Getting Off The Grid - After Mother Nature

New turnip greens

September 14, 2017

Home :

Life has been a hell of a ride since last week. The hurricane, Irma, decided it was going to come straight up to my place in Alabama, I do thank God that it weakened more than predicted. We did get rain for three days but that was okay because my greens needed a good watering from above.

The bad part about this storm was that the temperatures took nose dive from 80 ish degrees down to 50° for a couple days and nights. I will be glad for the recovery of 80 ish again this coming weekend. Those warmer temps and the sun are sure to make the green beds grow like crazy. 

Since I could not work on the back yard, cleaning, I could not close in the area for the dogs with the electric fence. I need that area open to toss over all the limbs.

Since I could not clear more for the greenhouse because of rain, that project is still waiting on me too.

In The Kitchen :

So what did I do? I home canned! I looked in the deep freezer to see what I had frozen, or rather put off, till I had time to home can and I came out with chicken and pork, and more blackberries. On the counter laid super ripe bananas. What was in the fridge? Eggs so I made those up into pickled eggs.

I got three pints of chicken, four pints of pork, four pints of blackberries in light syrup with three pints of blackberry juice and two half pints of banana jam. 

What I did not want to spoil if we lost power was the eggs I had in the fridge to make pickled eggs, that is what I did get made up before the storm hit our state, I got 12 more pints.

For more about canning eggs click here : how to pickle eggs 

The Yard :

The black spots are ant hills!

Another problem that came up this week is ants! But we have figured out something that had worked in the past and may work now, I will let your know if it does because its completely free and gets rid of the ants.

For Fun :

Last Sunday after canning I decided to take a little break from home and go fishing, although we did catch a mess of bream we did not keep them, at the end of the day we put them back into the lake. Why? I already have plenty of Bream in the freezer, I actually cooked a mess for dinner on Wednesday night with fries. We had caught those back in May. 

More about Bream/ Sunfish click here : how to clean and cook bream  

Learning : 

Other than just waiting for the weather to get back right I have been reading about the plants and trees I do have on this property and the uses for each of them. How to make teas and the like for different aliments. 

One tree I will confuse with the red maple is the sweet gum tree, the leaves look just alike. Since I want to tap the maples for a little syrup this coming Spring I need to get busy marking them, making sure they do not have those balls of thorns from hell attached to them. Plus while out marking the maples I would like to see how many, just a count, of other hardwood trees I have and their use, if any.

Maybe this weekend the bushes will be cut down or the greenhouse will go up, if its Gods will, I can get one or the other of these projects accomplished. 

How is life on your homestead, got anything growing?

By Andria Perry

Photos by Andria Perry