Sooner or Later…

An online friend is having some fun with Queen Anne’s Lace using its royal perogative to grow where it isn’t wanted. Hmmm…roll through the mental rollodex and….

Queen Anne is nature study (pictures), as the butterflies prefer to lay their eggs leaves of plants in the parsley family (Apiaceae) including Queen Anne’s Lace, carrot, celery and dill.

Queen Anne’s Lace is wild carrot and so could be eaten. Well remember it is an ancestor so is very tough and strong. Strong could be an understatement there. Let’s just say that around here, it would wait until hard times before I started eating the root.

Queen Anne’s Lace is also jelly - for spreading on toast not the jello kind. Recipe below is from The World Carrot Museum which has a great description, history, and how to ID this plant. You wouldn’t want to accidentally eat hemlock would you?

That recipe (one of many I’m sure):

Queen Anne’s Lace Jelly

18 large Queen Anne’s lace heads
4 Cups water
1/4 Cup lemon juice (fresh or bottled)
1 Package powdered pectin
3 1/2 Cups + 2 Tbsp. sugarBring water to boil.  Remove from heat.  Add flower heads (push them down into the water).  Cover and steep 30 mins.  Strain. Measure 3 Cups liquid into 4-6 quart pan.  Add lemon juice and pectin.  Bring to a rolling boil stirring constantly.  Add sugar and stir constantly.  Cook and stir until mixture comes to a rolling boil.  Boil one minute longer, then remove from heat.

Remember those old Organic Gardening magazines & books? or the old Mother Earth News? The ones back in the day when the focus was growing your own food as healthily and cheaply as possible. The days when people were capable of using what was on hand to get where they needed to go. NOT the yuppie ‘the more it costs the better it is’ magazines of more recent times.

Well, if you read those old magazines then perhaps you read Gene Logdson articles and books. A short list of his works:

The Contrary Farmer’s Invitation to Gardening, 1997

The Contrary Farmer, 1995

The Low-Maintenance House, 1987

Moneysaving Secrets: A Treasury of Salvaging, Bargaining, Recycling, and Scavenging Techniques, 1986

Gene Logsdon’s Practical Skills: A Revival of Forgotten Crafts, Techniques, and Traditions, 1985

Wildlife in the Garden: How to Live in Harmony With Deer, Raccoons, Rabbits, Crows, and Other Pesky Creatures, 1983

Organic Orcharding, 1981

Getting Food from Water: A Guide to Backyard Aquaculture, 1979

The Gardener’s Guide to Better Soil, 1978

Small-Scale Grain Raising, 1977

Successful Berry Growing, 1974

Homesteading: How to Find New Independence on the Land, 1973

Two Acre Eden: Finding the Good Life on Your Own Piece of Land, 1971

Ever wonder what he is doing now?

Well for starters he has a blog at OrganicToBe.org. He is still dishing out doses of his contrary advice - contrary if you are an agri-college kinda farmer. Unfortunately many of his books are getting hard to find or expensive or both. I had really wanted to find a copy of his book “Small Scale Grain Raising”. 

So I rambled…

Into an out of the way place that has a legal & free way of posting books that are not old enough to be public domain. It seems that out-of-print gives plus research gives some legal leeway in the offerings. The site is The Soil and Health Library.

Read the front page, scroll down to and click the Personnal Sovereignity link. It will take you to a page that explains the rules & asks for help locating some books they would like to add to their collection. If what you read is agreeable, then click ‘Take Me to the Library.’ I could have posted the direct link but it is a good idea to know what the exact rules are so that the site isn’t forced *out of business*.

Now you should find yourself on the Personnal Sovereignity Library homepage. Read the page. Right up the alley for homesteaders, preppers, and other dyi type people (aren’t those just a list of synonyms?)

Should be obvious to click on the Homesteading link.

Find yourself on the Homesteading Library Catalogue (love that British spelling!)

Start drooling…erm….

Looks like a section of homesteader heaven doesn’t it? Scroll down to see the two Gene Logsdon offerings

• Small Scale Grain Raising
• Getting Food from Water: A Guide to Backyard Aquaculture

If /when you click on a title you will be taken to the Copyright Clearance Form page. READ THIS PAGE. Decide to agree & sign the form or disagree and leave. Yes you will be asked to join for a one time fee of about $15.00 US. I have downloaded one book for free just to see how things worked. It went just as describe and quickly - at least on my line.

Joining gets you a nice thank you and an invite to tea if you are ever in Tasmania. One can dream can’t they?

The site will send a form letter that reads:

 Dear (Insert your name),The URL for your copy of Getting Food From Water is as follows: (address deleted to conform to the rules)

A copy of the item you requested has been made especially for you. To obtain it click the link above.This link will work for only one month from today and then your copy will be removed from our server.

According to Australian library rules you are not allowed to request a copy of the same book more than once.

Please note that this link is for personal use only and may not be distributed.

—————

You have received this email because (Insert your name) requested a copy of a book from soilandhealth.org.  If you did not issue this request, please ignore this email.

Please note that this message has been sent from an unattended account.  Please do not reply to this message.

To contact soilandhealth.org, please direct your browser to the following link:

http://soilandhealth.org/contact.asp

Its a great site and poking around will just add to *must download* list.

Ever have a day (or late night) when you mind just wanders around a problem and answers to questions you never knew you had appear? Well this is what a wandering mind on the internet can find. I have no idea how it all started either, but it was reasonable at the time.

