The Hobbitses

But! It's getting done now!



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You can still feel free to view our photo story on our flickr account!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thehobbitses/sets/

Thanks!

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We have still been going up every weekend to the Northern Garden-- but there have been a lot of other craziness that has happened in our regular life that has stopped the blog from being updated. So, now, now that everything has gone back to normal (or at least closer to it), here is a fabulous update!! Moths, growth reports, the Medieval garden! Lotsa photos and stuff. :)



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We did a bunch of bottling and corking of wines, mead, and beer!!

Photos here on our Flickr account~!!

There is still two gallons of cherry melomel and 5 gallons of hard apple cider to be bottled, but they aren't quite at the stage yet to bottle. If anybody is interested, I can put a few easy recipes here that can be done in 1 gallon jugs, for beginners. :)

Have a happy from us kids~~

Guest writer! From the mac of Qat~

Another week working for the chickens to be, and our white-washed coop has already paid off. We discovered this upon movement of the old feed-bin, wherein we found Henny's nest overflowing with fresh brown eggs. The total count was 16 eggs, at least a third of which were laid in the week after painting (the rest having been produced sometime over the previous month).

Unfortunately, Henny's nest had to be chucked when the feed-bin was taken out of our chicken space. We're planning more egg-crate style nesting boxes, double layered in the corner, so she won't be inconvenienced for too much longer.



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Next weekend we are planning on going back up to finish up the chicken coop, as well as using all of that dirt we hauled out of the forest on the garden beds. The two of us'll keep you posted!

Posted more pictures on a flickr account that I made to go with this profile. If you want to see more images of what we've been up to besides what I put up on this, feel free to check out for more over there! :)

The Hobbitses Flickr Account

Thanks!!

-j

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My mum went and got a box of baby chicks this past week, and turkeys today, and we are getting quail eggs tomorrow!!

Keep you posted~

Cat and I went up to our plot again, but didn't do much in it. Peeked around, the warm weather made the peas pop out of the ground, but they were small-- and only three of them survived the clay and constant rain. So, we'll have to plant again, so that we can be sure to have a decent harvest. This probably means pulling everything out and tilling in a bunch of sand to give the little roots a better chance at reaching down, and stop the little seeds from rotting in the ground. The onions we planted are fat and happy, and the leeks have raised their heads. The amaranth is yet to be seen.

We worked, instead, down the road a little bit, helping my mother build a chicken coop. We shoveled out the old sheep barn (we had sheep all during when we were kids, but the neighbors dogs got loose and killed the entire flock sheep by sheep, over a period of about two weeks. We got pictures of it on a trail cam that was set up to catch the dogs in the act, and had to deal with the aftermath of putting some of them out of their misery....The dogs left them with half of their necks torn open. We called the police, and the dogs were destroyed, but it's difficult for us to get more sheep after that tragedy...) and then hauled some old recycled beams down from the house. I don't know where they came from originally, but they certainly are not new....

My mum drew out a cute little design that she had in mind that featured ease of cleaning, and used a couple old pieces of farm equipment/feeders that would save us a lot of time and construction. We started by nailing up some vertical support beams, and then a horizontal one to keep things together. We're going to get some chicken wire next week to staple up for them. At that point, it was getting late, and we had run out of boards that would be helpful (we needed some biggn's that we could raise and old slatted sheep feeder off the ground with in order to switch it over to a nest box, and some small alder saplings cut to make roosts out of), so we grabbed a bucket of paint that my mum had gotten for 5 bucks and started painting the inside of that section of the barn. It was a mis-matched color, but was still, more or less white. More light makes for happy chickens, and the white helped brighten the place up more than I would have expected!!

We painted until we couldn't see anymore, and then went home.

Pictures when I get them!! There will be a big picture post here shortly..... :)

All the best!

Yesterday was a big success.

Cat and I loaded up the dog, and headed to our garden plot, approximately one hour North, around 9am.

