May on the Homestead

As the month of May draws to a close, I thought I'd give an update on happenings around the homestead. It didn't feel like there was much to report this month with all the rain. I started a lot of seedlings, got a lot of potatoes and onions planted, and had the neighbor come over with his tractor to plow the field again. I spent a lot of time waiting for the rain to stop. This last weekend of May, however, things really started happening. We hauled two loads of manure from a dairy with the help of our friend's old Forest Service truck, and I finally got to drive one which was a life goal realized (although I always thought it would be in conjunction with working for the Forest Service.) We hoed up a lot of rows and planted a lot of starts out in the field, and fed ourselves at the end of those long days with kale, mustard greens, lettuce and radishes from the garden. Salad days are here again!

Everywhere you look, seedlings are germinating and popping up all over the garden. I planted a lot of flowers this year, and it will be exciting to have the neighborhood honeybees come over and enjoy them all Summer long.

The greenhouse is a happenin' place right now. I took a lot of things out to plant in the field and garden beds this weekend. As soon as the rest of the seedlings are out in the field, these beds will be planted in tomatoes and peppers.

When I was pulling little weeds out of the garden beds, I checked on my Easter egg radishes and found some the size of golf balls! I really love fresh radishes, so for me this was as exciting as...well, an Easter egg hunt! Just look at all those colors.

 A bird's eye view of the field and half of the garden taken from the roof. This was before we got going with planting on Sunday.

The potatoes are coming along nicely. There are three long rows with 5 varieties, and hopefully enough potatoes to last the year. From the looks of it now, there should be a whole lot of potatoes.

My husband spent a lot of time out there hoeing and planting rows. We got the last of the storage onions in, the gourds, the pumpkins, the melons, the cucumbers and the tomatoes. It looks like the corn, beans and squash are going in together out of necessity, because we're running out of room out there! I hear they grow well in that configuration, so it should work out nicely.

Not to brag, but here's my nettle patch. All right, it's shameless nettle bragging. I think the manure from the chicken coop seeps out and fertilizes them. They're taller than my children!

And speaking of those chickens, here are some of the Spring pullets enjoying the sunshine. With my dream of having chickens all over the place finally realized, I can say that I've made it in life.

Last but not least, the kids got out last year's scarecrow and got him all fixed up for his post out in the field. He got new straw stuffing, his lost glove was returned, and some fancy new chicken feathers were tucked in his hat. Now all he has to do is stand out there watching the crops grow, and looking menacing to marauding birds. I'd say that Scarecrow has a pretty good life, wouldn't you?

Mystic Orb Giveaway!

I am pleased to introduce you to my friends, Jeff and Taryn, artists of Mystic Orb  and give my readers an opportunity to win a set of these wonderful sassafras buttons. I met Jeff and Taryn through fellow crafters and Saturday Market friends a couple of years ago, and I am so glad that I did! These folks are modern day homesteaders, living out on the Siuslaw River with their beautiful baby boy, Bracken, and a whole passel of creatures including goats, ducks and dogs. They are by far some of the most inspiring people around, and they are always striving to find and feed the Joy in life. You can read more about them here in this interview I did with Taryn last year:

An Interview With Taryn Kae Wilson, Modern Homesteader of the Siuslaw River.

Now I'll let Taryn introduce herself and this giveaway in her own words:


"Hello! We are The Wilson Family- Taryn, Jeff and Bracken. We live on a small mountain homestead in Oregon and make a living from our home business, Mystic Orb.

We sell our art on our online Etsy Shop and at the Eugene Saturday Market. We offer jewelry made from reclaimed wood and other natural materials. We also offer buttons, spoons, kitchen stirring utensils, bookmarks, signs, and whatever other inspiration comes through that day. We love to create with our hands and we love to share those creations with others. Our motto is "Feeding The Joy... naturally" and that is our intention. We are so grateful to live in the forest and we want to share a piece of that magic in everything we make.

Whether you are in the city, town or country, it feels good to carry the energy of the woods with you.

