Homesteading...away from home!

It is officially fall here in Wisconsin. Blue skys, sunny days, but blustery with a temperature hanging in the 60's during the day. Perfect in my opinion! Last weekend was probably the last chance to do some unoffical camping. As you know, we've had a few staycations this summer, camping in the backyard. This time we took it offbase, and went to visit family in Western Wisconsin. We were really looking forward to it since they have something similar to our dream property. I believe it's 80 acres that they have. It's part farmed/open area, part forest/treed area. They have groomed trails throughout the property and ponds with wildlife. We camped by one of the small ponds. The dogs absolutely loved exploring the property, and so did Tim and I! We walked the trails several times and got a good tour of the property, describing much of the work that went into creating it and developing it to the way it was today. We also fully enjoyed the garden! A little bit to a lot of just about everything was growing! They have an area of fruit trees, grape vines, turkeys, and they even bee keep!! Wow, Tim and I were in heaven, dreaming of our own real homestead we plan to have someday. We came away with many practical ideas!

Roxie and Doug were very helpful in sharing a lot of what and how they do things on their organic homestead. We were really spoiled, eating several wholesome meals while we were there. We were only there from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, but it felt like we accomplished so much more. Not only was it great to visit and learn so much about homesteading, but also to see family! Also, Roxie sent us home with fresh foods from the garden that we helped pick. Tomatoes (which we made 4 jars of sauce with), carrots, jalapenos, raspberries, and eggplant. We have been eating well this entire past week, cooking together the tomatoes, eggplant, and carrots, and serving it over bulgar, or whole wheat pasta. Yum! Since we have quite a few eggplant, I'm also going to try something new. I found a recipe for "Eggplant Meatballs", so I'm going to give it a whirl tonight. I'll post the recipe if it's anything worth sharing.

It was a great weekend away and we look forward to visiting again! It was helpful to understand their homestead so we can help plan ours. -L

Going Wild at the Weidner Center!

A while back I "splurged" and bought 2 tickets to a show at the local performing arts center in Green Bay  (Weidner Center).  I did this without consulting Tim, which is something neither of us do.  The tickets were $45 a piece and I wanted to surprise Tim with the show that I decided to go to.  Well, I had the hardest time keeping the secret, even only 4 hours into it!  I couldn't stand it, so I played the guessing game with Tim and made him narrow it down for himself.  He figured it out eventually since this is an unlikely thing to see at a performing arts center.  Well, if you've seen the picture below, you've probably already figured it out.  We went to see Jack Hanna!!!  

I'm sure that I've been watching his show since a young kid and being that both Tim and I love nature and animals, what a perfect show!  Well, it was great!  Prior to the show we briefly 

met Jack, which was not something we expected.  In the picture Jack and Tim and talking and I'm trying hard to look good for the camera.  Haha!   Our seats were in the 5th row, so we had a great view.   Jack's show was entertaining as well as a learning experience.  Of course there were lots of parents with their kids, but I don't think the kids could have gotten nearly as much out of the show as an adult. Not to mention....$45 for a 3 year old to sit and eat cherrios and fuss the whole time except for when there was an animal on stage?!  Dang! Between showing some very cool animals including two-toed sloth, albino wallaby, python and cheetah, Jack showed his favorite clips from some of his shows, talked about wildlife conservation, and showed a video of him with his wife and 2 daughters coming upon a family of mountain gorillas (very endangered).    He also showed a blooper reel, including an episode with David Letterman where Jack was milking a goat and squirted the milk all over Letterman's pants.  It was a good show, and worth the$45 per ticket splurge!  Jack has two shows on TV, Jack Hanna's Animal Adventure's and Jack Hanna's Into the Wild....shows that are meant for educating kids, but is equally as good for adults!   -L

Are you registered? Now you don't have to be!

Hello everyone! Prior to today visitors would have to sign up and log in to leave comments on the blog. It seems that maybe this has turned people away from leaving comments. The comment function is now open to all visitors of the site. We hope that you will leave yours. Thanks as always for visiting!! -L

Canning Pic's

Here are pictures from our canning experience so far!

