently potable. It is used for showers, toilets, laundry, and dishes. 

We hope to add a small pond for overflow collection as well as gray-water reclamation at some point. 

Well, there you have it - hope you've enjoyed this tour of the water system. 

See you soon! 

~E 

A Big Fat Update

Yeah, I know. It's been awhile. A couple of years in fact since I've updated.
A LOT has happened. I suppose a run down of all of that would be in order.
So here goes, in no particular order:

1. We welcomed a third grandson to the family in September of 2016, he is precious and precocious and we're quite fond of him.
2. All of the grand kids and their mom moved out a year ago this month to live in Georgia. We will have them for 7 weeks this summer, and I'm pretty excited about that.
3. We lost our ewe "Patches" to a dog attack, and it was quite sad.
4. Our first ram "Pappy" (pictured in the previous post with Patches) went to market as he got to be a bit unmanageable, as rams tend to do.
5. We have had the following sheep since that time:

• Jasper
• Oreo
• Tango
• Cash
• Luna
• Two unnamed market lambs

6. We currently have two little rams that will go to market in August - Frank and Jesse.

7. We lost our pickup truck in October, which was our only mode of transportation, thankfully my parents had a vehicle they weren't driving that they gave us. We're now the proud owners of an Aztek - featured in the hit show Breaking Bad. LOL

8. We are no longer raising rabbits. We still have 2 retired bucks that will stay here for the duration, but no more girls, no more babies. Thankfully - they're a pain! 

9. We stopped plowing the ground and have moved to square foot boxes for our garden, and so far I'm really pleased. 

10. We lost the greenhouse in March of '17 to a microburst that also ripped the neighbors roof off her house. In the grand scheme of things, we were fortunate. It took just over a year to get her home back to normal! 

11. Things stopped getting updated because our only computer died! We have a new (to us) one now, so we're back! 

Well,. I guess that's about it for this update. There will be more to come. We have a YouTube channel now - I'll add the link below.
Star Dollar YouTube

Thanks for reading! 

-E 

Sheep Do Not Care

So, since we got into the sheep farming thing we've learned a few things.  When we got these guys, they were tiny.

But like all baby creatures... sheep grow. From cute, cuddly little lambs, into... well sheep. 

Some of the things we've learned along the way: 

1. Sheep are curious. 

2. Sheep like companionship. 

3. Sheep express their curiosity with their mouths. 

4. Sheep are curious. 

5. Sheep like to taste everything you are holding/carrying. 

6. Sheep love to be where you don't want them and do what you don't want them to do. 

7. Sheep are curious. 

Yeah... these two have helped do lots of things. They help feed all the other animals every morning - if by helping you mean ramming the bucket of food with their heads repeatedly until you drop it and spill food everywhere... food they're not supposed to eat because it's for chickens and you don't want them to - see #6.

They love to help "dad" in the barn with his nest box project. If by helping you mean take the knife out of his pocket while he's drilling, eat the drill after he takes the knife away, attempt to eat the hammer while he's nailing, and standing in the middle of whatever he's doing... see #5

Sheep love to be near you. If by being near you means sneaking up behind you to head butt you... in the butt. See #2. 

Sheep just want to help. If by helping you mean standing in the trailer of the tractor so nobody can go anywhere... 

Yes, sheep are a handful, that's for sure. So, when the neigbor calls next spring for us to come get a baby... I'm sure we'll say yes, without thinking twice. 

Bees Love Water

I never truly realized how attracted to water bees are. We installed a water collection system on the garage. It allows the water to be funneled into the collection barrels. Sometimes, there is water standing on the tops of these barrels.
Yesterday, our bees discovered this water source... and made FULL use of it.
It was pretty awesome to be able to get so close to them, since bees that are not near the hive are not at all aggressive. I was able to get up close and personal for a few shots. Enjoy!

Growing

It's growth time! Everything around here seems to be getting bigger every day. We're expanding the rabbitry today, just to provide more room for our rabbits! The babies are all growing so fast, and they're now ready to leave their mammas. Something I'm sure the moms are ready for! Just imagine 8 little furballs constantly sitting on your head in 80 degree weather... no thanks!

The gardens are also growing well, I actually have been harvesting kale for the rabbits, shallots, lettuce and some other things. It is truly lovely to be able to munch on a salad from your own yard.