For the giveaway, we are offering a set of 6 buttons made in reclaimed sassafras wood. Our buttons are great for so many creative endeavors. We've seen them used on knitted sweaters, sewn jackets, and on vintage coats to give them a fresh new look.

In Jeff's words:
"These are not your ordinary flat wood buttons. I start by selecting the most beautiful woods, slicing them, then doing a special process to keep the bark on. Then sand each on 100, 220, 400, 600, 30 micron grit. Then spray with a natural shellac, to help waterproof it, then buff on two different wheels, finishing with a buffing compound used on the surface of eyeglasses to get the glass like finish. Each one lovingly handmade."

To enter, visit their Etsy shop at: http://www.mysticorb.etsy.com/ and leave a comment saying what your favorites are. You can also get yourself a second entry by becoming a follower on Taryn's blog, http://woolymossroots.blogspot.com/.  As a special deal to accompany this giveaway, you can also use the coupon code WOOLYMOSSROOTS and save 10% on their ETSY shop this week!
That's it! I look forward to hearing from you!

Although I'm not entering, I want to share my favorite item, Jeff's wooden paddles. He started out making these gorgeous wooden paddles with Celtic love knots for Valentine's day, and we came up with the fun name, "Love Paddles" while I was out visiting. It was a big hit, and Jeff got included in a lot of really interesting Etsy treasuries with those. Now he also makes them with beautiful carved trees and Celtic knot designs from many beautiful kinds of wood. I love them.

Fun With Rabbits

It's been a busy time of year, and in the shuffle I forgot to introduce two new additions to the homestead. Micke Fleur and Sanna Blossom the Netherland Dwarf rabbits were given to us by some friends in my childrens' class in interest of giving them a life out in the country. While my children are excited about having two new pets, I've got one thing on my mind. Manure. I had been long wishing I had animals on the property that would produce some manure I could put directly in the garden for nutrients. Chicken poop just takes time. So, I was delighted when we were offered these two little poop machines. Isn't it great when things in life work out like that?

Unfortunately, the dogs were way more excited about the rabbits than we were. I don't even think excited is quite the word. They are obsessed with the rabbits. The day we brought the hutch home and set it up on our front porch, the dogs started climbing over the new front fence to get up close to the objects of their obsession and try to knock the hutch over to set them free.

So, my husband constructed this snazzy outer pen for the rabbit hutch. It's moveable, dog-proof and tall enough for an adult to stand up in while cleaning the hutch. The dogs still sit outside staring at the rabbits and barking a good part of the day, but I'm hoping the novelty will wear off with time.

The rabbits spend their days munching hay, hopping around and pooping. It seems a very Zen existence in its simplicity. In the mean time, I am enjoying the added compost for the garden and it's keeping the dogs out of other trouble. I guess you know you're a homesteader when you get all excited over rabbit poop.

Stripped Down Patchwork

I would like to introduce you to my friend and great inspiration, Erin Gilday, the amazing woman behind Patchwork Underground. Erin is a fiber artist, crafts instructor, freelance writer and pattern designer from Portland, OR. Her sewing patterns and craft culture pieces have appeared in Stitch, Sew News, Quilts and More, Threads, SewStylish, The Quilt Life, Piecework, Sew Hip and Curve magazines. When she's not sewing, she's busy blogging about craft, listening to Top 40 Country radio, whipping up vegan treats in the kitchen, caring for her bunny and kitty, playing banjo, thrift shopping or cruising the crafts section of her local library. Like I said, she's amazing. I had the pleasure of interviewing her last year about her life as a craftswoman and adventures in her handmade housebus. You can read that interview here at: An Interview with Erin Gilday, Craftswoman and Urban Bus Pioneer.

Erin is stopping by my blog as a part of her online tour for her new book, Stripped Down Patchwork: 12 Modern Projects Featuring Seminole Patchwork.  When we talked about the project over the past months, my questions often gravitated towards the history behind the technique. Being a fellow crafter with a thing for history, she had a wealth of information to share about this patchwork with a past. Intrigued? Read on, and look for her book at: http://patchworkunderground.com/blog/my-book, and get your copy directly from the publisher for 15% off here: http://www.leisurearts.com/stripped-down-patchwork.html.

