Our Backyard Homestead

Wow, we made ABC news!

When we were interviewed by an AP reporter back in December, it didn't exactly cross my mind that the story about our family would run nationally!  Here is a link to an adorable pic of Anna:

http://tinyurl.com/49abd8t

There is a link from the picture to click to the article or you can click here to see read it.

Of the three media interviews we have done, I believe this one to be the most accurate with one glaring exception.  We never indicated that we grow all of our own produce.  Every year we learn a little more, but we would be very hungry if our backyard garden was our sole source of produce!

As we begin another season in the garden, it is my goal to keep the blog a little more up to date as our gardening journal.

Save Money on Groceries

I know it might sound a bit odd, but my favorite room in my grandma's house has always been what she calls her "fruitroom."  It is in the corner of her basement and summer or winter, the temperature is always quite cool in that particular room.  From a child's perspective, walking into the fruitroom didn't seem all that different from walking into the grocery store.  But how fun that the grocery store was in my grandma's basement!  Even now, I still have to visit the fruitroom every time I am back, there is just something about the space that beckons me in.

Whether canning her own jams and veggies or stocking up on a good sale, my grandma truly understands the value of being prepared and "living green."  Most of our grandparents grew up remembering a time when they went without during the Depression.  They lived in an era prior to the mega-grocery store where every imaginable convenience food stock the many aisles.  Growing up in a disposable generation, I believe far too many of us take for granted that food comes from the grocery store and that it will always be available when we want it.  The art of canning and storing food is nearly lost.

I began subscribing to Mother Earth News a few years ago.  While I disagree with much of their political leaning and environmental theories, most of the magazine contains such helpful or interesting articles that I choose to overlook that with which I do not agree.  I was thrilled to receive my new issue yesterday and see that it contained articles on canning and living on less.  The thing I appreciate most about the magazine is how many articles they provide free on their website.

My first recommended article is a great primer on learning to live like our grandparents did.  In this time of uncertain economy, I believe it is something we could all benefit from learning to do a bit better.  So with no further ado, I recommend that you click on over and read the article "Save Money on Groceries: Buying in bulk and freezing or canning fruits and veggies are great ways to enjoy better food and cut your costs by up to 85 percent!"

Don't worry, you don't have to have a garden to benefit from reading the article.  Here is how it begins:

"Not everyone has the time or resources to tend a big garden, so we wondered: What if you bought your produce in season at a farmers market and preserved some of it for winter use?"

Fortitude

Little did I know in moving to "the country" that much fortitude would be required.  Snakes, spiders, chiggers and frogs, all things this city girl would rather pretend did not exist.  Spiders didn't take too much to overcome.  Very few are poisonous and they eat bugs.  Beware of large spider webs at night and don't be too freaked out by the ones that dig rather large holes and live in the ground.

And then there are the frogs.  Lots and lots of frogs.  Frogs eat bugs.  Frogs will hop out of nowhere and scare the pants off of you.  Though I have never actually lost my pants, I have learned to live with the frogs.

But the snakes?  I tell myself that eventually I will have an unhappy encounter with a snake.  Snakes eat bugs, snakes eat frogs, maybe snakes even eat rabbits.  Rabbits eat green beans and lettuce, rabbits are bad.  Does that bother you to know that I detest those cute little creatures?  But I digress, back to the snakes.  I do not relish the thought of the day I happen across a snake in my path.  However, I take comfort in the fact that we have personally witnessed our chickens eating two small snakes.  Here is to hoping that they will continue to keep the yard snake free!!

Unfortunately the chiggers continue to haunt hunt us and make being outside rather miserable.  Every year we threaten to "go nuclear" and give up on the pursuit of a chemical free yard.  This is our third summer and so far we have managed to make it organic.  We have tried everything to repel and/or kill them but nothing has eliminated their stronghold on the yard.  While the chickens have done a wonderful job of controlling many other insects in the yard, the chiggers continue to win the game.  Well we might have finally found the solution! 

