Sunday Reading - OMG Pumpkins

I can certainly say my sustainable goals of learning new skills is reaching fulfillment this year.  A good chunk of what I grow each year is geared to acquiring new skills as much as harvesting something edible. Each year presents a new set of challenges and circumstances that any sustainable homesteader type knows they will see again and the next time we may not have the safety net for failure we have in place today, which is why I chronicle my failures as well as the successes. 

However this year I learned something new. Pumpkins will root their vines just like strawberries in a way and continue to spread until you physically stop them. I honestly did not know pumpkins would do that. In my own defense however I only remember planting pumpkins once when I was a child and my grandfather put in a bunch down in one of his bottom fields. He let them grow until October and then we went out and picked them and gave them away and piled em high. It was kinda fun for a child.

Perhaps this vine rooting thing is common knowledge to some but I didn't research pumpkin growing I just ordered some seeds and put them in the ground next to my watermelons. I gave em a good 10 or 15 foot expansion area to either side of their raised row as well. The pumpkins filled that space inside of a month.

Well the watermelons are being seriously colonized now and even the tobacco plants are being threatened.

Oh well live and learn. Next time I plant pumpkins I now know to give them an area all their own and enforce their border with high security. As long as I don't have a Liberal mindset that should be easy enough to do.

At this point I have no idea how many pumpkins I have out there. It looks like hundreds to be honest. I also have no idea what I am going to do with them and I think a few are already ripe. There are several big orange ones visible from the edge of the pumpkin jungle already.

Like the cucumbers and melons the bees really love the pumpkin blooms in the morning so even if I have hundreds of unwanted pumpkins planting them was not a waste.

I just had no idea pumpkins would grow so well here.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!

Entertainment Review Time

So I haven't done one of these is a really long time. I kinda lost interest in reviewing "The Walking Dead" after they made their medic vet guy a tri-pod boy and the plot got all messed up. Once the body count by live humans surpassed the zombie inflicted casualties it really got boring for me. I still watched it but the thrill was gone for that season. Perhaps the next season will be exciting once again.

Anyway this evening I am going to talk about another TV series that was recently added to Netflicks and really only has a casual connection to the sustainable world. Oh who am I kidding it really has no connection to sustainable, survival, homesteading or prepping when you get right down to it. I think the only reason this series even made it onto my radar and the sustainable world in particular is that it is set in the so called "redoubt" state of Wyoming.

Yes I am talking about that rural cops show set in some fantasy county of Wyoming entitled "Longmire". I haven't checked but it maybe set in an actual county but the circumstances they present in this county on the screen is pure fantasy. I haven't been to Wyoming in twenty years but I know it is pure fantasy none-the-less.

If it wasn't for the fact that Netflicks hasn't added in any new episodes or series worth watching lately I would have stopped watching this Liberal propaganda trash after the second episode but I have to get something for my money I guess.

What did I like about this season of "Longmire"? Well the scenery is sometimes nice and I am certainly not talking about the old female Starbuck actress as scenery either. Oh it had a bear in it that ate some guy that was kinda interesting. It had a clown in one of the episodes so that does get the series an automatic +1 boost. Anything with a clown in it is bound to be fun.

Ok that's out of the way so what were my problems with the show? For one thing why is it that every bad guy for the most part is a White Male? Oh there are a few bad guy Indians mostly very low level sleaze-balls at best here and there and half of them are portrayed as simple victims driven to whatever low level crime they might have done by the evil White Man of course. The other half of the Indian criminals were simply supporting criminals being manipulated by... wait for it.... the Evil White Man. The main character seems to have more interest in pagan Indian rituals and history than those of his own kind but what do you expect?

There was in fact one money grubbing White Female bad apple social services worker who was portrayed as making up reasons to legally kidnap Indian children so she could split the extra government support money with a sleaze-ball White Man of course. That particular episode as in more than half of the others had to have a White Male sex offender in it as well. Apparently only White Males are sex offenders don't ya know? Seriously I can think of at least five episodes out of ten that had some reference to White Male sex offenders in them. From the social services one to the under age prostitutes (Indian BTW) to the High School gang rape of... you guessed it a young Indian girl to the guy who kept a cult of kidnapped girls named for the calender.

