I Want To Be a Yarb Woman

I really do!  Yarbs (herbs) have so many uses in the kitchen and in the medicine cabinet.  I've bought a book or two about growing and using herbs and have planted a few in our own garden.  We've made lots of peppermint tea, some lemon balm tea and even some sage tea, but I really want to learn more and more about the medicinal side of herbs.  Currently we have oregano, lemon balm, sage, thyme, rosemary, lavender and various mints, but I think I need much more!

Some of the sage and thyme from last year's harvest!

Several years ago we visited with a family in the area that we lived in who had a wonderful garden that was set up with walking paths and points of interest.  As you walked through you could stop, taste and smell so many wonderful herbs and garden vegetables and it was just amazing.  I have always wanted to do something similar on our own little homestead, but there have always been other projects that have been more important.  Maybe this fall and winter will be a good time to get some more herb beds built....maybe.

Earlier this year we became acquainted with a BBC series entitled Lark Rise to Candleford which was inspired by a trilogy of the same title.  It is somewhat of an autobiography written by  Flora Thompson and depicts life in a small English hamlet in the late 1800s.   Here's some more information on the book from Christianbook.com.

Lark Rise to Candleford: A Trilogy By Flora Thompson / David R. Godine Publisher, Inc Flora Thompson (1876-1947) wrote what may be the quintessential distillation of English country life at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1945, the three books Lark Rise (1939), Over to Candleford (1941), and Candleford Green (1943) were published together in one elegant volume, and this new omnibus Nonpareil edition, complete with charming wood engravings, should be a cause for real rejoicing. In his introduction, H. J. Massingham observes that Thompson "possesses the attributes both of sympathetic presentation and literary power to such a degree of quality and beauty that her claims upon posterity can hardly be questioned." He calls the books themselves "a triune achievement: a triumph of evocation in the resurrecting of an age that, being transitional, was the most difficult to catch as it flew; another in diversity of rural portraiture engagingly blended with autobiography; and the last in the overtones and implications of a set of values which is the author's 'message'." This is the story of three closely-related Oxfordshire communities - a hamlet, a village, and a town - and the memorable cast of characters who people them. Based on her own experiences as a child and young woman, it is keenly observed and beautifully narrated, quiet and evocative.

I recently picked up the book and was intrigued with the following paragraph describing the hamlet wives' use of the many herbs available to them.

As well as their flower garden, the women cultivated a herb corner, stocked with thyme and parsley and sage for cooking, rosemary to flavour the home-made lard, lavender to scent the best clothes, and peppermint, pennyroyal, horehound, camomile, tansy, balm, and rue for physic.  They made a good deal of camomile tea, which they drank freely to ward off colds, to soothe the nerves, and as a general tonic.  A large jug of this was always prepared and stood ready for heating up after confinements.  The horehound was used with honey in a preparation to be taken for sore throats and colds on the chest.  Peppermint tea was made rather as a luxury than a medicine;  it was brought out on special occasions and drunk from wine-glasses...


As well as the garden herbs, still in general use, some of the older women used wild ones, which they gathered in their seasons and dried.  But the knowledge and use of these was dying out;  most people depended upon their garden stock.  Yarrow, or milleflower, was an exception;  everybody still gathered that in large quantities to make 'yarb beer'.  Gallons of this were brewed and taken to work in their tea cans by the men and stood aside in the pantry for the mother and children to drink whenever thirsty.  The finest yarrow grew beside the turnpike, and in dry weather the whole plant became so saturated with white dust that the beer, when brewed, had a milky tinge.  If the children remarked on this they were told, "Us've all got to eat a peck o' dust before we dies, an' it'll slip down easy in the good yarb beer.'


Yes, much of our knowledge in using herbs has been lost, but I hope to learn more and more every year and in my learning, I hope to teach my children as well.  Some of them are already interested and it is exciting to learn together with my children.  Do you have an herb garden?  Is this something you are interested in?  Please share some tips with me!

raisinghomemakers.com

Chickens and Fall Garden

We let the chickens out of the chicken tractor on Saturday so they could spread their wings and scratch around a little more.  Twenty-two chickens were flying everywhere!  I was afraid we wouldn't be able to gather them all back up, but they all got back in the tractor by themselves by mid-afternoon.

Here, Caedmon is trying to catch a chicken.  I think he probably delayed the laying of the first eggs by chasing them around the tree.

In the middle we have a cuckoo maran, an americana and a buff orpington. 

The buffs are so pretty in the sunshine!

Jordan (almost 19) caught a cuckoo maran for Caedmon (almost 3).

Look at those big feet!  And these birds are just a few months old!

