March Homestead Happenings

 It's that time of year again, the time of year I live for all winter long. We're getting some really nice days out. Bob's whittling down his honey-do list. We are just waiting on the last few things we'll need to start brooding our chicks to get delivered and we'll get the coop set up and then we'll go figure out the 15-16 chicks we want to get. I'm just going to say this. Chicks are expensive!

Bob's out there building the chicken run as I type.

We had a friend come up to help Bob move the coop into place. I was really thankful for that.

We bought this coop off of Facebook Marketplace last year. We paid $100 for it. It's a big coop. There's 18 nesting boxes. Realistically, you can have 4-5 laying hens per nesting box. I'm not going to have anywhere near that number of chickens, however. My chickens aren't going to be crowded.
I haven't decided what breeds I want to get, I just know that life is too short for boring white eggs, so I prefer them to have colors.

Bob had to use the panels that we had up for my tomatoes last year. No matter, he's just swapping them out and adding 1 more onto there. I'll still have my tomato garden and it's going to be expanded so that I can fit 60 indeterminate tomatoes onto the trellises.

Bob's going to take this chicken run back to the hog pen. The coop is in the middle of the area. We need to trim those fir branches and the run will be topped with a heavy duty tarp and bird netting. Not only do we have ground predators to contend with (coyotes, bobcat, raccoons and, quite possibly, a cougar), we also have air predators (bald eagles, hawks, owls).
We want our chickens to be as safe as possible.

Bob said he will run some more wire along the bottom of the pen. It will discourage things from trying to dig. A coyote probably wouldn't be able to dig under because we're located on the rim of an old rock pit, but something smaller could do it, possibly.

We have learned that the coop is almost 10-feet wide.
I may have him spin it so that a person can walk past it. I haven't decided yet and it's something that I'll need to discuss with Bob.

So, within the next two weeks, we plan on having our chicks brooding in the coop.

Buying supplies for these chicks was not cheap, either. I still need to get a bag of playground sand, a small pool or container to put the sand in (chickens need to be able to take dust baths), and I suspect we'll be getting another watering set-up for out in the yard once they come out of the brooder. We've dropped $300 so far getting this set up. Chicks are going to run me $4-$7 each.

Here's what our pig pasture looks like. We've already decided that we just can't do it. We cannot raise a meat pig. We'd get WAY too attached to it. That pasture will be better used for something like dairy goats and a mule instead.

Here's the front pen. I would like to use this for turkeys. I would not have one single problem raising turkeys for meat.

About a week ago, I got my tomatoes, peppers and eggplants all seeded out.

I have some pretty obscure varieties this year, like Stoney's Neighbor's. If you couldn't tell, there are times when I will buy a variety for the name alone. I also planted out a variety called Fuzzy Blue Balls. What can I say? I find it hilarious!

The tomatoes have been popping up like crazy lately. Bob was out there this morning and he said there's been like 30 or so pop up.

I can't wait to meet them all.

The garden is starting to wake up. Here is my old rhubarb plant.

I planted out 1/2 pound of Red Musik garlic last October. It's been thriving over the winter.

My eyesight must be going. I already posted the pasture photo.

I'm hoping to get a bumper crop of garlic scapes from these.

I planted out an entire bed of Walla Walla sweet onions.

My big bed is planted out with Red Express cabbage, Tonus broccoli, Primaru onions, Falstaff brussels sprouts and a Tiger Laeta viola plant.

The netting is over the top because we have a feral kitten. She's a cute little thing. Bob's been working with her to gain her trust. We plan on adopting her. He's been able to pet her a few times. Anyhow, I already know that cats look at raised beds like huge fun sandboxes and I'm not into it.

Close up of my garlic. It's super easy to grow. It just takes a while.

Bob's got the frames up for the greenhouses. I think I'll be able to raise some peppers, okra, melons, etc. in there. At least, I hope I can!

I never get tired of looking down that tunnel. It's fantastic!