I have to admit that guy had some good taste if not much style or sanity.

Let's see. Oh ya. This county in rural Wyoming also happens to have one of the few dozen or so Black Female doctors known to humankind. Not one Black resident shown that I ever saw but by golly they managed to squeeze a Black Woman doctor into the show.

The only deputy Sheriff Longmire can rely on is his super trooper petite female sidekick who is an ex-homicide detective from Philadelphia... ah-huh. His other deputies are the back stabbing White guy who is banging Longmire's daughter and trying to take the sheriff job in the election. We cannot forget the standard over weight White guy deputy Ferguson who is there for comic relief and to show what unappealing, fools any honest White Man is. Except for the main character hero of course.

In fact I am just going to stop here. If I tried to go any further or even touched on Lou Diamond Philips character I would become violently ill I think. This series has been nothing but a study in Hollywood Liberal Propaganda conditioning from the pilot episode.

Nothing but bashing White Men as evil sex offenders and painting a picture of the "Noble Savage" for everyone to oooooo and ahhhhh over. The only good message I got from it is at least the Sheriff handles things mostly as they should be handled without armored personnel carriers and a swat team crashing down doors. We won't mention the revenge killing he did against the guy who killed his wife in Denver however.

All in all a pretty sad piece of Multi-Cult Propaganda.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!

Farmers Market II

Since I still had a little surplus of honey left, although not as much as before as people kept calling wanting more and my mother likes to hand it out to everyone she knows as well. Anyway I still had enough left to make another trip to the market worthwhile.

Still no really good looking and presentable tomatoes worth mentioning but in all honestly veggy sales weren't too bad this morning. Vegetables alone would not be worth the trip in my opinion but as a little side sales I can't complain. I even had some repeat customers from last week. Once the melons and tomatoes start coming in they may in fact be worth a trip on their own.

As far as honey goes I am now completely sold out once again. The only bottle of honey on the Small-Hold now is the partial jar I keep for are own use and the jar I have packed up and still setting on my desk waiting to be mailed to Glock Mom because I keep forgetting to take it with me and mail.

I know I suck but it took me forever to find a proper sized box. It will be in the mail Monday I promise.

There are a few more organic self-grown sellers showing up now that the season is allowing more things to become ripe.

All and all it was worth the few hours in extra money that I can now turn around and put right back into my bee hives in preparation for next years growth.

If I had about twice to three times the producing hives that I have right now I would be making some pretty good money. Not anything to make me rich but certainly as much or more than I would be making doing the labor jobs I had been reduced to the last few years. Not to mention a much more pleasant work/life balance and atmosphere than dealing with Sociopathic managers and supervisors.

Thank God for all this rain we been getting.

Now it's time to go unload and put everything away. Hopefully the girls have a few more frames of honey capped and ready for harvesting.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!

Mending Fences

So my four hooved, furry brush clearing machine and his little Bish Wether managed to escape their paddock this morning. As I was taking the son in to his math class this early AM they were standing in the driveway looking at us just as I checked the rear window to back out.

Needless to say we were a tad late getting to class.

It appears the very old and falling down wooden fence row I was hoping they would clear out was in much worse shape than I thought and the Ram managed to find himself a board that would break easily which allowed him and his buddy an easy escape route.

After getting back to the Small-Hold the rest of the morning and a large chunk of the afternoon were spent making a sheep proof fence out of the old rotting fence row that (I hope) will last until they get it all eaten and I can pull the entire mess out with the tractor. The sheep do such a good job turning an overgrown area into packed earth that I hate to not use them. These guys do a better job than four gallons of Roundup and a blade on the tractor let me tell you. They even kill all the little weed trees dead.

While I was rounding up the two escapees the neighbor dog showed up for a visit and the ram chased him around the barn a few times. For a big impressively muscled dog he sure did run away from that ram in fear let me tell you. This particular ram is a funny one anyway as he will only obey my step dad or me and he wasn't too sure about me until I showed him the power of a monkey with a stick one day. After one little rap on the head with an axe handle he now goes exactly where I direct him to even without a grain bucket. In fact he has managed to escape so many times now that when he sees me coming towards him he just goes to the stall door that is his and waits for me to open it now.