A four by four bed planted with spinach

Another 4 x 4 with a variety of lettuce

bell peppers are finally producing

We still have several beds of tomatoes that we will probably pull up this week and use the green tomatoes in some canning recipes and in this one  for green tomato cheese muffins as well.  That's it for today!  How are things going on your homestead?

homesteadrevival.blogspot.com

Preparing for September

Other than purchasing 5 cases of rice milk for my dairy allergic children, I haven't been in food prep mode this week at all.  I did purchase 40 pounds of Granny Smith apples for our daily consumption and I will be making applesauce with them as well.  I have several pounds of carrots that need to be dehydrated (loving having dehydrated carrots to toss into some soup!).  The last of the garden tomatoes will also be dehydrated.  I recently dried several trays, put them in a quart jar, added a handful of dried basil (from my garden) and covered with olive oil.  I think they will be a wonderful addition to our Friday night pizzas or to a pasta salad.  The oil will be used as well!  I am letting it sit for several weeks before trying them out.

As soon as the temperature cools down I hope to set up several canning days for seasoned white beans and beef broth.   I recently acquired Jackie Clay's canning cookbook and am eager to can some of the "instant" meals that she includes...soups, stews, meatballs, sloppy joes and more.  We have enjoyed some quick meals incorporating the pinto beans that I canned a month or so ago and I think having even more quick meals ready to heat from the jars will be a blessing on busy school days.

I do have a new food storage system that is helping me to see exactly what I have on hand and how quickly items are being used.  It seems that we are  using olive oil much more than I had anticipated so I will need to keep much more of that in stock.

The men in the family have continued to work on our permanent chicken coop, not to be confused with the chicken tractors.  Our layers have grown and look beautiful!  It's fun to feed them bread and vegetable scraps a little at a time and watch them run after each morsel.  I know they will enjoy having more room to run around once their new home and run are completed.  We still haven't ordered the meat birds, but will soon.

The fall garden has been planted.  I had intended to order more seeds, but I think we will stick with what we have on hand for now.  My 18 year old son is in charge of the garden and has set out lettuce, spinach, turnips, broccoli and cabbage.  The broccoli and cabbage were started in seed starter and are still on the porch.  It will probably be a couple of weeks before he puts them in the raised beds.  The other seeds were direct sown, but we will be using some type of covering to protect them from the sun as we will still be having very warm temperatures for another 5-6 weeks I am sure.

This morning I will be preparing for our next school week and taking care of some household tasks.  Today is my husband's birthday, so while he and the boys work on the chicken coop the girls and I will be preparing a hamburger feast with an apple cake for dessert.  Our oldest daughter and grandchildren will be here as well, so things will get a little chaotic as well.  Aaron's 15th birthday is on Monday, so we will need to prepare his special egg-free dessert tomorrow.

I also started my Christmas gift list for this year.  I always keep an eye out throughout the year and have a box full of goodies already purchased.  With seven children and soon to be four grands, shopping early is a must!

As I sit here I think of so many tasks that need to be completed.  I think I will list them here and then check back next week to see how much I actually got accomplished.

-defrost large freezer
-clean out refrigerator
-organize kitchen cabinets
-take inventory and make a list of needed bulk purchases
-choose colors and buy paints for our indoor projects
-can beans and broth
-dehydrate carrots and tomatoes
-make a list with prices of all curriculum and learning items that I have for sale
-floor to ceiling and wall to wall cleanings of all the bedrooms

homesteadrevival.blogspot.com

There's a lot more to do, but I stop here.  I must be realistic.  These will be good goals for the month of September.  What's happening around your little homestead?

It's Friday!

What does a typical Friday look like at your house?  Today we have tomatoes and okra to can (soup starter!), piano and violin practice, lessons to teach, school work to complete, big laundry day--washing all bed linens today, floors to vacuum and mop and some other major cleaning that will most likely not get completed until tomorrow.

Outdoor projects need to be completed, fall garden needs to be started, lesson plans and copies made for the upcoming weeks, a calendar needs to be revised as several of the children will be involved in a film shoot for Jeff in September which will take up two weeks, building materials need to be purchased, books read, boo-boos kissed, snuggles given, food prepared.....

Just a normal Friday around here!!  LOL!  How does your Friday look?

Slowing Down---I Hope!!

 I am praying that this week we can slow things down a little around here by taking a break on our home improvement projects and focusing more on the book learning and gardening work.  I have three reviews coming up an various products as well and am eager to watch and/or use these items and then share with you!

Devin leaves for a 12 day trip later this week.  I hate for any of my family to be away, but especially for such a lengthy time.  Devin will be undergoing some intensive teacher training for violin during that will enable her to be an even better violin teacher.  We will miss her, but she will be staying with my youngest sister in a far away city.  I know Devin will enjoy visiting with her aunt and Northern cousins while she is away.

