TheReturnHomestead

Homesteading is a busy life. Projects dovetail one into the next with little time for cleanup. Eventually the mess spreads complicating progress on projects. Our barn stores tools, machines, construction materials, feed, farming implements, and a trove of assorted junk. Animals all reside outside the barn. Barns house animals, but none of ours fit in the barn. Today we advance our plans to make this a true barn, by doing a little clean up. Please, be kind in your comments. The current situation is embracing. ______________________________ Jenny's Theme by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/ Corncob - Country by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100565 Artist: http://incompetech.com/

Planting the fall garden happens immediately as the harvest winds down in the summer. We need to plant beets, carrots, turnips, and rutabagas. Our plan is to grow those behind the potatoes that we already harvested. There has been some manure from the goats sitting on the bed for several weeks. We need to run a tiller across to loosen the soil's surface. Then, we use a hoe to mound up some rows. The mounds give the roots plenty of room to spread out and put on some size. Our summer harvest was more extensive than expected, so we only need this one bed of root vegetables this year. These plants will keep the garden active and producing even past the first frost date, providing us with some bonus food for the winter. _____________________________________ Banjo Short by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/ ____________________ All Good In The Wood by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/ ____________________ Jenny's Theme by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/ ____________________________________

Peppers produced prodigiously this year. Our pantry overflows with plenty of peppery Picante, pickled pepper, and sweet-n-spicy cowboy candy. We need a hot sauce to replace the store-bought ones that we use. Those from the store are shelf stable and have plenty of heat, but the manufacturer cooks them till all the life is gone. We prefer food that is alive with probiotics that come from the natural fermentation process. Fermented hot sauce is simple to make, will store in the fridge for a year, and because of the blend of peppers we use it has a richer flavor profile than any store sauce.

Marti and I often decide to add new features as we build. In the last remodel video, Marti asked about shelving for her side of the bed, and we added framing to the inside of the wall to support their installation. Now we want to add a wall to make it easier to hang shelves on my side of the bed. This wall will be a little more complicated because the space is we are building in is not level, plumb, or square. This wall will need to fit a similar space in a similar way but for it to be "true" (apparently in line with the other construction elements) we have to make some adjustments. Oh, and the main electrical conductor for the room will also pass through this new wall.

At family gatherings, everyone always asks Marti to bring her potato salad. This simple recipe requires no fancy cooking techniques. You probably have most of the ingredients in your kitchen right now. The flavor profiles from simple ingredients will surprise you. Starchy potatoes, savory eggs, creamy mayo, pungent onion, a little spice from the mustard and pepperoncinis, and a little brightness from the pickles. Very fun to eat!

We are remodeling our 2001 Fleetwood mobile home, and today, we are in the master bedroom. The original closet was not deep enough for our liking so we will be framing out a new larger closet. We don't want to waste the floor space from the original closet though. Our king size bed will never fit in there but a few feet of it will. When we built our bed we did not design a head board so we will build out the closet to be the headboard. Today we want to frame up some additional walls and a soffit in the top of the old closet to give a place to install some lighting.

Peaches do not last long on the shelf unless they are preserved. Making a simple jam is a very delicious way to keep peaches for the winter. Jam does require some additional sugar, but we use a recipe with less than normal added sugar. Clean the peaches, slip the skins, remove the pits, slice or dice, add ingredients, cook, and can. Just like that, you will have a yummy treat in mid-winter when all the fresh fruit is used up.

We have peaches. Well, we bought some. Our peach tree is in pretty sad shape right now, and we are not likely to see any peaches from it for another two years. We did source some beautiful, delicious peaches from a Mennonite farmer near us who trades in quality produce with other farmers on the east coast. Now we have a lot of peaches and need to get them preserved for shelf-stable storage. Marti loves fruit butter because they are easy to make, preserves large volumes of fruit in a small jar, and is best used sparingly so they last longer. If you have never preserved fruit, you will gain great confidence from the amazing product you produce.

At The Return Homestead, we have been spreading ourselves across many small projects rather than focusing for a day on any one project. That has made videos a little difficult, but I noticed that there seems to be a theme. We have been taking care of pest problems. Snakes pose an ever-present threat on any homestead. We have been here almost two years and encountered our first Copper Head. Safely dealing with poisonous snakes is a skill you develop by needing it. Roosters are a necessary part of any sustainable flock of chickens, and we are trying to grow our flock. Hatching your birds means you eventually have too many roosters, which we have mentioned in several videos, but we had not done anything about the problem until this week. We had 12 roosters and only 39 hens. So this Tuesday, we finally removed seven roosters from the flock. This is not cruelty to the roosters but a necessary part of having a healthy flock. Insects love fresh picked produce. During harvest season controlling fruit flies, nats, and other flying insects is almost as time-consuming as preserving the harvest. We were offered a chance to try some new devices to assist in this effort and the folks at X-PEST have a special offer for us to pass around. We tried using two different Careland insect eliminators: Careland electronic flying insect trap MK06: https://a.co/d/dB2vD61 Careland indoor plug-in bug zapper MK04: https://a.co/d/8P1bQa2 Use the links above to take advantage of X-PEST's offer and try them for yourself.

