Fall Colors and Seasons of Change Means Shifting Gears

I like Autumn, it does close Summer and puts a lid on the harvest season and opens a whole different mind set on the Homestead. I will be pulling down the solar water heater as the snow and temps no longer support it. The fall gathering of wild mushrooms, nuts and other free goods mother nature hands over is the final reward before hunting season opens.

Hunting season for me isn't about bagging the big buck, and so if he walks in front of my deer stand I will harvest him. I take no real reward in his rack, if it pleases the guy in the next stand over he can have him. I just want to get a buck that is legal and fill my other Doe tags for the food value. I always pass on smaller Does as I know there are plenty of older Does ready for canning. I also grind them up for Sausage, Bologna and Jerky. This year I am going to be keeping the Deer Liver for a Liver Sausage recipe that I found.

I look forward to small game hunting as well as fall turkey season with Joshua who just loves to bird hunt. This year he is excited to turkey hunt as I teach him to use a new turkey call. If I had dogs I would be shifting towards hunting more rabbits, but I am considering raising rabbits next year for food because having a beagle right now isn't on my list.

I will be priming the smoker this weekend for this years seasoning of food for me and my friends. Getting everything ready for winter means putting everything away and stored properly until next spring. I am considering setting up the Greenhouse but haven't decided to do it. I was thinking of putting it over the cold frame.

You have not heard me mention wood splitting as we did split some, but last year it was so warm, we have plenty of wood left over. We processed so much maple syrup, we will be selling off all of our goods this year. That money will sure up my SS fund pretty nice. I still have a few projects to wrap up for the season and do some clean-up and get ready for the holidays, hunting, and wintertime.

From Downspout To Sap Out, Interesting Useful Idea

While winterizing this year, confident in my acquired skills of maple syrup making, spotting and marking of maple trees on my own property (more than four I have tapped in the past). Thinking of my resources on hand to start building my sugaring supplies, not wanting to spend more money, I decided to take one of my rain barrels and keep it out of storage for sap gathering. I will need to buy one large barrel to put in the shanty for holding sap while cooking it down. But I decided to spread the idea so that you can take advantage of my newly thought of idea.


In truth, maple syrup making is a skill handed to me by my grandfather. So as you might know, I planned to be at this point a year ago, but the murder of my parents put my life on hold. My feelings of their deaths has been a roller coaster at times, and time does allow us to learn to except the way things are. I still get angry and upset at times, if I didn't I wouldn't be human. I miss them and wished they could share life with us. Being as it is, perhaps they were saved and are watching us from heaven.

Realize that putting a hold on my path of being self sufficient has not taken hold of my ideas and made me put it down and surrender my diet and lifestyle to big corporation. Learning the skills needed by pioneers of the past days keeps me excited and the rewards of my hard work keeps me going. I will have a plan to share with you for what/where I want to be in the next year. I know that I want to expand my diet to include more dried beans.

I am in a better mental state and find myself getting back to normal something to look forward to. I miss my folks but I know although they are gone, they would want me to keep moving forward in my own life.

Hope you hang in there with me while I get things back together in my own life. Peace be with you, and spread some love. Life is too short to hate. Jason

Dehydrating, Dealing W/ Bumper Crops, Secret Tip, The Recipe

This time of year most folks love to share the fruits of their labor with others. So many people bring in food from their gardens and give it to co-workers and such.

NOT ME!! If you now suspect that I am just a grumpy old man, that isn't true. However, I do like to share some of my food with others and love to fellowship and share with certain folks. I process all my own food, and I deal with my bumper crops differently than most people.

Some people do get what I am doing, and I gave a friend some Jam, only to find out they didn't use it because it was home processed. I know right? But it was the first time, and the last I shared my food with them.

This time of year, its Cukes and Squash... I know that mater time is just around the corner when bumper crops of these two veggies head for the dehydrator. Cukes have tons of canning ideas, my focus in this article is Squash.

Zuke and Yellow are two of the most produced squashes in gardens. People love to grow them with little to no care, plant the seeds and off they go. I find that most people give away squash and maters, and from time to time Okra. NOT ME!!!


You know by now I love to process and store my own food, and you want to learn from my adventures and share your own ideas. To prep my squash, I clean it, cut the ends, and set my slicer for 5/16 of an inch. Now it is not wise to dehydrate big squash without a little bit of work, but armed with an egg cup, you will now be able to store and keep more food than you ever knew.

Yes, for this article I am going to use the word pith, it is the only word I know that I can described the center of a squash that has mature seeds in it. Now, having seeds in dehydrated food isn't a crime. The criminal here is mature seeds. Seeds are self contained units, and if activated, will ruin mass amounts of food stores. Now if your storing them for seeds that is different, as the end use is much different.

 Allowing mature seeds to be left in can not only ruin food, but also contain natural chemicals that will off set the flavor of your food. So armed with a egg cup, I remove the pith and mature seeds so that I can continue to save the squash for dehydration.I put up 23 pounds of squash in one go using my Excalibur 3900.

Some will say this recipe has been in many families recipe book for generations, as for a modern pioneer, our methods of food storing do change when a new way allows for better food storing. With that, food recipes and the desire to make our own comfort food makes us change our recipes to adapt to our new ways.

I am positive some of you growing up on a farm have spent many summer nights at the table with a bowl of squash mess. I know this time of year it was a near staple fixed on the grill in a cast iron pan over hardwood fire. We never cooked inside unless it was early morning in the summer. So I gave my hand at making this recipe with dehydrated food. After trial and error, I have developed the recipe and process.