Huge stock pot of cut up tomatoes!  All these make....

6 pints of yummy tangy tomato sauce!

Dehydrating Apple Slices.  First we had to peel them all and then we sliced them.  

Here they are soaking in lemon juice and then getting loaded onto the dehydrator.

All the peels from the apples!

  

Canning Tomatoes

We now have 8 jars of home canned tomato sauce. This year was our first attempt at canning, and I have to say that so far it has gone really well! We decided to can for a few reasons. 1.) Saves money. We'll probably get another 8 jars once the tomatoes are done ripenening. So let's just say that in the store a jar of sauce costs around $2.50 (or even more expensive if you buy organic). If we get 16 jars, that's a savings of $40. Doesn't sounds like a lot, but the more you can, the more you save! 2.) Convenience. So many times we wonder what to make for dinner that isn't going to be a lot of work after a long day. Now, we can pop open a jar and have "fresh" tomato sauce for pasta, pizza, etc. 3.) Organic! Who knows what's in some of the stuff you buy at the store. Preservatives. Pesticides. When you are putting your own tomatoes into the sauce, you know exactly what you are putting in. Just plain 'ol yummy tomatoes! 4.) Local. Imagine the amount of energy it takes to get a jar of Ragu on the shelf at the store? First the tomatoes have to be picked, then transported to the Ragu factory (energy). Then, they have to go through an entire huge process to be made with machines, etc. (energy). The sauce has to be put into jars with more machines, and then the jars have to be labeled (more energy). The labels were made from trees which were cut down, shipped, processed, printed on with ink (chemicals) and then have to be stuck with some sort of glue onto the jar (energy, resources). Then the jars of sauce have to be driven around the country to get to their destination. More energy. You get my point. Our tomatoes grew from a packet a seeds that cost $1.50. They grew from water, sun, and nutrients in the dirt. The energy it took to make them was physical labor on our part and a bit of stovetop time. And, after we use the sauce, we get to save the jar and reuse it! What an efficent process! Maybe I'm a geek, but that get's me excited.

Tonight, we try Apple Butter. More updates to come...and pictures too!

-L

About books!

Tim and I love books!  We enjoy reading both fiction and nonfiction and our book shelves show this.  I have to admit to even having some what of an addiction to buying books.  I look at the amount of books we have an wonder how I will ever get through them all?! (maybe winter?)  I do have to say however, that we are "smart" book shoppers.  Rarely do I spend full price on a book, or even CLOSE to the cover price!  Most of the books we have (including best sellers from favorite authors) are hardcovers and cost a mere 99 cents!  Now when you read a book that you didn't really like, you can't feel guilty about spending the money on it.  You can't really go wrong since the book only cost a dollar!  Here is where I get to make a plug for the place that we get the majority of our books from.  :)  Goodwill.  Have you visited your local Goodwill lately?  We are so lucky to have a Goodwill down the road (in Darboy) that has a "GoodBooks" department.  It's like a small bookstore in there!  You can find anything from cook books, to travel guides, to kids books, to best sellers.  The majority of the books are at least 1/2 price from the cover price.  They have both hardcover and paperback.  Where you'll find me is in the clearance section.  In the clearance section - all paperbacks are 49 cents, all hardcovers are 99 cents.  Fiction to nonfiction, best sellers to obscure.  I have seen plenty of really stupid books in that section, but if you just spend some time, you can find a variety that may fit the type of book you like to read.  So, before you go and buy a book online or spend full price at a store like Barnes and Noble...try Goodwill!  By purchasing, you are recycling a book that someone else didn't want AND giving money to an organization that helps your community!  Oh, and you walk away with a something to read!  It's a great thing all around!

Your brain on happiness!