It is not a solution that will eliminate them, but it is making being outdoors in the summer heat so much more enjoyable!  Some might complain it is an eyesore, but I'll take the eyesore and leave the chiggers thank you very much.  So what is our solution?  An above ground pool we went out and bought after attempting to clean out the garage in 100+ degrees.  In the week that we have had it, I don't think there has been a single chigger bite!  It is so nice to be able to go out and pull a few weeds and then cool off in the pool.  And even nicer to make it an entire week without chigger bites!!

Now back to the topic of fortitude, I must return to my pile of wormy peaches and practice the habit of fortitude.  If someone would have told me a few years ago that I would pick 140 pounds of peaches and then have at least half of that pile of peaches contain "bonus material," I never would have believed them.  Oh how far this city girl has come!

 

^{_{I do not recommend putting this many white peaches in a bag.  Unfortunately many were quite bruised by the time we made it home.}}

Weeds don't take vacations

We are back from our fourth annual Fourth of July celebration at Swan Lake in South Dakota.  Such a fun time!  On our way home, we packed a 13 hour drive in 16!!  The kids happily gorged on videos all day while Matt and I took several diversions on our photo scavenger hunt.  We narrowly avoided getting stuck in the mud.  Maybe taking that dirt road in Kansas when they had just had 3 inches of rain wasn't the most brilliant decision of the trip.  But, we managed to fulfill everything on our wish list and will be sharing photos when we get them sorted.

Thanks to the rain while we were gone, as well as the daily dose of timed watering, the garden has perked up nicely.  The blackberries held a treasure of the fattest, biggest berries I have ever seen!  They don't come like that from the grocery!!  There are still several red berries so I anticipate we will be picking at least another week.

The summer squash is finished, the squash bugs have taken over.  It was yet again, another disappointing year for summer squash.  One lesson learned is that the info I read about cross pollination in squash is definitely true.  I don't know if that is part of what hampered their productivity this year, but in the past few weeks they have all taken on different colorings on the few fruits I have had.  I need to pull the remaining pitiful plants and figure out if there is something I should plant for the remainder of summer.  I am thinking limas?

I have several blog entries in the works just as soon as I finish up washing the last of the laundry and getting the suitcases put away.  In the meantime, here are a few pics from the weekend.

The kids getting a lesson from grandpa on how to shoot bottle rockets:

   

The third annual sunset picture:

Fun with sparklers:

Fireworks on the Fourth at Swan Lake is a crazy, fun time.  There are families all around the small lake, each shooting off a large arsenal of artillery.  This was the view to our right.  Maybe it was all the bugs, but overall, it was much less rowdy this year than in years past.  However, I think the amount of big fireworks were about double!

A few firework shots:

Choices

Am I the only nut that finds reading the comments on news articles quite fascinating?  Typically, I only read the first few comments, but if they are especially entertaining or insightful I might read more.  Of course, I had to check to see if there were any comments on our story on WFAA.  Maybe I have a twisted sense of humor, but I found the following comment hilarious:

morepopups said on June 22, 2010 at 2:37 PM

carrieg just grow some weed and smoke it. that will calm you down!

Carrieg was the first to comment in response to our story:

carrieg said on June 22, 2010 at 10:02 AM

Whose got the time or the money to tend to a full garden and raise chickens? I'd love to be able to do that. By the time I get off work at 5:00, go to the gym til 6:00, get home prepare dinner by 7:00 or 7:30, clean up by 8:30... I have about 1 1/2 hrs to relax and unwind before bed. If I spent that time in the garden, I'd be charged up till midnight every night and suffering other health issues from not getting enough sleep... A vicious cycle, indeed.

Now, in no way do I condone the idea of growing weed, or smoking it for that matter.  But I certainly never expected to read such a comment in relation to our backyard revolution!  My immediate thought after reading Carrieg's comment was to wonder if she realized that scheduling gardening beginning at 8:30 PM would leave her gardening in the dark?

