Homemade Spaghetti Sauce Having your own homemade spaghetti sauce on hand is a great feeling in the winter. You can purchase tomatoes by the bushel or grow your own to make this delicious sauce. Try raising your own herbs, garlic, peppers, and onions to flavor the sauce, too. Once you’ve…
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Advanced Bushcraft: An Expert Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival by Dave Canterbury
Advanced Bushcraft: An Expert Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival by Dave Canterbury Book Review I’ve always enjoyed reading up on survival skills, even as a kid I would pour through my Dad’s army survival manuals. So when this new book by Dave Canterbury came out, I was…
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Hatching Ducklings in Autumn
Coming Soon – Autumn Ducklings! You might think I’m a bit crazy for hatching ducklings (or chicks) in the fall. Why would anyone think of incubating eggs at this time of year? You can read more about my reasons for Hatching Chicks in Autumn, if you like. The short answer?…
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How to Dehydrate Apples for Storage
Dehydrate Apples for Easy Storage Sometimes we have more apples from our Azure Standard order or from a friend’s tree than I can use all at once. I like to make homemade applesauce and old-fashioned applesauce cake, plus I also enjoy slicing them up to dehydrate apples for winter. You…
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Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread Recipe
This Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread is a great way to use your zucchini harvest and satisfy your chocolate cravings too! Easy recipe!
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Freezing 20 Pounds of Organic Peaches
Freezing Peaches This week I received my monthly order from my Azure Standard (#ad) buying club, including 20 pounds of organic peaches. There aren’t any organic peach growers locally, and since peaches are sprayed with a lot of pesticides, I was glad to find organic peaches in bulk. Since we…
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Too Many Zucchini?
Do You Have Too Many Zucchini? I have more zucchini than I need right now, although they were rather slow coming in this year. Now I’m busy making zucchini bread, zucchini cake, stuffed zucchini; and shredding and freezing them to use this winter. Are you feeling a little ovewhelmed by the…
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Summer Squash Pickles
Brine Cured Summer Squash Pickles I enjoy having extra produce from my garden all summer. It reduces our grocery bill, increases our nutrient intake, and tastes great…what a deal! Sometimes I have so many veggies ripening that we can’t use them up fast enough. Canning, dehydrating, and freezing are great…
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Black Cayuga Duck Egg
My First Black Cayuga Duck Egg! I’ve been waiting, rather impatiently, for our Black Cayuga duck hen to lay her first egg. Today I was pleasantly surprised by this beauty. 🙂 I was expecting a darker-colored shell, but it is still a rather interesting shade. I think the dark color…
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My 25 Pound Turkey
Butchering a 25 Pound Turkey I’m almost done butchering the 10 Broad Breasted White turkeys I ordered this spring and raised on our homestead. There’s one left to butcher when I get a nice cool day, but the rest are in the freezer or I pressure canned the meat for…
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Using Summer’s Harvest
What Are You Harvesting? I love having an abundance of fresh veggies in the summer. There is such a sense of satisfaction when your entire meal is home raised! I hope you are harvesting lots of fresh food from your homestead too! My beans have mostly been munched to the…
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The Importance of Keeping Blades Sharp On The Homestead
Sharp Blades Make Work Easier Homesteaders are often whittling, chopping wood, cooking from scratch, processing meat, and preparing food to preserve it. These jobs require knives and other tools with blades and can be rather time consuming. To make the work easier, quicker, and less dangerous, make sure you’re working with sharp…
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Canning & Freezing My Home Raised Turkeys
Preserving Our Turkeys for Winter I raised 10 Broad Breasted White turkeys this year and all of them survived to butcher size. Seven of the turkeys are processed so far, with 5 whole turkeys resting comfortably in our freezer. I double-bagged them to help prevent freezer burn and we will use them…
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Processing My First Turkey of the Season
Butchering Broad-Breasted Turkeys This spring I ordered 10 Broad Breasted White turkeys from Dale (The Chicken Guy) in Wisconsin. Actually, I think I ordered 6, but Dale always orders extra and somehow a few of them end up in my basket. I picked them up on March 13th. They were…
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Redneck RV Rebuild
An Interesting Visit My parents decided to take a trip in their RV to Alaska this summer to visit my sister. They’ve done this before and had a pretty good idea of what to expect…except that this time their RV succumbed to water damage. They didn’t know that water had…
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Keeping Ducks on the Homestead
Homestead Ducks Ducks are a great addition to the small homestead. They provide eggs and meat, and pest control too! Their meat is delicious and the eggs are great for baking and fresh eating. Ducks are less prone to disease than chickens and they lay eggs well during the winter.…