Rose likes to come out and help.

The raised beds are all tucked in with dead leaves. We'll take some of these off and toss them into the compost pile and we top it with some fresh soil and compost. We figured out what went wrong last year as far as bogus soil. The company wouldn't listen to me and they sold me the wrong type. We went and bought a yard of the right stuff.

I love looking at that greenhouse tunnel from every angle imaginable.

Here's what it looks like from down by the far side of the chicken pen.

This is such an awesome view! I can't wait to get the covers on them. I'm not going to rush it, though, because I don't want to lose it if we get some heavy wind gusts.

Rose is the world's best helper.

I've obtained a few of these barrels. Unfortunately, they have a hole cut into the top. I think we'll cut them in half and use them for raised beds. 

My tomato garden looks weird in this photo. It's all put back up now, though, with an extra panel added on.

It will soon be time to get these out and start riding again! I can't wait!

I have a cubic yard of soil in the bed of my truck waiting to fill grow bags and ready to go out onto the beds. We'll probably need 1-2 more before it's all said and done.

So this is what we've been up to here on Kelpie Kapers Farm. How about you? What are you looking forward to the most about spring?

Cleaning Out My Spice Cabinet

 It was a dark and dreary day.
I was really bored. Bored with social media. Bored with television, Bored with YouTube. Just flat out bored.
If you can't tell, I'm bored. I have my monthly menu planned out. We shoot for using the ideas about 60% of the time. It seems to help to have some choices written out. So, I cannot plan that out because I already did that.
I was looking through the last blog post I wrote and I was rather horrified at the state of my spice cabinet. I've doubled up on buying several items because they were lost in that rat's nest. Since the weather outside looks like this today:

Bob is out doing some odd job for someone this morning and early afternoon, so it was the perfect time to dive into that nasty looking spice cabinet and make some sense out of it.

So, this is what my spice cabinet looked like.

I took everything out of the middle shelf. I needed to start all over from scratch!

By doing this, I was also able to take a mental inventory of what all I have. I forgot that I had made some 7 Spice. I need to start using my French 4 Spice. I have some Rogan Josh that I need to turn into a delicious Indian curry dish. Just know that as many spices as I have in that cabinet, I have a 2 very full drawers that are full, as well. Persian dried limes, anyone??

One of the features that this fifth wheel has that I dearly love is my pantry. Between that and the bathroom, the underneath storage and the outdoor kitchen...if it weren't for those things, we would have passed on this one. Anyhow, I have to fit all these into one half of a shelf in my pantry. You all know that RV storage is ridiculously small. They were not designed to live in full-time.

This is what it looks like with nothing in there but my spice shelf. I gave everything a quick wipe down. It wasn't too dusty at all.

I organized this, too. I got the stuff that I use all the time up to the front and the other stuff to the back. I find this handy for corralling those bottles that seem to want to float around. Also, if my soy sauce tips over, it's not going to get all over everything. It will stay in that container. We buy gallon bottles of soy sauce and just refill that one. We do the same thing with Worcestershire sauce. I should do it with hot sauce. I'm not sure why I haven't.

There! That's what I like to see! There's a semblance of order! I bought that Everything bagel seasoning when we went to Trader Joe's. I am not really sure what to do with it. If you have any ideas, please leave them below in the comments. I also discovered that I'm very stocked up on Thai green curry paste and Russian mustard. I found a container of beef bouillion cubes, too. Those will come in handy when I make some homemade onion soup mix. I don't buy gravy mixes or onion soup mix any longer. I just make my own.
Yes, I realize that I own a ridiculous amount of spices. Yes, I've already cleared out a ton of them. I gave them to my sister because she loves Penzey's Spices as much as I do. The top row of Penzey's are big bottles with the smaller bottles on top. The other row are small bottles of Penzey's stacked 3 high.
I even have 30 vanilla beans and saffron in there!

Spice cabinet is done!
I'm making baked eggplant parmesan with Russian kielbasa tonight. I'll try to remember to take pictures of that.