So many projects in the kitchen are built on a tight recipe. Trying to bake bread or a cake without a proven recipe always produces uncertain results. Pasta sauce provides an opportunity for artistic experimentation that seldom goes wrong. Tomatoes, garlic, onions, basil, thyme, rosemary, and oregano are combined according to the cook's whims. To can sauce successfully, add some lemon juice to increase acidity and preserve your sauce long-term. Have fun with it!

Marti picked a peck of peppers; now it is time to pickle them. We pulled these peppers from our plants over the last week, and now they must be preserved. We use pickled peppers to prepare pretty salads, top pasta, and garnish for sandwiches. Processing pickled peppers is pretty simple. Chop, spice, brine, and boil.

We did not have the best fruit harvest this year. Most of our preserves have come from fruit we purchased from local farmers during the harvest, but Marti wants a few more pints of fruity goodness on the shelf. With the holidays approaching, she decided to make something a little unusual: Christmas Jam. I was initially skeptical, but once I tasted the result, I started my countdown to Christmas to have a whole jar. Actually, I plan to eat some at Thanksgiving, so only a couple of days away.

Summer is still in full swing but we need to prepare for the Fall garden. We harvested potatoes and amended the bed for root vegetables like beats, carrots, rutabagas, turnips, and radishes. We transformed most of our tomatoes into salsa, and pasta sauce. Now the tomato beds can be used for broccoli, cauliflower, kale, bok choy, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, and cabbages. We filled our freezers with green beans, and the beds are being switched to peas. The corn produced a couple of bushels for the winter and we may still have enough time for some field peas before the frost. Gardening does not end with the summer harvest.

We have hundreds of pounds of tomatoes to process for our food supply for the year. One of our favorite uses is salsa. For this recipe, the cooked salsa is blended to make picante. We like it hot, so adding lots of extra peppers makes sense. When you make this for yourself, add as many or as few as you like. This simple recipe makes a flavorful sauce that adds sing to simple corn chips, pop to tacos, and sizzle to your burritos. ______________________ Salsa 6 pounds tomatoes skinned and cored 6 jalapeño peppers, I triple this 9 dried hotter peppers. You can use dried and adjusted to taste (opt.) 3 c diced onions 15 cloves garlic, minced -I stick blend so I don’t mince 1/2 c cilantro 1 T. Salt 3/4 c. Bottled lemon juice Put all ingredients in a large pot and boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to a simmer for 10 min. For picante, stick blend to make it smooth. Add 1 T lime to each pint (2T per quart), and spoon in hot salsa into prepared jars, leaving 1” headspace. Top with a lid and finger-tip tighten rings. Put in hot canner, making sure water covers jars 1”. Process pints 15 min at a full rolling boil. Turn off the heat and let the jars rest for 5 minutes before removing them from the canner.

I spent the day thinking about chickens. Most days, Chickens require very little direct attention. In the early morning, I open the coups to let them out for the day, scatter some scratch grains around to give them a kick start, refill water containers, top off the feeding tubes, and then close the coups at night. The chickens do their part to reduce bug populations, improve garden soil, and provide eggs. Today, they need extra attention to reduce the rooster pressure on the hens, add a protein source to the pasture, minimize feed waste, and increase predator safety. _______________________ Drankin Song by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1500021 Artist: http://incompetech.com/

Sweet and Hot! Cowboy candy, or candied jalapeños are a great snack. Eat it. on crackers, chips, or put them in a burrito or taco. Marti and I started making these three years ago and they have become an often requested treat for neighbors.

We talked a lot about water in the last video. Today we continue the discussion, hoping you might avoid some of the mistakes we found in our demolition work on the remodel. When considering a floor covering, especially in a bathroom, never stop thinking about water. First, how can you prevent water from penetrating into walls and floors? Second, if water does penetrate, how will it get out again. Vinyl makes an excellent floor covering in wet areas. Originally these coverings were a single sheet secured to the subfloor creating a complete water barrier. Newer products on the market are similar to the laminate floor we installed in the guest bedroom, having a locking strip along the edges that holds thin planks of the floor together in a "mostly" complete barrier. An even more recent product is the peel-and-stick tiles which are usually square and have adhesive pre-applied to the back. Each time is a good water barrier, but where they meet is not sealed. If you choose to use peel-and-stick flooring, research its proper installation before laying the floor. In our en suite in the remodel the adhesive tiles were applied directly to wooden floor underlayment which was stapled over the original sheet vinyl floor. This layer of wood sandwiched between two layers of vinyl is a bad idea. Our most valuable lessons on the homestead come from seeing other people's mistakes. Advise about electrical safety is often ignored, but evidence of disasters that could happen often produces a healthy respect for the dangers. Please, learn from my sharing an embracing electrical mistake that could have been very bad.

