Time may change me

I am spiffying up the sidebar.

What would you like to see there?

What do you want removed?

What do you suggest the order of the sidebar be?

Do you like the drop boxes? I added them so that when I updated things, feed readers didn't get a bunch of reruns.

This is just to make my blog a little more reader friendly, and to look a tad better.

Drum Roll Please

The polls are now closed!

It was a close race, very close. A total of 48 people voted {can I just say, wow?) and the new name of the little Jack is. . .

Firefly Bán of Browncoat Acres

Thank you for helping me out.

Marina told me that she hosed him off yesterday, and he is a "put on your sunglasses white"

He should be out this spring, and I can't wait!

Edited to add: Does anyone have a How to Train a Donkey and/or a Standard Donkey Care book that they would be willing to trade? Most of my books are listed here.

One of those days

Have you ever woken up and knew immediately that it was going to be "one of those days"? Just happened to me. I woke to find the window sill of our back door has been torn out, and missing {blame lays squarely on our pitsky ~that's what we have been calling our mix breed pup, of pitt bull and husky~} It's pouring down rain, and my truck windows are down. I swore I had a pumpkin butter recipe from last year posted, but that link takes you do a different page now, instead of the forum where it was first posted. All my boys are snoring, which means they all have the beginnings of a cold.

I want to curl up in an aching ball and go back to bed. Yes, it just might turn out to be "one of those days".

Someone want to come over and start the days bread for me? I am not in the mood. ~weary grin~

Yet there has got to be something today that will lift this gloom. Maybe the boys can still go to school? My truck needed a good cleaning. That backdoor was ugly anyway, and needed to be replaced. I wanted to write up the pumpkin butter recipe again, anyway. Now I am just entertaining myself with being silly.

But I will say that I am still excited about the new Jack. And I have been giggling most the afternoon. But I am unsure if those of you voting know your sci-fi and having a good laugh or not. I have been imaging the lot of you running around the back forty, dressed in black leather trench coats and sun glasses. If this is the case, then the whole sci-fi homesteader brings in a new oddity to the self-sufficient. And I thought me in my all black, combat boots and death metal was a strange pairing with homesteading. ~hahaha!~ If you haven't yet, go vote. I will keep it open until Friday to give those of you that read via feed only time to get your two cents in.

IT'S HAPPENED!

Yes, yes I am yelling. I am so completely thrilled. It's not like I am the one that gave birth. . . but looky oh looky!

I want all of you to meet Firefly.

Hurry, click on this link to read all about my new baby


Marina and I are discussing names. And we need some help. His name Firefly goes along with his sister and mother's names. But he also needs a little something to show that he belongs to our homestead.

we have discussed Firefly Neo {as in the farms name of Neophyte Homestead} Firefly Sweep {sweep is biker slang for the last rider of a group} And Firefly Bán {Irish for white}

So we will leave the final say up to you.

Save the animals! Eat one.

Odd isn't it? That meat eaters want to help save animals. No, not really when you actually think about it. Most these animals would not matter to people if it wasn't for the hunters and the meat eating farmers and homesteaders. Conservation by eating. Maybe it does sound strange to some people. I know back in the day it would have to me. But now, no. . . it makes sense.

If you are not going to eat them, what do you do with them? You can not breed without population control, or your land would become overwhelmed with your livestock. You control the pet population by "fixing", but when it comes to livestock, the only reasonable option is edible. Most people that wish to help save a rare breed of livestock, do not have the funding to allow them to wonder around their backyards. So profit needs to be made while you help bring a breed back from near extinction. And I really doubt too many people would be willing to pay a cover charge to come out to your land to look at the breed. These statements are not meant for the majority of you that read this blog. This is a statement to those of you that come here to criticize and be down right awful because I butcher my own meat.

Now on to why I brought this up. Monica made a post the other day about the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. Honestly I had not heard of them before, so I went and took a look. They have lists! Oh joy! I have been looking at rare breed milking cows, and now I now what ones I should prioritize in my look.

I was thinking about getting a Dexter or three, they are on the recovery list. Now I am looking at the Florida Cracker or the milking Devon. Here is were I will need more research to decide which is better for my family and my land.

I have also discovered while looking through the list that I have several animals already there, such as our sheep named Donkey, our goose, and some of our new chickens.

Do you find any of your livestock on the list?

Climbing down my Kansas made soapbox. ;)

I want to win!

From Raven's Road

Now that I’ve finished reading and reviewing some of my books, I need to find homes for them (the ones that didn’t come from the library, of course!) So I thought I’d run a little competition.

To enter, there are two steps:

1. Make a post mentioning the contest and linking directly to this post in your blog.
   
2. Come back here and comment in this post with a direct link back to your post.
   
3. Posts have to be publicly readable, i.e. no log in to read it.
   

Any comment dated up to and including 13 September will qualify.

