Archive | Homesteading

The Rain is Here!

By Linda on November 19, 2015 in Family, Gardening, Homesteading

Hello!

We’ve been so busy with exams etc… that I haven’t had much time to pop in here to post about what we been up to, so I thought I’d share a little of what’s been happening. This beautiful sunflower self-seeded and popped up in our little garden by our front door, it makes me happy each time I see it!

We have a new family member! Meet Lou, we thought she was a she but today we discovered she is actually a he! He is the cutest little guy, very active and quite mischievous indeed! So far we’ve introduced him to Olive and she seems to tolerate him but our other cat Charlie is not interested in a new family member at all. We’ll have to give him some time to get used to Lou.

Lunch!

Our veggie garden growing just outside my kitchen, it’s worked so well, the birds haven’t touched our spinach for the first time ever! Yay!

I’m so proud of this pepper, it’s absolutely huge and bi-coloured!

We all attended a Roman themed party on Saturday night, it was such fun to dress up!

These Souties Squash also self-seeded in the front garden along with the Sunflower, I can’t wait to taste them! (the squash that is!)

We have been experiencing the most terrific thunderstorms this week! It literally hasn’t rained for weeks and now, the rain seems to be here!! Thank goodness, my poor garden is saved 🙂

Portrait Saturday, Chickens

By Linda on May 2, 2015 in Chickens, Homesteading

Our chickens are growing up fast and will soon start laying eggs, most of the older ones are moulting so we are experiencing a bit of a dry season as far as eggs are going. I’ve had to buy free range eggs from the shop but they aren’t anything like the eggs our girls lay. Two of the younger ones have had slight colds but they are improving each day. Winter is approaching fast here, the mornings and evenings are COLD, its’ so strange how chickens start moulting just as the temperature starts dropping. At least they’ll have their feathers by the time winter’s in full swing.

We also gave them a huge new pile of straw today, they love it, scratching around finding all sorts of bugs. We just put the bale in the middle of their pen, they climb on top of it and scratch and spread it out all over the place. I really do believe they rather enjoy doing that.

Hope you’re having a wonderful Saturday, I’m busy transferring all of Jenna’s scout badges from her old shirt to her new one, (there are a LOT of badges:)

See you soon…

In the Garden

By Linda on February 9, 2015 in Gardening, Homesteading

Our garden is just bursting with all things growing at the moment, this little gem squash is almost ready.

Our Granadilla vine is heavily laden with fruit, it’s the best year so far, usually we have one or two fruits on the vine, this year there are about 10!

Cute little red peppers… love the shape

The grapes are also ready, they’re sweet and the birds love them too!

Butternuts are growing up the fences in our veg garden.

Our pretty Hibiscus is seldom without flowers.

Happy Monday!

Cooking Outside with a “Hay Box”

By Linda on June 25, 2013 in Birds, Family, Homesteading, Tutorial

Some visitors came and ate lunch at the bird-feeders today, this is a Black Collared Barbet.

Crested Barbet

Jen, Caiden and Erin cooked dinner outside today, the exciting part was that Jen showed us how to use a “Hay Box” to cook the rice. She learnt about it at scouts on one of her camps. All you need is a box, a black box would be better as it attracts and traps heat from the sun but we worked with what we had and it worked just fine. A good time to start would be when the sun is high in the sky, midday.

Line the base of the box with a thick blanket, then add newspaper so that it will surround and cover the pot once it’s placed in the box and then another blanket is placed on top of the newspaper which is covering and surrounding the pot.

First boil the water in a pot on the stove, once the water is boiling, add rice and take your boiling pot outside and place it inside the newspaper in the hay box. Really surround the pot with plenty of newspaper and do it quickly so that not too much heat is lost. Then cover everything with a thick blanket so that it’s nice and snug.

Close the lid tight and leave the box in direct sunlight. On a hot day, it should cook within a few hours. Check on the rice once or twice, not too often, as the heat will escape.