We are using the plot up North, because all of the local plots around here had filled. We had been planning to get a local community plot in ideally, Vancouver, WA or Portland, OR. But, to get one, you had to apply in person starting at 8am on a Tuesday morning. Seeing that I work a regular job, I was planning to go and apply after work, thinking that a city as big as this would have plenty of plots....They sold out by noon on that day, and we were left to scramble to find a new place to plant.

The plot up North was a happy find, it was an unused bit of space on my parents' property-- It was a garden the previous year, but not much effort was put into it, due to other issues that had come up and needed to be dealt with that ranked of higher importance than weeding and mulching. Which meant that it was more or less 'unbroken'. We asked nicely and bribed with produce, and have since been working here.

After the trip up to the plot, we started our day by collecting the rubbish that was left over from the gardens days as a chicken coop. It was unbelievable how much better that made everything look! Most of the day was spent getting ready to plant. The last frost date in this corner of the world is May 10, which is still a little ways off. So, we planted what we could, and are spending the rest of the time making the site and the soil better.

Next, we worked on getting the sloped space between two of the terraces ready for the ladders that would be built that day. The slope was bad soil, heavy thick clay like what is most of that property. So, we planned to cover it, and plant at the bottom, with the intent of growing vertically up it, plants like pumpkins, raspberries or beans. Something that would do well climbing up. I think the jury is still out as to what will grow up the trellises, but we'll know soon enough.

Next, the plan was to move onto working on the stairs.

I'll add pictures in when I get them back.

We ended up getting three or four stairs done before we had to call it quits for the day due to lack of light.

To be continued~~

Spring is here, or at least close enough to be dreamed about by anybody who wants have anything to do with outside....Like me.

For the past couple of weeks, my previously mentioned compatriot Cat and I have been pouring ourselves into breaking a small section of land on my parents acreage. The land was farmed the year before, but the yields were small. With my father now being on disability and unable to work after his bout with kidney cancer this year, my brother working a seasonal job, and the possibility of my husband being out of work (the men in my world have bad luck, it seems), the garden is a very important investment in my mind.

No, it won't bring income, but perhaps it can help support my family a little bit and help them to save money on food bills. If the yields are big enough (and we are doing our best to doctor the soil and mulch mulch mulch before the last frost date to ensure a better crop this year) then we also plan to take our own share home to process and store for the winter. A lot of the fruit and jam from this past summer have been really fabulous things through the winter. There is just something special about cracking open a jar of something that you grew, picked, processed and stored.

Last week we went up for our second day on the little plot of land. My family lives in a valley, so the garden had to be terraced. The drop between some of the terraces is a little severe, so inbetween our visits, my mother had gathered some bamboo from the property, and we went about making a fence to go along the edge of the top terrace.



We didn't have much of a plan, we just knew we wanted something that would remind us that the edge was right there, but would be airy enough to let the light through, because didn't want to block the sunlight from our plants.



Today we're going back up North to work in the garden area again. It has a lot of rubbish around (it was previously the site of a chicken coop, so there are pieces of tarpaulin around, plastic tubing used to keep it up for their outside run, and various forgotten feed bags and feeding bowls, so there is still plenty to do before we can start putting seeds in the ground.

Will keep you updated~~

Lots of crazy happened between now and then, but I'm hoping that I will be able to update this more often, now that things have settled a bit. :)

I ended up putting a bit more away into the pantry during summer, but not as much as I wish that I could have. Next year, Cat and I are looking into getting a community garden plot in Portland, so that is something exciting that I'm looking forward to.

More as I get to it, have spent most of the fall just staring at the leaves.

Hope you guys have too-- :)

For those of us that don't want to be tied down with the requirement of commercial pectin in our jams, there are ways to make our preserves without spending 3 bucks on a packet of pectin.

I stumbled across these recipes this morning whilst pawing through "The Big Book of Self Reliant Living", compiled by Walter Szykitka, page 298.

For the following recipes, bring all the ingredients to a boil in a saucepan, and stir like crazy until it thickens. You'll know it thickens, when it slowly pours/hangs off the spoon.