Have you ever had to do something that you were just dreading? You say things to yourself like "this is going to be horrible" or "I wish I didn't have to." Then as it turns out, it was a horrible as you suspected? I can be blamed of this type of behavior or thoughts just as much as the next person. I have often enjoyed learning about human psychology and I recently stumbled across an interesting article about the placebo effect. "Your Brain Is A Pharmacy" at utne.com brings up the idea that you will believe what you are told, and therefore react appropriately. In a study Utne references, participants were given two glasses of wine. The glasses had the same wine in them. The drinkers were told that one glass had a more expensive wine than in the other glass. The wine that the participants were told was more expensive taste better to them. Are you surprised? We really are very complex as humans, but yet it is so simple to talk yourself or be persuaded into believing something is a certain way. Do you think you could change the way you feel just by how you think?

Ripening

It's hard to believe that Labor Day is almost here, signaling that summer is coming to an end. I have some bitterness toward this since like most summers, I feel like it was just so short! This year, however, I believe there is some truth to it. Our winter lasted longer than usual, flowers came up late, and grass didn't need to be cut. I did get my garden in around the same time I did last year...right before Memorial Day. Last year, I had tomatoes like you wouldn't believe. So this year I scaled back by one plant, and grew from seed all one type of tomato. I grew them inside and transplanted them at a healthy size. I read that this tomato that I picked (can't recall the kind) was excellent for canning. They all would come in around the same time so that canning could all be done in large amounts rather than a little here little there. Since this is my first attempt at canning, I am looking forward to it!

I really should start keeping a garden diary, because I am pretty sure that by end of August I had tons of tomatoes last year. This year....none. They are there on the vine, and they look great, just one problem - they are all green! Just this week did we notice a few tinting to red. Maybe this is my motivational push to diary the garden! As we continue to try new vegetables, new types, and different styles of gardening, I'd better get my act together.

I am happy to report that the zucchini are done for the year and provided us with much good eatin' for winter. The Green Beans are still pushing some new ones out, but their flavor is becoming less desirable. I think it was just too hot for them the last few weeks. I'm surprised they even hung on this long! The broccoli is faithfully regenerating itself and giving us a little more now and again.

I'm not sure if I will do broccoli again next year. Seems like they take a lot of space for not a lot given back. We will easily eat through the broccoli I've been able to freeze. Maybe next year I will do eggplant or another type of squash in its place.

The good news about summer coming to an end is that my favorite season, fall, is on it's way!! That means time to harvest apples (going to try some dehydrating this year) and that yummy acorn squash will be in the stores soon. It also means soon I will be counting down to our annual anniversary trip!

I'm hoping that in the next week these stubborn tomotes will ripen up. I'm looking forward to the canning and recipes I've found. More updates on that when I start! -L

Red Wing Continued...

Our weekend in Red Wing was a short 2-nights, 3 days.    On day two we did some of the best vacation exploring that we could have done.  We also had more physical activity in 12 hours than cumulatively in the last 30 days!  The morning started out by going to a State Park just 1/2 mile down the road.  We checked in at the ranger office and then followed her suggestion to head up to the bluff were there was a beautiful overlook and some trails.  We spent some time at the overlook which was indeed beautiful and then took a brief walk on the bluff trail.  Since we were on the trail for some time and we were going down down down on steps, we decided it to be best to turn around and head back up before we went too far down.  After we reached the top we drove back down to an area not in the park, but just down the road.  It was called the boardwalk, you can see why in the picture.  It was so cool.  It was about a mile out to the cove it took us too and it was a pretty cool walk!  There were cool frogs, unknown wildflowers, and some beautiful, huge trees! When we got to the cove, it was a light colored sandy beach with a slight tide coming in.  There were several boats out on Lake Pepin, be we were the only ones on the beach.  It was fun!  We took the mile hike back and then headed into Red Wing.  