Last Major Grocery Shop Before We Start Our No-Spend Challenge

We're gearing up to start our no-spend challenge tomorrow. This means that we will not be doing any major grocery shops for several months. We will need to utilize what we have on hand. It will force me, eventually, to get quite creative in the kitchen.

Here is a quick walk through of most of what I have to work with. Not pictured are the storage cabinets under our dining nook. I'm not getting down on the floor to take pictures. I apologize for some of the blurry photos, as well. Bob wasn't too impressed that I wanted him to lift up the bed so I could simply take a picture. There were 2 cats lounging on there and Rose thought she needed to join the fun.

Here are my 3 deep freezers. We have 2 smaller chest freezerz and an upright.

A lot of stuff I have frozen is from recipes that I didn't cut in half. I made the full amount and I froze the leftovers. I like to do that with things like Calico or Charro Beans.

Some of the contents are some of the stuff we grew last year, like strawberries. I see some trout that I traded my sister for. They love to go fishing, crabbing and clam digging. I trade her garden produce. It works out well for both of us.

More leftovers that we didn't feel like eating right away and didn't want to waste.

Peas from the garden from last year.

Yes, I have a lot of butter. We don't use margarine in this household.

The other thing we use a lot of is ground beef. When Safeway had it on sale for $2.97 per pound, if you bought 3 pounds or more, we wound up buying a couple of cases of it.

Yep. My upright freezer is ridiculously full. That ham will be for Easter dinner. While I don't really celebrate holidays, Bob does. I cook for him. In the bottom of the new chest freezer, I have 2 whole turkeys and a turkey breast. I think I have a turkey breast in the other chest freezer, too.

This is our new chest freezer. It was Bob's idea to buy the pre-sweetened, sliced strawberries today. We've not been having the greatest luck with strawberries from the store. They taste pretty disgusting. I'm not going to use the strawberries that we grew because those are for jam.

The older chest freezer. I see some kielbasa, pork ribs, etc. in there.

We have things stashed here and there. This is our outdoor kitchen cabinet.

The beers are for either beer batter or beer cheese soup.

Our outside refrigerator. This is where we keep our pickled stuff, extra milk and half & half and stuff like that.

Bob's carrots for the wild rabbits and deer. I use these, too. We do not refrigerate these because it's plenty cold enough outside to keep them pretty fresh.

I apologize for the blur on this photo. This is our under the bed storage. This is where I put my home-canned goods and, when I buy cases of stuff, like tomatoes or beans, we put those under the bed, too. It's quite cool under there and it's dark. It is the perfect place to store stuff.

It's getting to be that time when I need to go through my cabinets again and organize things. The reality of the situation is that I have a working pantry and things happen and it ends up looking like this.

This side is much more organized.

The extra dining bench is where we store our potatoes, citrus fruits, etc. I also use it to put my KitchenAid stand mixer, crockpot, yogurt maker, etc. Those big white bags are oatmeal and dried beans. I have a food grade bucket, underneath, that holds some extra stuff in it.

So, today, we went to Winco for our last major grocery shop before we start this challenge. Here is my receipt.



We're all set to get this ball rolling. I'll be blogging about this as I go along and I'm expecting this project to last 4-6 months, at least. I'd love to go a year, but I'm not sure if that's going to be possible.

 This was Bob's last chance for candy. It was my last chance to pick up a couple of Russian kielbasas. Those are my favorite! Actually, kielbasa is one of my most favorite things, right behind razor clams. We picked up a couple of packs of bulk breakfast sausage and, since I plan on making Moussaka tonight, we picked up a couple of eggplant.
On this no spend challenge, we will be able to purchase fresh produce and fruit (until the garden starts producing), Bob's coffee creamer (I cannot find a recipe that he likes and he's not putting Irish cream into his coffee) and milk products (limited to milk, half & half and heavy cream). We will still buy my club soda and Bob will be able to buy his soda. Other than that, we either make it or we don't eat it.