Apricot Jam:

4 to 4 1/2 c Crushed Fruit
4 c sugar
2 Tbs lemon juice

yields 5 half pints.

Berry Jam (blackberries, boysenberries, dewberries, gooseberries, loganberries, raspberries and strawberries):

4 c Crushed Fruit
4 c sugar

Yields 3 half pints.

Peaches:

5 1/2 to 6 c Crushed Fruit
4 to 5 c sugar
2 Tbsp lemon juice

Yields 6 half pints.

Fill jars with jelly-- if you don't want to eat them right away, you can seal them thusly::

After the jar is filled to the neck (the thick band below the screwbands), get a clean, wet rag and wipe down the lip to make sure that there is no big of jam residue on it.

Put on a canning lid, secure it down as tight as you can with the band, and turn it upside down for a while. When the jam is still warm but not hot, you can flip the jar over.

Press on the little button in the middle of the top to test if it has sealed. If it doesn't pop like a Snapple-cap, then it's sealed. If one of your jars won't seal, then that's the one you get to eat first. :)

New reference books that I found cheap on Amazon~!

Happy early Birthday from Bryce to meee. :)

"The Encyclopedia of Country Living" ---Carla Emery

"Making Wild Wines & Meads: 125 Unusual Recipes Using Herbs, Fruits, Flowers & More" ---Pattie Vargas

"Raising Sheep the Modern Way . Updated and Revised Edition" ---Paula Simmons

I'm super excited about the wild wines book. It gives a lot of recipes for strange and unusual wines from things you can find from the woods. I'm looking forward to pawing through them.

I'm planning on taking care of a few things this upcoming fall.

It's important to think about what you actually eat during the year, before you start to stock for the fall and winter. No sense in making dried banana chips if you don't eat them, you know?

Before you commit to canning/dehydrating/planting something, make sure you know how to eat it, and do intend to eat it.

Try and come up with three different ways to prepare a dish with how you preserve it, before you commit to doing a bunch of work, and using a bunch of energy.

For Example-- Canned berries. I like to eat them straight out of the can as a treat. You can also thicken with a little bit of corn starch to make into pie fillings, and thicken with even more corn starch to make into a dessert topping for cheesecakes or fruit tarts.

Sometimes even the shape of the preserved thing makes it easier to use (no sense putting out the effort to preserve it if you won't use it). For years, I've always dehydrated apple spears. We'd have a jar full of them until the next year when I went to make them again.

This year, I plan to dehydrate little cubes. The cubes are more versatile and because of that extra versatility, I predict them being easier to assimilate into my every-day. For example, in oatmeals. Roll them up in cinnamon rolls. Re-hydrate them in a little sugar water and a dusting of cinnamon and make the best apple sauce. Throw them in with any sort of pork roast.

Right now, I'm practicing ways to cook with different kinds of beans, peas, rice and cornmeal, lentils, whole kernel corn, etc. Things that are really cheap in the bulk section. Every time that we go to the store it is just amazing how much everything costs. It makes me feel really old.....

So the plans are, if I can find enough ways to cook each ingredient, then we'll get small garbage pails for things that we use a lot, or 5 gallon buckets for things that we don't use as much, and buy enough of each to fill them. To have those sorts of things available and on hand at any time will save us a lot of money. We already are saving more since moving farther away from the city. The temptation to go out for an easy meal is much less when there is only one restaurant in the near area.

I am planning to post recipes up after I've tried them out so that I can share them, because I feel that as it gets more expensive to live, maybe somebody else will be interested.

In the meantime, here is my all time favourite blueberry muffin recipe. I made muffins with this recipe this morning, and they're always lovely. :)

The Hobbitses Blueberry Muffins

1 egg
3/4 c milk
1/2 c oil
2 c flour
1/3 c sugar
1 T baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 c blueberries

Mix everything except for the blueberries until smooth. Fold in the blues, and then drop into muffin cups. Bake at 375 Degrees for 10-15 minutes (longer if you use the large sized muffin pans)

This past while, while my friend Qat was here, we went picking berries.