We all make choices with how we spend our time.  Back in the med. school days, we learned to put a great price on family time.  We also made the choice that once we had kids, Lord willing, I would stay home with them.  When the Chicken Whisperer was born at the beginning of Matt's third year of med school, we faced taking out a much larger loan than we had planned.  Choices.  We are still paying on that debt today, but I wouldn't do it any other way if I had it to do over.  I am certainly not trying to imply that Carrieg should not work or that being a stay at home mom is the right choice for everyone.  It was the choice we made, and while it has not been without financial consequences, it has been a huge blessing.

Another choice we have made is to free our home from the bondage of television.  I am sure this will be a theme we will discuss on this blog from time to time because of what a positive change it has been for our family.  Just like our food revolution, we did it with baby steps, first by cutting cable, and then kicking out the tv set altogether!  We still have access to nearly anything we might want to watch online, but our choices are then very intentional.  We still have DVDs that can be watched on the computers, though Matt and I find that we are not nearly as entertained by movies now as we might have once been.  Choices.  May not be right for all, but have you considered lately how much time the television robs from your life?  I am certain my photography hobby and gardening would never have happened if they were competing for my time with the television.

I can assure you that the only pot you will find around here is of the terra cotta variety.  But this little exchange in the WFAA comments got me thinking about how we all make choices every single day.  Our garden may not be the right choice at some point in the future, but for today it has been a wonderful opportunity for our family to learn, grow, play and eat together.

Our 90 Seconds of "Fame"

The video of our interview on WFAA has been pulled from their website, however, the print form is still available.  We were interviewed by Janet St. James in June 2010 about our personal food revolution and the impact that it has had on Matt as a physician.

Little did we know that the news clip would be picked up by other stations around the country and lead to two additional newspaper interviews, one with the AP and one with the Dallas Morning News.  Matt was also contacted by Jamie Oliver following the WFAA interview!

Click here if you are interesed in seeing the original interview.

 

Gardens don’t survive pneumonia

Evidently spending a week in bed with pneumonia can be more than detrimental to the health of a garden!  Matt watered on Weds. and mentioned the tomatoes looked dead.  I figured he just hadn’t seen them since the scorching days of summer had set in.  It wasn’t until today that I felt well enough to take a look for myself.  Imagine my surprise to find them stripped of nearly every bit of green foliage!  See for yourself!

The tomato hornworm has been quite happily munching it’s way through nearly each and every tomato plant while I have been in bed this week!  Fortunately, just before I got sick, I had purchased the Dipel Dust that is supposed to take care of them--too bad I didn’t put it out last weekend.  I sprinkled it over all of the tomatoes and the peppers in hopes that the little fellas will munch no more. 

The good news is that the peppers still look good and we are about to have two red bell peppers!!  Maybe their ripening will coincide with me feeling well enough to celebrate with some homemade pizza with homemade peppers!!  My neighbors were kind enough to babysit the garden while we were on vacation were actually able to pick the first two bells.  I forgot to ask how they were!

The bean tepee looks pretty cool now that the beans have climbed their way to the tip top.  Unfortunately, the rabbits weren’t a bit deterred by the product I was hopeful would keep them away.  I don’t know if it is from the stress of the rabbits chomping or possibly soil issues, but for whatever reason the beans are blooming like crazy but not growing any beans.  At least it looks cool and the rabbits didn’t kill it all!  We’ll try planting a few more beans when I recover.

And we finally have a verdict on the mystery plants.  The mystery garden is thriving with cantaloupe!  There are currently two acorn squash plants as well, but they are showing borer problems so they will soon be pulled so that the cantaloupe can have the entire space.  I didn’t count but I think there are at least 10 fruits growing.  Not holding out much hope for the taste though, since it is likely they may have cross pollinated with the squash.  I’ll bet it won’t keep us from eating them....if that is, the bugs, critters, birds or who knows what comes next don’t get them first!!

I just have to laugh at each disappointing attack on the garden because ultimately even though the harvest may not be bountiful this year, we have learned a ton.  Hopefully we will be able to use our new-found knowledge to make improvements for next year.  If not, I can always fall back on marigolds!  I have those down quite well!  Haven’t been brave enough to actually sample the flower that is said to be edible.