So, without any further ado, here's the interview with the seamstress extraordinaire herself!

Your book includes these 12 modern projects based on traditional Seminole Patchwork, tell us more about the history of this patchwork technique.

Erin: Seminole patchwork was invented by women seamstresses of the Seminole Tribe of Florida just as they gained access to the first hand-crank sewing machines in the 1880s. The amazing thing about this revolutionary technique is that it was invented at a time and place of awesome adversity.

Here's the backstory: As Native Americans across the country suffered displacement, extermination and disease at the hand of white settlers, many different culturally related tribes of what is now known as Florida joined forces with escaped slaves to resist colonization and, specifically, the Indian Removal Act of 1830. ("The Seminoles" are now a thoroughly organized, official tribe but before white settlers united them in struggle, there were many different bands of indigenous peoples in the areas now recognized as "Seminole land"...they shared a common branch of language but there were many different dialects and cultural differences...it's a long story, you can read it here: http://www.semtribe.com/.) Suffice it say, the indigenous peoples of the greater Florida area did not want to be removed from their lands. Though they were totally outnumbered, they used guerrilla tactics, community alliances and a superior knowledge of the terrain to drag the war on for decades – from 1817 to 1858. Many, many Seminoles and escaped slaves died in this war. When their numbers finally fell to a few hundred survivors, the Seminole Tribe of Florida hid out in remote camps in the swamplands of the Everglades. The only contact they had with the outside world was an occasional visit to a trading post, where they might trade with outsiders for things like cloth. It's assumed that their first hand-crank sewing machines arrived via canoe.


One of the first pages covers a little of the history of the Seminole Tribe and how they were the only tribe to never sign a peace treaty with the U.S Government. Can you tell us a little about how their history and lifestyle influenced the development of their technique?

Erin:  Yeah, they never signed a peace treaty to this day. They were the only ones to successfully resist compromise with the United States government in that way, which is pretty remarkable. Because there is no documentation of the creation of the Seminole patchwork technique (that I know of) all you really have is speculation about how and why it was created. They know that it was women who did the sewing, so it's safe to say that a woman (or a group of women) made it up. It's obviously not a technique that makes sense with hand sewing so we know it was always done on the sewing machine. Some people suggest that it was borne out of necessity – a thrifty way to use up ever little bit of fabric and create whole cloth out of small strips. I haven't actually seen this backed up with any hard evidence, though. I mean, the seam allowances use up a lot of fabric, too, especially in some of the more intricate designs. When it was made up originally, Seminoles used the technique for making clothing – "big shirts" for men and skirts for women. Of course, clothing made out of cloth isn't "traditional." Before white settlers came, Seminoles wore grass skirts and/or no clothes at all. (If you've ever been, you know why - Florida is hot and humid!) But the patchwork skirts and "long shirts" or "Seminole jackets" became traditional. They made new traditions in response to the changing times.

As pollution and industrialization forced Seminoles out of their camps, one of the most viable ways for Seminoles to make a living was by selling their culture to tourists. That's when the patchwork really took off and became super-intricate. I think Seminole patchwork is a great example of how slippery "culture" is. Culture never exists in a vacuum – it's not like there is tradition on the one hand and non-tradition on the other. We are constantly making our traditions.


You mention that this is the only technique that was always meant to be done on a sewing machine, can you tell me more about that?
 
Erin:  Yup, Seminole patchwork was the first and only "traditional" patchwork technique always meant to be executed on the sewing machine.  If you've ever tried to sew a whole full length dress by hand then you know that sewing machines are awesome!  Not only does the sewing go faster, but when you intersect a seam with another seam you lock that first seam in place.  Seminole patchwork totally relies on this fact.  See, when you cut out the strip sets, you have unbackstitched seams just waiting to unravel.  But, when you sew those strip sets together, you lock those seams in place with the intersecting seam.  And then, when you chop off the "triangles" and insert the band into your finished project, you lock those seams in place with the final insertion seam.  AMAZING!  Hand sewing can't readily replicate that element of the technique – you never want to cut into a hand sewn seam, ever.