We picked 12 lbs of blueberries, 15 pounds of mixed marionberries/boysenberries, and around 30lbs of sour cherries.


Qat with our blueberries!

Together with my family, we canned up the majority of the cherries, made 4 batches of cherry jam, 1 batch blueberry jam, and one batch of marion/boysen jelly.

We did a canner-ful of the marion/boysens, and two canners of blueberries.


George, Dad, Me and Qat
(Grams and my mam are cooking one of the jam batches)

If you want to learn how to can-- Storeys Basic Country Skills (Listed in the previous post) has a nice little section on canning and different canning methods, and the processing time. (pg 434-439)

I'll post a picture of our spoils when they're all here. :)

All of these links go to Amazon, if you want to check out the book, or the price.

Encyclopedia of Country Living - Carla Emery.

It's longwinded. In fact, it's a massive book. I used to read this every summer when I was a kid. Admittedly, it was an earlier version that was falling apart, but I loved it dearly. People complain that she takes a long time to get to a point, but I enjoy the casualness of it all. You're reading somebody's journal versus a textbook.

Storeys Basic Country Skills - John Storey

Pretty textbooky. It goes over the simple things. It doesn't go too in depth about any one subject. One thing that I really appreciate about this book, is that in the plant sections, it lists what is best for what region, so you can plant your gardens with plants that will thrive in your area.

Raising Sheep the Modern Way

Tons of in-depth information about raising sheep.

I'll post more books as I think of them.

Anyone who knows me well knows that, all throughout my life, I've been in a battle between two things I want most.

One moment, I want to give away all of my possessions and move into the woods to start a simpler life. I want to get in touch with nature, I want to think, and to appreciate things more.

The next moment, I want to go to Tokyo, or some other big city. To the nightlife! To the flashing neon colours, into the thick of it all. A city that never sleeps, surrounded by people and cutting edge technology.

For the past few years, I've been falling in the former category.

I would happily trade all of my things, for something that would really count when and if it all came down to it.

Think about it:: If civilization ends tomorrow, what would you do? Would you even know what to do? What would you take from your little home? How would you start your new life, when there is nothing around you? Your money counts for nothing, and it's every man for himself?

Admittedly, that's a pretty fatalistic way of looking at it. The reason that I want to run away from it all isn't to 'survive when the world ends'. I don't think that the world is going to end at any moment. I simply want to prove to myself that I can be self-reliant.

I don't need the Nintendo. I don't need the electronics. I don't need my crafts and my nonsense. I just don't. They count for nothing in the grand scheme of things, and on days like this, looking at all the crap that surrounds me just makes me feel ill. Can I, this silly woman from the North-West, actually work and help provide for my family?

I can work, and I can earn money. I like to work, and earning a paycheck is nice! We can have luxuries and spend time at home relaxing. But earning a paycheck, just isn't what I crave. I crave hard work, I want my back to hurt and my arms and legs to be sore for days. I want to be dizzy from the heat. I need it. That pain proves that I'm doing my part. As I sit here and grow older with nothing to show for it, I just feel foolish.

We didn't make any part of this apartment. There is no emotion or history here. This is just another row house in the midst of other row houses. We have no connection with it-- it's just a place to hold all of our shit.

Don't get me wrong, we live a wonderful life. My husband works SO hard for us, and I appreciate him and all that he does so that we can have this roof over our head.

I just am really anxious to get out there and do it ourselves, you know?

Living this modern life, I feel that I'm not living to my fullest potential. I need to prove to myself that I can do something bigger than this. I want to look at the nails in the wall and feel accomplished that I helped to put it together. I want to look out at my garden that is helping to feed us and feel good that I am contributing.

I want history. I want culture. I want to get in touch with how things were. I want to appreciate the little things in nature. I want to work hard.

And so, I have opened a new little side journal for this side of me-- I'm sure that most who actually read my old journal don't really care about my philosophical musings, and it would be a way to keep track of what I'm doing, so I can look back and see that I have been working. Prove to myself that I have been learning. :)