Wish us luck!

Waiting For Spring & Prepping For Our No Spend Challenge

We're just in a holding pattern here. I'm going to be starting tomato, eggplant and pepper seeds in a few days. I still have not gotten my list finalized as to what I'm going to grow out. We need to get over to either Tractor Supply or to Wilco and get some more T-posts so we can get our other chain length fence panels up and secured for trellising the tomatoes. We need to get a load of compost hauled up here. We need to get some of the recycled cannabis soil hauled up here and put on the beds. There's so much work to do. Bob still needs to get the second greenhouse framed out, as well. He opted to move a few raised beds and we're going to have them in line with each other, so I'll have 40 feet of greenhouses all in a row.

I did take some pictures of my seeds. I know I have a ridiculous amount of seeds, but I also live on 50 acres, so if I want to plant everything, I have the room to do so. I don't plan on doing that, however. I do want to scatter out some of my wildflower seeds. There's only a few varieties of flowers that I don't want to grow wild and those are my calendula, nasturtium, bachelor buttons, chamomile and spilanthes (toothache ache plant).

I can't say that I will grow out every variety of squash that I have, but I will plant out several of them. I want to put them onto one of  my fence panel trellises. I think I now have zucchini seeds in every color that there is plus round ones.

I want to triple the amount of peas that I grow. I bought several varieties of bush peas so that I don't have to trellis them.

I'm a greens fanatic. I love greens. Swiss chard, spinach, orach, arugula, cress, sorrel, doesn't matter. I love them all!

Here's one of those cool bean varieties that I'm super excited to grow out this year. I'll be planting these out and growing them in one of the greenhouses. I need to get some poles to make a tipi for them. These are called Ping Tung and I bought these seeds from Russ Crow.

I'm most proud, I think, of my collection of heirloom beans. Beans and peas are my favorite things to grow in the garden, particularly bush bean varieties.

Even all those drawers cannot hold my collection of seeds. I'd need to have about 9 more drawers for everything.

I'm trying to figure out a decent system so I know where things are. So far, this is the best I can come up with and it's not a very good, clear or concise system.

I have lots of flowers to get out there into the soil.

My tomato drawer. I have close to 500 heirloom/OP tomato varieties.

I think I'll work on getting my list narrowed down today. I'll probably turn to my tomato group for help on this matter.

We've had clear and quite cold temperatures around here lately. We got a bare dusting of snow here when the country went through that cold snap. We got down there, in temp, at night, but we didn't get the snow. It's so weird how western Washington weather works. We are at 260 feet in elevation, south of Kelso. Just 5 miles down the road, in Kalama, they got 8 inches of snow. In Camas, they got like 14 inches of snow. We got just enough to turn things white. That's it.

I'm not complaining, either.

Some of our friends showed up. << this one is a young buck with his >> young doe.

It was super cold out, I was shivering, so I apologize for the blur.

The lady in the house tosses apples out there for them. We give them carrots. They know that they are safe up here.

 Here's the doe eating an apple.

So, to be quite honest, there are days that I don't even get dressed and we have to fight the dogs for a heater vent up here.

Starting on March 1st, we will start our No Spend project. I have no set timeline for it. We are going to do this for as long as we can stand it. The only things we will allow ourselves to buy in the grocery store are produce, milk products (limited to only milk, 1/2 & 1/2 or heavy cream, nothing else because we can make it) and eggs because until our chickens get going, we'll need to buy eggs. As the garden comes on, I'm hoping we can drop buying most of the produce and limit ourselves to fresh fruit. I do have fruit bushes and we do have blackberries, but we will need to vitamins that come from citrus fruit and I cannot grow bananas here. Also, my grape vines are nowhere close to being able to produce for us.

So, that is my update as to what has been going on here lately. As soon as I finalize my tomato, pepper and eggplant grow lists, I'll write a blog post about those.

Until then, stay warm!