One of the first things I noticed about the book is how simple and approachable the technique sounds for beginners. Being on the sewing challenged side myself, I would love for you to share with our readers a few encouraging words about trying these projects.

Erin:  I made all the projects with beginners in mind!  The instructions take you from step #1 all the way to the end and assume that you know very little about sewing.  The thing about Seminole patchwork is it looks crazy intricate but its actually very, very easy to get good-looking results in a short amount of time, even for people who aren't expert seamstresses.  There are no curvy, complicated seams to goof up – if you can sew in a straight line, then you can do this!

Want to read more about this crafty lady? Here's the blog tour itinerary for you to follow along with:

• Leisure Arts Blog – http://leisureartsblog.blogspot.com/ - Monday, May 16
• Sew Daily – http://www.sewdaily.com - Tuesday, May 17
• Craftzine – http://craftzine.com/ - Wednesday, May 18
• Craftypod – http://www.craftypod.com/ - Thursday, May 19
• Whipup.net – http://www.whipup.net/ - Friday, May 20
• Burdastyle – http://www.burdastyle.com/ - Saturday, May 21
• Pink Pinguin - http://ayumills.blogspot.com/ - Sunday, May 22
• A Green Banana – http://agreenbanana.wordpress.com/ - Monday, May 23
• I Think Sew – http://xstreetgirl.blogspot.com/ - Tuesday, May 24
• Happy Zombie – http://thehappyzombie.com/ - Wednesday, May 25
• A Mountain Hearth - Thursday, May 26
• Sew News - http://www.sewnews.com/blogs/sewing/ - Friday, May 27
• Pat Sloan’s Blog – http://patsloan.typepad.com/ - Saturday, May 28

Hot Stuff!

You may have noticed these snazzy new tags on my blog giveaways, in my Mountain Hearth Handcrafts Etsy shop, or in my booth at recent festivals. This is my idea turned into reality through my husband's artistic abilities. I have often said that I write because I can't draw or paint, so it's a good thing knowing an artist of that sort. For some time now, I have been stitching these cast-iron skillet grabbers for some time now from re-purposed wool sweaters. I really love cast-iron (read more about this kitchenware love affair here: Cast-Iron: Not Just Your Grandmother's Frying Pan!), and there is nothing else I would rather cook with, but the heat conductivity where handling is concerned is really an issue. Many issues can be solved with creativity and crafting, however, and I think these wool grabbers are a great solution.

I'm going to shamelessly advertise here and tell you to head on over to my Etsy shop and check them out:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/69144651/cast-iron-skillet-grabber

I ended up taking this idea one step further with another common homestead kitchen item complete with its own set of issues. Mason jars are so essential and so abundant in homes where food is produced and preserved, that there always seems to be one on hand. You can read my ode to the canning jar here: A Canner's Inheritance. I use them for canning, dried food storage, herbs and spices, drinking glasses, vases, you name it. Since they're made to withstand boiling temperatures, they make excellent cups for tea, coffee and hot soup, and with the lid, you've got a to-go container with no potential leaching issues like plastic or metal. The problem, again, is heat conductivity. You don't want to grab one of these full of hot liquids. So, re-purposed wool sweaters save the day again. The sleeves make perfect mason jar warmers, and keep your drink hot and your hand cool. My husband helped out with another artistic sketch for the tag, making it a fun little gift.

More shameless advertising, check these out at my Etsy shop:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/73691302/mason-jar-warmer?ref=ss_listing

What can I say? Cast-iron and canning jars are just plain hot!

Fields of Blue

One of the first things I fell in love with during my first Spring in the Willamette Valley was the camas. Lining roadsides, in patches along trails and natural areas, in many folks back yards, and in waving masses of blue out in the fields and wetlands, this plant is a beautiful sight to behold. Camas (Camassia sp.) belongs to the lily family, and posesses a rich history as one of the most important root foods (a bulb to be more exact) of indigenous peoples of western North America. Families maintained their own camas patches, year after year through the generations, using fire to manage the grasslands and increase yields, removing patches of the top sod layer either before or right after blooming, and digging the bulbs out with forked digging sticks. Then they roasted the bulbs in pits for days to break down the undigestable inulin compounds and enjoyed it as a starchy staple. Often it was dried into cakes for consumption throughout the Winter months.