We were a bit disappointed by the shopping and dining choices in Red Wing.  The shops all had tourist prices on their product, and the dining areas were all kitschy overpriced cafe and coffee shops.  We decided to eat at a pub - hey, we are from Wisconsin!  The food was good and hit the spot after all our activity in the morning.  At the Staghead - I enjoyed an excellent burger topped with Gorgonzola cheese and with a tasty chipotle sauce on it.  Tim and his mom 

enjoy a local bottled beer with their meal.  After eating, we went to the old Pottery Place, where Red Wing Pottery was made.  It was renovated into guess what?  Shops.  Mostly antique shops, and a shoe store.  We found a fun retro cookie jar for $7 at the antique shop and then we moved on to the Red Wing pottery shop.  We watched while some of the potters made product to be sold in the store.  They had some very nice stuff! By the end of all this shopping we were ready to relax.  We went down by the waterfront where the historic train station was and many boats were going up and down the river.  We found a shady spot and relaxed.  Later that afternoon we enjoyed "Pork in the Park" by the church and then headed back to the rental house for more adventure.

After we relaxed for a short time, we went for yet another adventure on the bikes!  This time we went a different direction and ended up by a cemetery.  We spent a little time looking at some of the gravestones in the new part of the cemetery.  Then we decided to move.  Although we though the cemetery was small, we hadn't yet found out that it went back into a whole other stretch of cemetery, which was very historic.  We winded back to the oldest part which had a sectioned off area.  There was a historic plaque that described the people buried there as the settlers of Old Frontenac.  Many of the gravestones in the area had birthdates from the early 1800's.  It was so cool.  My imagination ran wild thinking about what the people were like, what kind of clothes they wore, what they did to survive.  

We left and headed back to the home.  That night we also encountered 3 deer that we watched for some time and also went on the swings by the nearby park.  It was a blast!  

On this vacation I learned how fun it can be to explore - off the beaten path!  More importantly, sometimes you can find the coolest things...if you are just willing to go on a whim.  I doubt I would have been able to find many of these experiences we h

ad by searching the internet, or looking at a library book.  It was a great vacation!  Thanks for reading what I have to share. -L

Red Wing, MN

Hello everyone!  I apologize for the delay between posts, I have missed posting greatly, but like it often can, life got in the way!  There just has been too much to do in early August and then last Friday - Sunday we were in Red Wing, Minnesota.  We went out there with Tim's Mom for the 150th Anniversary of the church/school she used to teach at.  My Mom, bless her heart, came to our home and watched our three dogs for the weekend.  

Red Wing, MN is a historic town, best known for Red Wing Pottery and Red Wing shoes (that's a lot of things to be famous for this size of town!).  As we normally do, we found a vacation rental home.  We very much enjoy staying at vacation homes over hotels.  First, it's much easier to do with dogs (which we didn't bring this time) but also it tends to be more relaxing, homey, and sometimes more cost effective since you can buy grocery rather than eat out all the time like you might have to if you stay at a hotel.  There are countless benefits, but my favorite is being in a home rather than a large, noisy hotel.

The vacation home was in a historic village called Frontenac,  about 10 miles south of Red Wing.  Frontenac has all gravel roads,

 historic homes, and is on the high bluffs overlooking Lake Pepin (part of the Mississippi River).  Some of the homes closer to the bluff have been there since the 1800's.  One had an amazing old stone fence around the property.  On the first night we stayed home to have dinner.   We also discovered there were some bicycles in the small shed outside.  There were 2 adult bikes and 2 larger kid bikes.  Since we were 3 adults, we faced a bit of a

 predicament.  It didn't take long to determine that Tim's Mom would be on the kid bike!  Since this was a fairly odd site to see, I was laughing so hard!  After we all tested out our bikes, we it the road and found our way around a portion of the town.  Since you wouldn't drive through the town to get anywhere, there wasn't any traffic except for a golf cart.  We made our way to the bluff where we discovered a beautiful view.  We viewed Lake Pepin from the bluff, looking all the way across to the Wisconsin bluff across the way.  It was a beautiful sight.  It was the first of many beautiful sights we had that weekend.  On Saturday, we did the best exploring...the off-the-beaten-path type.  I'll share more about that next post. Above is a picture from the bluff.  Here is a photo of the living room of our vacation rental.  So comfy! Enjoy!  To be Continued. -L