Here is a view of some of the garden this morning.  You can really see how things are growing if you scroll down a few posts to last week's gardening update.

The blueberries are hanging like grapes from our mature bushes, but I think we will go pick a few gallons from a local blueberry farm later this week.  We can never have enough blueberries!!  Blueberry muffins, cobblers and jam are favorites around here.  I think we need to break out Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey to read with the little guys this week as well.  It's also been a favorite around here for a long time!

Squash bugs may be our science lesson for today! I found these eggs on a couple of squash plants yesterday.   How do we get rid of them?  Any suggestions?

I do think we will be having fresh squash on the menu later this week.  We also have some winter squashes that are growing well.  This morning Jordan built a trellis for them as they were creeping into all the other squash.

More squash blossoms

The trellis cucumbers have grown tremendously in the last week.  There are lots of blossoms on these plants.  The bed to the left also has cucumbers in them, but THIS bed had lots more compost.  The compost has really done wonders.  Jordan added more compost to some beds last week and we can already see lots of growth.

We need to pick garden peas this morning.  Kaelan has been eager to harvest these tasty treats, so I think she can take on that task in a little while.  I think they will be a great addition to a fresh salad.

The garden pea bed

I don't know how much longer we will be getting lettuce.  The lettuce on the right is starting to bolt, so I gathered up a big bunch of both types to share with a friend last night.  We'll be eating salads every day this week.

Jordan has taken a wild muscadine vine and is trying to train it to a trellis.  We would love to make muscadine jelly this fall!!

The chives need to be put into a bed very soon and I also have successfully stared some stevia from seed.  I want to make a bed for the stevia as well.

I am so excited to see some lavender plants started.  I direct sowed some seed that weren't successful.

I'm not sure that the plant in the lower right corner is a lavender plant, but I will leave it for a while to see.

Devin sanded and painted this old swing that belonged to Jeff's grandfather many, many years ago.  The older boys sanded and spray painted the frame.  I think it looks so nice now!

This old glider and coffee table have seen many years of use.  They originally belonged to Jeff's mom, but she gave them to us years ago.  They were originally white and I had painted them black years ago.  I really like the bright orange now!

These antiques that my mom gave us have also seen many colors but I decided to go bright and really like this look!  Now if I could only find a way to remove the red porch paint!  A few years ago Jeff had a long trip to India and one of the many things I did to fill in the time was to paint the porch with a sanded paint.  Oh, how I have regretted that!  Our porch has a dip...right in front of that glider and water settles there after a rain.  The paint soon buckled there and in many other places.  We have tried using the pressure washer to blow it off, but it takes such a long time and uses so much water.  I may try to get some type of long-handled scraper and take a stab at scraping it off!

But, before anything else can be done today, I must tackle this hallway cluttered with overflowing laundry baskets.   Eight baskets of sorted laundry (I haven't done laundry since Friday) and some of these baskets are so full I will have to divide them into 2 loads.  I am trying to keep the electric bill down by hanging the laundry out to dry.  It's great for my tan as well!!

linked over at homesteadblessings.blogspot.com

Hope you all have a great week!!  Get out and grow something!

smockityfrocks.com

The Family Who Works Together

We still have lots of projects going on around here.  I thought I would  post a few pictures of the actual work being done.  Devin is finishing up a couple of rogue shutters this morning and is sanding and painting the swing.

Yesterday, however, we left our home projects and went down to Lauren's and helped her move in to a FEMA trailer. You can read about the tornado that hit her house here.   I wish I had taken the camera with us so you could see what is left of the house.  Anyway, we were pleasantly surprised with the size of this trailer.  It has three small bedrooms provided with full sized beds and metal floor-to-ceiling closets.  It also has a large bathroom that is handicap accessible which means there is no tub only a huge shower.  The hallways are very wide, so she may be able to have bookcases along one of the hallways (if she thinks she can keep some monkeys from climbing on them!)  The living area consists of the dining room, living room and kitchen.  It is small and comes furnished with metal table, chairs and end tables, a hide-a-bed sofa and club chair.  The kitchen has metal cabinets but also has a full sized fridge, stove and microwave.  It is fresh and clean, so that is a great blessing!  It will be a change from their large home, but they needed to down size anyway!  Please continue to remember them in prayer.  There is still a HUGE amount of clean  up to be done and some big decisions to be made regarding her health issues and deciding where to go from here as far as buying/building a new  home.  They are both extremely thankful and grateful for the Lord's mercies and for many who have offered physical and monetary help.  It would be so very easy to sink into despair when you see the difficulties that must be overcome, but positive attitudes prevail!