Managing water on a homestead requires constant attention. We have pushed the demolition in the master suite as far as possible without disturbing the plumbing. Now we have to cap the water lines and start removing drains. This will allow us to remove walls around the shower, remove the old sinks, and remove the tub from our new walk-in shower. While doing all this plumbing, we experienced an extreme summer thunderstorm that dumped almost 4 inches in less than an hour. All that water revealed clogged down spouts on our gutters. As soon as the storm cleared we decided to fix the problem. It was a water day on the homestead.

Not only is our garden giving us food daily, but our neighbor is also bringing boxes of produce. This food will go bad if left on the counter or in the fridge, and the freezers are filling up. Time to can. In this video, Bread & Butter pickles. These sweet pickles are great as a side dress for meats or as a sandwich topping. We add a little pepper powder to give them some kick. ____________ Bread and butter pickles 4lbs. Cucumbers 2 pounds onions, sliced thin 1/3 c. Salt for preserving 2 c. Sugar 2 T mustard seed 2 t. Turmeric 2 t. Celery seed 1 t. Ginger 1 t. Peppercorn’s 3 c vinegar 5% Wash cucumbers. Cut in slices 1/4” crosswise and put cucumbers and onions in a bowl, layering with salt. Cover with ice cubes and let stand for 2 1/2 hours. Drain and rinse in cold water. Drain. Combine sugar, spices, and vinegar in a large saucepan and boil. Stir until sugar dissolves. Add cucumbers and onion and bring the mixture to a boil. Pack jars with hot pickles and liquid, leaving 1/2” headspace. Wipe rim with vinegar, put lid and ring, and tighten fingertip tight. Put jars into canner (with a rack), making sure water covers jars at least 1”.heat at med-high. Cover the canner and bring water to a rolling boil for 10 min for pint jars. Turn off the heat and let stand for 5 minutes. Remove jars from the canner.

We experience God's provisioning through the land. Our first journey into land ownership was less than a half acre in the suburbs, but we built raised bed planters and were determined to grow at least some of our own food. Our search had been for 5 acres or more. We settled for a McMansion in the burbs and regretted it; however, our first gardening efforts were tremendously educational. The garden flourished and provided food with more nutritional value than we expected. Quality food like we were growing did not live on grocery store shelves. It lived on the land. We learned about tomatoes, eggplants, squash, kale, lettuce, fruit trees, and ornamentals. Learning how increased the desire to do, and within a year, we were back searching for more land. Our next jump to 10 acres gave us all the room we needed to begin providing almost all of our food needs. We put in the work and the bounty flowed in, while we remodeled the house. And the value of the land doubled. Now we have 50 acres and are still open to what might come our way tomorrow. Our greatest joys in daily life come from the land. Jobs came and went with the whims of fickle economies, but the land provided bounty reliably. This video reveals how many potatoes the land has produced this year. Throughout the video, you hear me making excuses for what seemed like a poor harvest, but when all the potatoes were in, we were overjoyed to discover we had more than enough. These experiences are not unique to our lives and can be experienced by anyone willing to return to the land.

This is the first highlights footage for the continuing remodel of our 2001 Fleetwood Mobile Home. We have finished the laundry room and have begun working on the other side of the wall between the laundry and guest bedroom. We had removed the drywall to help finish the plumbing. Now it is time to rebuild and finish off the quest bedroom. We have to deal with a mismatch, though. The plumbing box for the washer was designed for a 2x4 wall; our wall is 2x3. Oops! No worries, we can find ways to solve this. We are finishing the drywall to level 4 to match the other walls in the bedroom. And finally, apply a fresh coat of paint on every surface.

Summertime is harvest time. Yes, we have more green beans, and the tomatoes are starting to ripen. Wait till you see the squash we are harvesting. Pest pressure is taking a toll on our beans, but they are mostly played out for the season. The Japanese Beetles are feasting on the leaves, which keeps them off of the other plants that are still growing. Soon the beans will be replaced with some field peas and brassicas as we head into the Fall. The tomatoes are ripening but slowly. We have a fungus that is stressing the plants and killing some branches. We could not maintain a proper course of periodic preventative treatment and will now have to do some heavy pruning to save the plants or at least extend their growth for a few more months.

Homesteading without a chainsaw is like sailing without a boat. We have 50 acres that are primarily forested. We have rocky, steep terrain with shallow soil, so high winds often bring down weak or poorly rooted trees. The last storm to blow threw brought a Big Leaf Magnolia down across the low road, blocking our access to the pond. The tangled mess of snapped branches, bent saplings, and the trunk can only be cleared with a chainsaw. The rest of the road is weed-choked and needs cut, so weedeater and hedge clippers make the tool list. And who can pass up ripe blackberries on the roadside. ______________________________ Travel Light by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/ Rockytop by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/ Pioneers by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/