Feel free to join in wherever you live. I’ll make it work. :-)

The winner will be chosen by the draw-a-name-out-of-a-hat method and announced in mid-September.

The Prizes

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
Attention All Shipping by Charlie Connelly
Passage by Connie Willis

But wait! There’s more!

If there are over 50 entries, I will throw in a $10 Amazon.com gift certificate.
If there are over 100 entries, that goes up to a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate.

Disclaimer: none of these books are new. All have had at least two owners. They are registered at BookCrossing.com.

Gift certificates are not pre-owned. :-P

The Art of Wattle Fence Making

Subtitled: Look at That Woman Cussing Out Those Tree Limbs.

Chapter one: In the Beginning.

I have been talking about making a wattle fence for about 6 months now. Or something like that time frame. In the early spring my mother called and asked if I wanted tree limbs from one of their rental properties. Me and my childish enthusiasm said yes. Oh the sweet bliss of being ignorant in the ways of tree limb collecting.

I arrived at the property early afternoon, and we loaded up the bed of the truck with as much of those limbs as possible. It took 2 trips to get the bulk of it. The loading wasn't so bad, I had help with that. It was coming home and needing to unload them that caused my first round of incoherent tree limb slander to emerge from my mouth.

I have seen people that are more experienced than I in the tree limb moving process, grab a branch or two and the entire truck load effortlessly flows from the bed. I however was unable to imitate this phenomenon. I was struck, scratched, gouged and slapped as I attempt to pull them off. It took time, but eventually I did get them unto the ground, into an unsightly pile in the front of my house. The I proceeded to allow them to age. Ok, I didn't want to deal with the limbs anymore, let them rot where they sit!

But no, I can't do that. I have a husband that reminded me that I was the one that wanted a wattle fence. I am the one that must deal with them. Next time I have a bright idea that requires lots of labor, could you please stop me.

Chapter Two: Cutting and sorting

This will be the last chapter that I publish for now. Time is not on my side, but a sharp tree limb is, ouch.

I bought a new pair of snips. Mine are old, dull and rusty, never mind the fact that they are awkward to hold with only one hand. I found a nice shinny green pair, and declared them mine as I handed over the money. Mine! I repeated as I walked into the homestead. Mine! You shall not be permitted to use my new, sharp and shinny, snipers! HA! How wrong a woman can find herself amid a houseful of males. But I was lucky, for I was the first one to use them.

And use them I did. Merrily I trimmed this odd branch, and the broken one. Slowly piles of limbs assorted by thickness emerged from the wooden chaos. The day wore on, my face burned, my head sweating under the leather cowboy hat I was wearing to keep said sun off my face. The pile of chaos seemed to loom over me larger then before, while my nice and neat pile looked sad in comparison.

Can I hear a "woe is me"?

Frustration built and then suddenly exploded. May the cat eat you and the cat be eaten by the devil! I cursed at the limbs.

I am finished for now. But they sit, waiting for me to return. I know they have plans to reproduce in chaos while I am attentive on the trimming.

We will return you to your regular programming after this

Hope everyone is enjoying their Labor Day here in the US. Good Monday to everyone else.

Today is a busy day, as my middle son's 6th birthday party is today. They grow up a little too quickly. Makes me feel old. ~ha!~

I also have a few pounds of tomatoes to gather out of the garden. Speaking of canning, I received an email the other day. The proprietor of CanningUSA.com dropped me a note to tell me about the website. Normally I read the email, nod, look at the site and thank them for letting me know. Most the time I do not review or link out to them because of how I feel about unsolicited solicitation. But this one was different. I liked the mood of the email, this wasn't from someone that was professional about spamming. Instead it was an awkward and sincere try at getting a person to look at their website and hopefully buy something so that they can make a living. With as many of these, please look at my site and mention me emails I get, this one stood out.

I rank a PR 4, not super high when it comes to blogs or websites, but high enough where people will bother me about their wares. If the person is truly sincere, then I will think about mentioning them here, so that you can go look at them. Of course bribery never hurts either. ~wink~ No, they did not offer up anything.

Now about this site, CanningUSA.com. It is definitely a low tech site. Easy to navigate, and not so many fancy graphics that my country dial-up screams and shuts down. They have a few recipes, and are still adding to it. They even ask if you have one to share. They have several instructional videos, how-to's/ basics of home canning. My dial-up doesn't like videos, so I am slowly accessing them. If you watch them, please tell me how informative they are.

As for the shopping. Their pricing is competitive with my high priced small town store. I have yet to buy something from them, but when I do I will let you know about the experience. My only problem is that they are Amazon.com associates, and you buy through them. Not too long ago I got a little ticked with Amazon and their associate practices and deleted my account.

I do recommend checking out the website, CanningUSA.com. Hopefully with their re-vamping they will continue to keep the site simple.

Please let me know how you found the site to be.