Today's projects also include putting turnips, okra, cabbage, and more tomatoes in the ground. Lots going on, lots to do!

Southern Fried Porkchop Omelette

Yesterday was one of those mornings where I really didn't want to do much in the way of breakfast. However, the girls have been giving me a half dozen eggs a day, and I'm running out of places to put them...so I figured omelettes might be in order.

I rummaged about in the fridge looking for meat, because you know and omelette isn't the same without some meaty goodness... I found some pork chops I had made for dinner, score! 

For each omelette: 

1/3 med boneless pork chop, chopped into bite sized pieces (whole chop divided into three portions)

2-3 large eggs (depending on the appetite) PER omelette

1 tbsp milk

Garlic powder (home dehydrated/ground) to taste

Onion powder (home dehydrated/ground) to taste

Salt & Pepper to taste (freshly ground is best) 

Chives - fresh is best, mine are dehydrated from last year's garden as this years crop just won't grow. 

Shredded cheese of your choice - I used Extra Sharp Cheddar this time

1-2 Tbsp bacon grease for cooking

To start I added just a bit of the bacon grease to a non-stick pan.  I fried the pork chop bits until they browned a bit. 

Who doesn't love pork fried in bacon grease? 

 Next I mixed the eggs, spices, and milk together in a bowl, just like scrambled eggs.

Make sure to mix well! 

 Pour your egg mixture gently into the pan over the pork bits. Swirl your pan, or shake to make sure the pork is evenly distributed throughout the mixture.

Look at the yummy, just look at it!!!

Shred your cheese (or use preshredded) onto the omelette once it is cooked nearly through. If it looks like the photo above, you're just about ready for cheese. You want your egg to be moveable, but not liquid when you add the cheese. Continue cooking like this just until cheese melts. Then, flip one side of the omelette onto the other.

This doesn't have to be perfect... notice the holes in mine?

Now, this is where I sometimes mess up, and wind up with cheesy, meaty, scrambled eggs... but aside from a couple of holes, this one turned out just fine. Shred shome cheese on top, and a sprinkle of chives and cook just until cheese melts.

Oh I wish you could taste this! 

Plate up and serve immediately! Enjoy the yum, and prepare for compliments! 

You can use any combination of meats/veggies you choose. Just be sure that for raw/cold meat you cook or heat thoroughly before adding your eggs. I love using leftover veggies too, like sauteed mushrooms, broccoli, or even tomatoes. Make your own combos. Let me know in the comments what your favorite combinations are - so I can try them myself!! 

Honey Harvest 2016

We harvested our honey for the first time this weekend. It was certainly an experience. We've learned a lot about bees in the process too. Roger spent hours researching before he ever cracked the hive.

Once the hive is opened up, there's the removal of the frames. A hive tool is essential for doing this as the bees like to glue those things down nice and tight. 

Then of course you have to get the girls to stop working and drop off the frame.

This is easier said than done. They really like to work, and they're pretty possessive of these frames full of honey. 

A bee brush is a wonderful thing, it helps to move the girls along without harming anyone.

Of course, even after all of that we still had to brush a few off the frames we harvested and cover it all with a towel before they could come inside. I'm just not a fan of honeybees in the kitchen. 

I remember when I was a kid you used to be able to get honey with the comb in it. It was sweet and sticky, and chewy. There was nothing better on a hot summer day than a chunk of comb honey and a tall glass of iced lemonade!

These days all you can find outside of the farmers market or state fair booth is extracted, processed, bland commercial honey. It's nothing like the real thing. For instance, our honey isn't that golden brown color. Nope, this stuff is clear as crystal. Some of the comb is dark, and there are plenty of pollen cells to add color to the mix.

We pulled three frames from the hive, from them we were able to get nearly 12 pounds of pure, sweet, tasty comb honey.

No processing, all we did was scrape the comb from the frame and drop it in the jars.

Once we were finished gathering the frames, we were able to set the hive on the new stand Roger and Charlie made for it.

It was an exciting experience and we learned a lot about how it's going to work here on our farm. We also managed to sell two jars of the stuff before it'd even been out of the hive three hours. Talk about fresh honey!

It seems our little farm has found a way to earn some money, and help us become more sustainable that we were before.