Kaelan is priming the porch railing.

Jackson worked hard on the primer as well!

The next day the real painting began.  Kaelan is smiling here, but she still has paint all over her arms, legs and feet!

Jeff took over for Jackson.

Aaron was a hard worker.

The three beds in the middle to upper part of this photo have lots of compost in them are are doing really well.  Now we have cucumbers blooming in the first bed here along with onions.  Above is our lettuce bed that has been wonderful and beyond that are garden peas that we will be harvesting in the next week or so.  Just waiting for the pods to plump up some more.

While the others were painting, Jordan was adding more compost to some of the beds.  This morning when I checked a few of these tomato plants had tomatoes on them!

Blossoms from the garden pea bed.

Squash blossoms!  We have about 6 kinds of squash in the garden this year.  I hope we have a great crop!

Our two mature blueberry plants are so heavy with berries that Jeff had to stake and tie them up!  

We have a huge bed with mint.  I love mint tea!!  

On the deck we have lots of herbs and some more tomato starts.   Here we have two pots with lettuce, a can with 3-4 heirloom tomato plants and a pot with chocolate mint.  We have many more cans and pots with a huge variety of herbs that we hope will do well and can be moved to permanent beds later.

Jeff and I spent a few moments dreaming together about what we would like to do on our little homestead in the future.  So many plans that will require sacrifice and hard work.  We realize how beneficial this is to our own character and to the character of our children.  Putting up fences, cutting down trees, clearing land to garden, planting, weeding, hoeing, mowing, painting, canning, and just the day-to-day work required in living the "simple" life builds confidence, patience, diligence, obedience, orderliness, attentiveness and so very much more.  We are so grateful for the training ground that the Lord has blessed us with and for all these precious children he has given us to learn and work with.  We are all learning and working together!

  

Check out other gardens at Smockity Frocks.

A Look at the Garden and More

Don't forget about the Victoria Botkin Curriculum Advice giveaway here.

Lots happening around Chambleeville this week.  I am determined to get back to a school routine as the last three weeks have seen so many interruptions.   We'll see how that goes as Lauren and her three little ones are here for most of the week.  Her asthma is not doing well right now.  The house they moved into has some mold problems which are causing havoc with her asthma.  She will be here as much as possible until they are able to move somewhere else.  In addition to losing a house to a tornado and having trouble with her asthma, Lauren also has a pseudo-tumor in her brain that we are pretty sure was caused by steroid use....which unfortunately has been necessary through the years for her asthma.  We knew that there were/are side effects to using the steroids, but when you are faced with a choice between breathing today and possible problems later, you choose to breathe today!  The pseudo-tumor can be treated with medication, but that means she needs to wean the baby....which during the upside-down time which is their life is difficult to handle.  She may wind up opting for a spinal tap to remove some spinal fluid which is one option for the condition.  

Aaron and Kaelan also have a piano recital tomorrow evening. So they will continue to polish up their pieces today and tomorrow.  I think they are quite ready and I will be glad for them to move on to some other pieces!!  The Irish Washer Woman runs through my head all. day. long!  ; )  However, I am so very thankful for the progress they have made and am thankful that they enjoy playing the piano and the violin.

Here's a look at a few of the garden areas around here.

Raised beds with tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, lettuce, peas, leeks and okra.

Orka and tomatoes

Cucumbers

Cucumbers and onions

Two kinds of lettuce

Tomatoes

Green peas have blossoms

This mixed squash bed WILL be weeded today, boys!

Some newly planted tomatoes and basil

Our older blueberry bushes are full of berries and are almost bent over with the weight.

Lots more berries like these will be great for the freezer, canner or dehydrator.

We've planted green peas, lettuce, a variety of tomatoes and peppers, a variety of squashes, cucumbers, leeks, okra, parsley, cilantro, chives and have added many new herbs.  In addition to our sage, thyme, spearmint, peppermint, oregano and lemon balm we've added apple mint, lemon mint, chocolate mint, rosemary, lavander, stevia, more chives and..... I can't even remember!!  Jordan has some more tilling to do as we have about 30 pepper plants to be planted, more basil and some more squash as well.

We've also been busy dehydrating a 50 pound bag of sweet onions that I purchased for $10.  It's been really easy to do, except for the tears!  Thankfully, once they start warming up in the dehydrator the teary effect is gone.

Now to get all these little people rounded up for some table time activities.  Do you think I'll make it?  I'm beginning to wonder, myself!!  If you don't hear from me tomorrow, send help....please!

This strawberry bed has been producing, but we have to keep the birds out of it!

Linking up with the HOMESTEAD BARN HOP

Linking up with Smockityhere