Camas prefers an ephemeral habitat drying out at the end of the Spring, such as prairies, meadows, wet hillsides, stream corridors, and floodplains. Unfortunately, the type of habitats favorable to camas are also favorable for growing crops, and much of this plant's habitat has been converted to farmland. I have heard it said that when Lewis and Clark came over a crest of mountains and beheld their first view of a vast camas prairie rippling in the breeze like waves, they mistakenly thought they had reached the ocean and recorded this in their journals. I like to imagine what that must have looked like.

Knowing it once grew all over our wet, marshy grasslands and forests in this area, I have long held a desire to re-introduce it onto our property. It grows in our neighbor's back field, so I know we are definitely in the native habitat. I didn't get the timing right to gather and broadcast some seeds, so this last Fall I put in a few bulbs out in our field and in the garden beds around the house. In the past week or so, I was thrilled to see camas blooming in my garden and to spot one bright blue flower stalk rising up out of the tall grass behind our house. We keep some portions of the yard both mowed and un-mowed, and I could have planned a little better with camas locations, but at least this one made it! I hope that its seeds will scatter far and wide, creating a whole patch next year.

For more information on our native camas, you can read this great USDA fact sheet at:

http://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/cs_caqub2.pdf

Be sure to educate yourself before harvesting any bulbs as to protected areas, ethical wildcrafting practices,  proper preparation and the look-alike death camas. With the vast reduction in habitat, most camas harvest nowadays is done with permits in salvage operations. I still have yet to harvest any myself for all the complexitites I've listed above, but one day I hope to add it to my wild food experiences. For the time being, I'll just add it to my yard!

A Foraging Lesson

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Feeling like a Spring chicken" and wondered what that must feel like? Well, watching all our little chicks out in the barnyard has answered that question in my mind. It looks like an awful lot of fun being a Spring chicken. You might remember Silkie, the determined little hen from my earlier post, One Proud Mama Chicken. As things turned out, one egg didn't hatch and one chick didn't make it, but she has two healthy little offspring following her around wherever she goes. Neither one hatched from her own eggs, but I don't think she's ever noticed or would think anything of it if she did.

Lately, I've noticed her efforts focused on foraging lessons. She goes over to a spot where there's some grain, a worm or a little bug, and makes a series of fast clucking sounds to call the chicks over. She scratches, they scratch and then they feast. I've seen her feed them a worm or two from her beak, but I think they're really getting the hang of it on their own.

Everywhere she goes, those chicks aren't far behind.

They've got following their mama down.

Silkie is such a good mother in fact, that other chickens wish they were her baby. This little brown silkie chick with a crossed beak deformation has decided to adopt itself into the family. Every time Silkie clucks the food call, this one comes running over and eats along with the chicks. Sometimes she chases it away, but usually she is okay with sharing.

I have to say these chicks are really getting their foraging technique down. When I threw out the cracked corn this morning, they were right there, scratching and pecking along with the best of them (all 62), and doing their mama proud.

62 chickens. I really am a crazy chicken lady now, or a farmer. It's a fine line.

Blog Giveaway Winners!

The names are drawn, the results are in, and we have three winners for my 100th Blog follower giveaway! I heard from readers all the way from Mapleton, Oregon to Victoria, Australia and I loved reading all your responses. I heard about such an array of wonderful homesteading endeavors and dreams of backyard bees, canning, growing food, chickens, goats, alpacas, mulching, fruit trees, blueberries, fiber animals, spinning, herbal remedies, solar power, and celebrating the seasons as they go around. I also heard a lot of thanks for offering up inspiration, and I want to thank you all back for your inspiration. Hearing about other folks out there doing and dreaming about the same things really spurs me onward in my own work on the land.