Unless of course there is a dog to chase :)

After that I cleared an area out for the old plow and got everything ready for moving it out of the truck bed when I had some help arrive. It somehow seems disloyal that I am trying to collect implements for the old 8N Ford but yet I had to fire up the massy to move the plow. Two grown men can carry that hunk of iron a few feet but I wasn't going to risk lowering it off the bed of the truck by hand. The plow part might be dull and rusted but if it fell it would take a foot off easily.

All is in place now though safely out of the weather and ready for restoration. A bit of muratic acid I think is in order first to start removing the rust and get the frozen swivel going again. Followed swiftly by some penetrating oil and grease.

To tell you the truth I would have never thought my sustainable projects would ever extend to restoring 1950's era farm equipment but it seems a natural progression of things. I certainly don't need 50K price tag equipment to work a small organic farm that's for sure. Regardless finding the old implements maybe as much fun as restoring them provided we have the time.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!

And the Hits Keep Comin

The big news around the Central Missouri area today was the surprise announcement by the fourth largest area employer that they are closing their plant down in the State Capitol.

RR Donnelly announced that their Jefferson City facility would be closing effective October 1, 2013 and it would be a permanent closure. They announced the loss of some 500 jobs but that number does not include the hundreds they have shed since 2009 either.

They do have another plant down the road a bit which I believe is what brings them up into the top ten list of area employers, not sure if they will retain that title once the announced facility is closed. Interestingly enough the number one area employer is of course state government.

We are still in slow slide and decline country folks. No two ways about it the decline refuses to go fast by human standards  but only wants to creep along claiming families here and there that must live in poverty while those who were lucky continue to at least appear prosperous.

If you ask me that is the worst type of collapse scenario we can endure.

Of course the unemployment rate will continue to drop and the media will continue to proclaim a recovery.

The psychological damage alone done by such false reporting should be criminal. Thousands who cannot find jobs while the false recovery is proclaimed loudly leaving these people to only assume it is a personal fault of their own they are not employed. Families split apart, suicides and loss of hope.

A quick collapse at least brings a feeling of focus and a sense that everyone is in the same boat. Not so a slow grinding economic slide that claims victims one by one while leaving others untouched. For a while.

Just maybe however this is a sign that the false numbers and facade are cracking. Maybe the next step down is finally showing no matter how much they spin the numbers. It took Detroit years to finally admit things were bad why should any other place not dot he same?

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!

The House Smells Like Pickles

So the bee work and yard work has finally slowed down enough that I was able to find the time to do something I haven't done in over two years now. Make refrigerator pickles.

My son will eat these 24 hours a day and if I can convince the wife to make some salsa and buy about 100 huge bags of chips and cook up maybe 50 quarts of refrigerator pickles the son in question could survive for a month with no other food input but drinks.

Sadly two years ago I was working so much overtime I never did get to make any and last year the drought did all my cucumber plants in before I got enough to make any pickles. This year however my son has been hounding me to make them for him once again and today was the day.

I am boiling the brine now as the jars are all covered and filled awaiting the mixture and then I need to keep my son out of them for a few days. Ya right. I am betting he won't make it longer than over night before he begins stealing some.

I also made up a special jar of skinned Lemon cucumbers to try pickled this year. I made some sweet ones a few years back and they were not anything to write home about but I have never made them as refrigerator pickles before.

An onion and a variety of colored peppers fresh from the garden for extra flavor and a bit of color and they are now ready to ferment over night on the counter before going into the fridge.

The entire house has that pickle smell though so he should be happy.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!

I Normally Don't do This

I normally don't announce when I add a new link or get a new follower to the site. I used to but then I got behind or wrote something that pissed a bunch of people off and lost track :)

But today I added a link to Granny Miller's website and I honestly am amazed I have not come across it before. After Granny posted a comment I went and looked at her site and immediately saw sheep pictures and posts about fruit trees and growing flax.

A true treasure trove of information and one I look forward to catching up on.

I didn't see any political or social opinion posts so I cannot classify her site as "Dangerous or Liberal"

That was a joke from the last post yesterday.

Anyway Granny Miller's site is now linked to the right. If you haven't checked it out before you should. And chastise me for having missed it all these years as well.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!