I think it started with tobacco…because it is supposed to be good for worming animals. I am a reasonably capable gardener who would like to do as much as possible for the family. Since prices are going up in all areas. I dove in…

And for some tobacco works fine but…if the pasture is too short, or the weather is too wet, or too conductive to parasites, or a host of other problems…then it fails miserably. Animals need to be in good health for the rightness of good care & for the benefits to the bottom line. Gotta take care of those who are taking care of you & yours. Still didn’t like the idea of being chained to the farm store though…

All is not lost. Google and link hopping found this incredible page. Ayrshire Farm is an organic farm that had an expensive worm problem. By searching through old old farm books the owners found a remedy. Even better the results are test proven. Hop on over yourself to read more.  I like the homemade drencher - thinking outside the box. Now to find out if their turpentine is the paint thinner variety, if the lindseed oil can be furniture grade, and if it would work on goats and other farm animals… 

In doing all that searching on tobacco & worming the path wandered off into growing tobacco. Quite an interesting meander. Many old-timers stories worth reading and listening to. Found an interesting figure but cannot find the page: An 8 x 10 bed can grow enough tobacco for a lot of cigarettes - 3556 if memory serves. That’s a lot of something. 

It isn’t a walk in the park to grow, harvest, and dry but it might be an interesting history lesson. Tobacco, Colonial times and the American Revolution are tightly woven together. Wandering here, here, here, and here. Perhaps someone might need an animal wormed or whatever. What laws cover selling/trading tobacco? or worm medicine? Then there is the scent from the flowers. Just a wandering mind…

For our 25th wedding anniversary Grits & Davo gave us a family portrait. He is an artist just beginning his own business and his pictures are beautiful. If you were curious about our crew hop over to Mitchells Family Photography and take a peek.

Back row: Fyah, Robert, Dh, Nikos

Front row: Zach, Me, Danielle (Little Missey), Lindsay, Thomas

Backdrop the neighbors yard.

Sister C sent this. Turn up the volume and watch the arrow closely. It’s nearer than you think

Ordering Pizza in 2010

I am called wonderwoman because…

I have eight children.

I have one grandchild.

I have one grandchild on the way.

I homeschool.

I have a large garden.

I lead 4H.

But wonderwoman is tired.

The eight children do not all live at home anymore. Grits has been married nearly six years. Fyah & wife live here until after basic training but are not a problem. Nikos left Monday for his basic. But the next son has had some trouble and thinks it should all disappear at nightfall. It doesn’t work that way but hey! what do I know. His attitude goes from great & glad to have you around to not fit for a compost pile.

The grandbaby is no problem. She has a good momma & daddy. They don’t dump their child and could come around more. The grandbaby-to-be needs to cook more but being a man-child he isn’t listening to reason. After Sunday he will be allowed to make his appearance even if it is only 36 weeks.

The homeschool is on break for about one more week. We got a bit behind due to illness, death, birth and life. The behind has been seriously condensed down and 9 weeks should catch us up.

It isn’t a large garden. It’s smaller than my front room. Part still needs planted. The weeds are nearly butt-cheek high.

4H isn’t in tomorrow’s parade. All the families called but we were not home. If you haven’t worked on a float isn’t it obvious that it has been canceled? Preemie babies need to be prepared for more than the float.

We moved the bedroom suite for Fyah & wife into the room. A double bed sleeps two easier than twin. Now LiLi’s kitchen set is in the hallway, her mattress & springs are in the frontroom, and her toys are tightly in the closet.

The new filing cabinet is in the desk area and the old is in the hallway.

Took Mrs. Fyah to Jonesboro (1+ hour one way) and came home to find the small chickens under the wagon were out. The lab puppy had playmates to the tune of one dead buttercup, one very shocked turken, and a pile of babies at the gate. After rounding everyone up (the Polish crested were out of the fence) there was one crested missing. I found some feathers and feared the worst. Mrs found part of the carcass buried under the swing set. Thank goodness the kids went with Daddy to Grandpa’s today. The group is still shocked & moving slow.

Between dh’s snoring and dh’s snoring I haven’t slept all night in forever.

The house is a disaster and there is a funny smell in the breeze way. (For non-southerners: build your garage about 8 feet from your house. Put on a roof and two screened ends. Make it look like a room or fill it with junk.)

We are going to Grandpa’s for the fourth and its 1+hours away but not Jonesboro. Sil & her hubby are there. They do not get “Can NOT have sticky candy due to expensive dental work” and buy the kids sticky candy. But it’s not gum or tootsie rolls…

I seem to be the only person capable of holding or watching baby girl longer than five minutes. My holding capacity is reaching epic proportions.  (umm, that would be my internal, need the bathroom capacity not babyholding)

I am the final say on the houses shown to me by dh & his dad. Hurray a new way to be the bad guy.

Of course I am amazing. I do sooo much…

Wonderwoman is tired.

Amazing.

Hat tip to Mommylife.

Yesterday was our 25th wedding anniversary.

It was also Little Missey’s Dr.s appointment in Little Rock–or not. I got the date wrong so we drove 3+ hours there (and even more back) for nothing. That was a very expensive sub-sandwich wasn’t it?

This is one of the better pictures. We had a house fire about a year and a half after and lost 99.9% of everything. I did not lose Grits or DH and that was a miracle so I don’t think on what was lost too much.

This is what we look like today. Not as blonde (me) or as thin, c’est la vie.

A site that I read regularly asked for ideas on second uses for items already around the house. My contribution:

We purchased a second group of chickens (the polish crested, turkin, and butter cream), thinking the two groups were not that far apart in size and could easily be made one happy family…ha! Once I had them in the same garage the size difference was much, much greater than I thought.

For awhile the second group lived in a rubber maid tub. Then having outgrown that and not wanting to build a second pen I frantically came up with this….

The up-side-down garden wagon. Its study metal sides and bottom when inverted become sturdy top and sides. Able to with hold the body weight of an enthusiastic five year old boy and not lean or crush. Right side up able to haul same child anywhere & everywhere.

The garden wagon…or chicken pen…or child’s toy–get one.