I wanted to tell you a little about my three winners and what they're up to.  Laurie, winner of the handmade bird's nest is trying to incorporate more of the Wheel of the Year and celebration of the seasons in her life, so I hope the nest brings a little Spring into her home.  Aubrey, who will be receiving a cast-iron skillet grabber is an urban homesteader with dreams of a forever piece of land in the future and a fellow fan of Alaskan homesteading documentaries! Rachael, winner of the mason jar warmer, is a homesteader, fiber artist, spinner and canner renting a small portion of a working dairy farm with her husband in northwestern Pennsylvania. She currently raises chickens, angora rabbits and alpaca, with dreams in the future of more fiber animals and more foraging for wild edibles.


Congratulations Laurie, Aubrey and Rachael! Please contact me via email at mountainhearth@gmail.com with your addresses, and I will send your packages to you!

If you missed this giveaway and want another chance to win, head over to my friend Taryn's blog, Wooly Moss Roots to enter the drawing for another cast-iron skillet grabber and mason jar warmer.

 Here's the link:

http://woolymossroots.blogspot.com/2011/05/mountain-hearth-handcraftsgiveaway_17.html

In Oregon, We're Covered in Moss

With all the rain we have out here in Oregon, we also have a lot of moss. It carpets forest floors, grows in marshes, hangs from trees, engulfs boulders, and grows on our roofs. It's a wonder it doesn't grow on Oregonians. Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, it's a familiar and fond flora to me, and this Spring I have enjoyed observing some of the different kinds. Apparently there are many. I took a series of close-up shots to show off the variety in color and texture of this often overlooked member of the plant kingdom. If you take the time to stoop down and really look, you'll find a whole miniature world down there on the ground.

 Mosses are marvelous!

This last one is not a moss, but a Lungwort Lichen (Lobaria pulmonaria.)

 I threw it in for the intricate texture, and because I think that lungworts are lovely.

100th Blog Follower Giveaway

To celebrate my blog reaching 100 official followers this week, I decided it's time for a giveaway. It's my way of saying "Thank You" to all of my readers out there. There will be three winners, each receiving a gift from my Mountain Hearth Handcrafts Etsy shop at http://www.mountainhearth.etsy.com/. I have been amazed since I started up this writing project at how many folks out there are following along. While I have 100 regular readers through Google, there are also many more out there to thank. I discovered the "stats" button a little while back, and realized I have readers all over the world, around 200 site visits a day, and over 34,000 site visits in all! I am humbled and filled with gratitude to be sharing my ideas, adventures and musings on this life with so many others, many whom I have never met. Creating something that you can share makes it just so much more fun. Thank you for your visits, comments and support of my business through the Etsy shop!

One winner will receive one of my handmade bird's nests with felted wool eggs. I make these out of the invasive European Beach Grass roots that are encroaching on our local sand dune ecosystem, doing my part to combine art and invasive species control. They make a nice year-round decoration, but are especially nice on Spring season tables and tucked into the boughs of your tree for the Winter holidays.

I've also got some homestead goods to give away. Another winner will receive on of my handcrafted cast iron skillet grabbers made from recycled wool sweaters. They will save your hand from some nasty burns, and come in very handy around the kitchen. Someone recently pointed out that they're also the right size to hold cel phones! My husband lent his artistic skills to make these fun tags, that read, "Cast Iron: The hottest thing since long john underwear." So very true.

And the other winner will receive one of my handcrafted mason jar warmers also made of recycled wool sweaters. They keep your hands comfortable and your tea or soup hot when putting all those extra mason jars around the kitchen to use. This one comes with another of my husband's tag creations.

To enter, simply leave a comment on this post introducing yourself, sharing a little about your homesteading activities or aspirations if you'd like, and how you came to read my blog. I want this to be an opportunity to meet my readers! If you aren't signed up with a Google account to leave comments, you can leave one on my Mountain Hearth Handcrafts Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mountain-Hearth-Handcrafts/290968424339?ref=ts. And then there's also good old fashioned e-mail at: mountainhearth@gmail.com. I will close the giveway in one week, on Monday, May 16, and put all the entries into a hat from which the three winners will be randomly drawn. Then I will contact the winners and send them their gift.

I look forward to hearing from you!