Wild Wanderings Blog – May 31, 2012

Last week I covered one of many nutritious wild plants, the dandelion. There are so many edibles currently available that it’s hard to choose with one to cover next!…

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Like many of you my wife and I are Farm Dreamers. We have decided to learn as much as we can on local farm tours. This will be the first of many. Please enjoy.…

The Practical Prepper

Whether you're planning a traditional, larger garden or doing some container gardening, deciding what to grow might be challenging, especially if you're new to gardening. Here's a list of ten things that are pretty easy for newer…

Before I started gardening I was able to close my eyes and picture a beautifully landscaped garden which was overflowing in vegetables.  For some reason the gardens I pictured were always quaint, inviting, and very decorative.  When I thought about growing home vegetables I didn't picture straight rows or mono-crops.  Instead there were flowers and trees interplanted with veggies, pathways, and garden statues placed around.  Little did I know that my instincts were right!  A "vegetable"…

This is a guest post and entry in Round 2 of the Farm Dreams writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

Door #1: A Travel Royal Berkey Walter Purification system from Directive 21. Valued at $228!

Door #2: Two…

Like all of us here on this site, I have dreams.. dreams of being able to grow food for my family, to actually know that where it came from, what (if anything) has been put on it or around it, and to know I'm trying my best to provide for my family healthily. Unfrtunately, all I can grow curently is potted plants! My husband is active duty enlisted in the Army, and we are currently stationed in Hawaii.. For those who don't know, there are some serious limitations…

Wild Wanderings Blog – May 24, 2012

Hello my fellow farm-dreamers:) Many apologies for last week’s absence. I’m still without internet at home and communication is hindered to say the least. Funny…I teach primitive skills and I’m somewhat paralyzed without modern technology…go figure:))

In my last Blog, I stated that I’d…

I'm always on the look out for a good deal and so far over the years I've scored a number of them for things we need/want but can't afford new. Most but not all have been free and a lot of those were side of the road finds.

Some of the things I've found on the side of the road free have been a 60's era Hamilton Beach electric meat grinder that works fantastic, 3 fans for times like this when it's hot but not hot enough for A/C, trash bags full of enough like new & new bedding for…

The Practical Prepper

In a previous Farm Dreams post (Financial preparedness: six tips on reducing debt) and in a number of debt reduction posts on…

Raising your own meat is not something that everyone does.  To a homesteader though, it's as common as growing your own tomatoes.  Funny thing is, I don't remember being so intimidated about growing a garden full of veggies as I was about doing something so huge as butchering a cow.  Putting the vegetarian debate aside, I wanted to talk about the logistics of butchering freezer beef.  When I first thought about raising a cow for beef I had no idea what to expect in terms of how much food…

I have just finished a glass of apple cider, sitting on the back deck of our new dream.  We sat in silence for a bit listening.  All we could hear were birds.  Closing my eyes now I can still here them.

We signed the final papers for our dream farm.  A relatively new house sitting on 21 acres of recently timbered land.  We started the first steps today by changing all the locks and pulling out the carpets.  It was two hours of knee braking (carpets hurt).  We had some…

I work at a local nursery.  The change I have seen since the economic collapse of 2008 is inspiring and saddening at the same time.  After the crash the nursery nearly went under.  Many others did.  Then more gov't regulation was added, almost as if they wanted to put small businesses out of business.  To top it off, the state of Oregon, where I live, passed a retroactive tax increase on business.  Some how this family owned business managed to survive, but it sure wasnt a result of…

The Aspiring Farmer Blog

In New York we loved cooking, it was a nice way to relax after a day at work. Frequently, we would cook together. Going out to eat was always a good way to try new foods and drinks, but it was never a pressing desire. It was taken for granted. If I look back at our time in NY I was generally eating about 5-7 meals per week outside of the home, which was FAR lower than 99% of everyone else we knew. Now that we’re…

This is a guest post and entry in Round 2 of the Farm Dreams writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

Door #1: A Travel Royal Berkey Walter Purification system from Directive 21. Valued at $228!

Door #2: Two…

Well, ran into troubles with damping-off, but I think I have enough starts that didn't get it to transplant. Watered all the starts with hydrogen peroxide to help re-sanitize the soil, seems to have helped.

The eggplant starts are tiny - it's just not hot enough for them. They look healthy enough though, so I am hoping they will get going faster once the weather heats up.

The lettuce is finally going strong. I planted some out in the onion bed and have some in…

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The Practical Prepper

Recently, I came across a hundred-year-old book on carpentry. Flipping through it, I was reminded of my father teaching my brother and I how to build and repair things around the house. The section on using a hand saw paralleled the skills my father taught us, but I don't know many people that learn the proper use of hand tools anymore (everything's powered saws now).

Of course, from a prepping point of view, having basic hand tools and knowing how…

Yes.  You actually can do this!  I'm not talking about the Flowbee haircutter that attaches to your vacuum and sucks up your hair, but actual haircuts that your family is used to.  You can be the stylist that your family depends on.  

At the cheap walk-in hair cutter's in town a basic men's haircut is $14.95 plus tip.  If you figure that the average man gets his hair cut about every 6 weeks, then that is almost $150 a year spent on hair cuts.  Got two kids?  Now you're talking…