11/2 cups each of dehydrated yellow and zuke squash
1/4 cup dehydrated onions
dehydrated garlic to taste
2 1/2 cups of veggie stock or chicken
2 tablespoons of butter
3 tablespoons of flour
salt/pepper to taste

Put stock in fry pan, add squash, simmer for 20 minutes over medium heat. Increase temp to high, cook off remainder of stock liquid, turn back to medium, add butter, when squash begins to turn brown add butter, when butter melts add flour and return to high heat until the flour is brown.

I tested this recipe throughout the winter making as many as 8 to 12 side dishes. From the first to the last, outstanding!!

Keeping On Getting Back To Normal, Love Fresh Food

Hello SS folks, long time no post... However as I mentioned after my return from the coast, I am presenting you with the photos of the homestead and where I am at with things.

So we are doing great, and the weather has been bad. With almost no rain, my rain barrel has been dry most of the grow season. I have used both pond water and well water for the garden. The mulch I laid down has been a blessing. Like some of you, I have been getting on with my seasonal duties of putting food up for the winter season. Although I have been eating more veggies since the garden has been growing, I drop almost 25 pounds of fat. Stress fat as well as process food eating I am sure. We all know the difference in the taste of market food and your own.

Well, all that being said, I'd rather explain the photos as they posted. So if you have sometime and want to join me on my adventure of my SS lifestyle, grab a cup of tea or your preferred drink and lets have a mozzy on the farm.
Mushroom Logs setting idle, waiting for some rain


Wind spinners which help run the birds off and add some beauty to the garden



Solar lights in the garden. 4 corners have led colored globes, and again the bean tree fence post topper


Garden Guard


Garden pictures of different crops and general garden stuff







Ground Hog enters garden and eats carrots and beans, I will harvest and stew him soon


Early Garlic processing



Onions



Summer and Zuke squash, dried and ready to be separated into my squash mess vac bags and other cooking recipes. I have a long loved squash mess recipe from my Mom that she taught me how to make. I took it one step further and developed a dehydrated recipe of my own.


Jamming.. Maple syrup too..





So let me set this up and explain to you how some people don't think. At the end of maple season, folks are tired and couldn't be bothered working out the "fines" in the last gallon of syrup. Fines are named as all the small particles left over in the last batches of each go at maple making. They were going to toss them out this year, I got my equal share already, and wanted the stuff they were going to throw away. Anyway, what you are looking at is one jar of the left over "fines" syrup. Somewhat darker than Amber, still a good quality syrup, this jar is 90% maple syrup with the fines settled at the bottom. SO letting it settle and removing the top syrup has given me another half gallon of syrup.


Todays harvest


The root cellar seems to keep at a steady 66 degrees and was a rewarding building project for food stores. It has proved to be a great place for me to safely store both dried foods as well as canned food.

The hedge rows have provided a steady supply of berries for jamming and fresh eating. This year is the first year that grapes are growing. some of the later raspberry plants are still providing berries of pancakes and sugar and milk.


I suspect that I will be drying and canning tomatoes very soon. I will be canning green ones as well. I also will be drying some for soup recipes.

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You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy.
вегетарианец- Russian word for poor hunter
We are pioneers, trail blazers, we fight for freedom. We transform our dreams into the truth, our struggles, we became a nation.

How To Make And Grow Your Own Mushroom Logs, More Self Sufficient Ideas

I know many of you have been waiting for me to complete this video this spring. So it is now completed, and I also want to share a good reliable source for you to purchase your spores from.

This self sufficient task was so easy to do and gives years of rewards. If your in need of getting your hands on some white oak logs, be sure to ask your friends that own land, or find a saw mill near by. A logging company would be happy to sell you or give you some branches from a white oak tree they have harvested for wood. People really get interested when you start to explain to them what your doing with the logs.

Remember to place the log in a shaded area, where there isn't a lot of wind. If you need to build a wind break, do so. Also remember to place your logs just above the ground on some other logs or an old pallet.

If you start this spring, you will get a few in the fall, but expect full production to start next spring.

If you don't have the means to get your hands on the wood, but you want to try it out on the cheap. Try purchasing one of these, for the cost of this single purchase, it will pay for itself the first time it grows Mushrooms for you. Just follow the simple instructions included and you will be little more self sufficient. Its a real fun project to share with others..

Seeds Are Selling Out Early This Year, Better Get Yours Today!

Did you ever think that seed sources would be running out of seeds?

I have always thought. What if this was the year that the chit hit the fan? So like always, I bought my seeds early this year. However, there are a couple GMO seeds I was interested in and tried to order them to find out they are sold out for the year already?

Sold Out Seeds


Since my last order of 34,500k seeds this year, that price has risen by $10.00 in less than a month. If you think the cost is going to go down, don't hold your breath.

The world population will rise to over 7 billion this year, and food prices will triple in the next ten years. If you shop at the store, I do shop for sale items that I can't grow myself, you have seen prices this year alone rise by 6% and the quantity is being reduced by manufacturers without raising the prices to high.

Am I suggesting a panic here? No, I am suggesting that you invest in understanding how to keep your own seeds. This simple book will help you understand how to manage your seed keeping. I do keep many of my own seeds from year to year, and allow some plants to die out to collect seeds. If your not sure how to process and store your own seeds, this is the book for you. After you read the book, understand the knowledge, you can sell the book for a few dollars less than you bought it for. That is being self sufficient!