her thoughts | KW Homestead

Category: her thoughts (page 20 of 21)

natural childbirth and birth centers: the beginning

i’m still shocked and awed by my recent experience at natural beginnings birth and wellness center.

my close friend delivered her first child, a daughter, early yesterday morning, february 20th. i’ve spent the past few months talking with my friend about all sorts of birthing expectations and pregnancy experiences. so much of this whole experience has opened my eyes, and while i considered myself to be moderately well-informed about natural birth (if one really can be without witnessing one or giving birth oneself) all the reading and learning and listening can’t prepare for the amazing experience that is natural childbirth.

the past two days have been bizarre for me… i sometimes forget what i have seen and “come to” thinking about the depth of the experience and how it is so truly unlike most other experiences routinely seen in the modern world.

one part science experiment, one part adventure, and one part god, natural birth is truly remarkable. i won’t speak in too much detail today… i first need to talk with my friend and ask her how much she is comfortable with me mentioning, but i will give the highlights.

a great birth center in statesville, nc!

first of all, i was excited to see the birth center where her daughter was born, since this birth center in statesville, nc is only 1 of 2 in the state and we are possibly interested in birthing our child at this same location in the future. i found the staff to be amazing… calm, collected, relaxed, and knowledgeable. also, they were willing to talk and answer all of my placental and other questions!

my friend had her child via water birth, as did another one of my close friends. she relayed her enthusiasm over being able to labor in the water throughout the experience, and it was apparent that being in the water was soothing and easier on her body. she was able to move around whenever she wanted and she was the first one to touch her newborn girl, plucking her out of the water with joy and awe on her face and exclaiming “our baby!”

witnessing a natural birth is truly difficult to explain. one thing that i can say about it, is that it is inspiring! in the past few days i have felt empowered in new, different ways… thinking: if my friend can so gracefully and beautifully birth a spiritual human entity into the world, what do i have to worry about or complain about? i have never seen anyone work so hard in my life, without complaint.

this experience has caused me to realize that strength is so much more innate and animal than we realize. that our animal selves know what to do, and how to do it. to immediately decide that a drugged and numb labor and birth is the ideal is fallacy. not only does an unquestioned leap into a hospital bed deprive a woman of an amazing animal experience, but it also deprives her of an amazing spiritual one, too.

i will have much more to say about my experience of the birth soon, but for now i can only say how much my friend inspires and awes me. if only one day i can be as heroic and as humble as she is, then i will truly know the beginnings of motherhood.

.:.

our first mushroom adventure: which mushrooms will be magic for us?

February 17, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

we will begin our first homestead mushroom adventure next week, when my father comes to help me cut 30 to 40 red oak mushroom logs for our spring mushroom inoculation!

my father has raised mushrooms before and he is going to be a great resource when we start this mushroom adventure.

on the eve of cutting our mushroom logs–in 3 and 4 foot lengths–i’ve been doing some research on which mushrooms we want to begin raising this year.

here is a summary of what i’ve found on the 4 mushroom types we’re interested in raising, including the health benefits, flavor profile, and the meaning of the mushroom names (how i love to learn about the meaning of names!).

drying shiitake mushrooms, photo courtesy jmurawski

shiitake (lentinula edores)

shii is the name of the tree, related to beech and oak, that these mushrooms naturally grow on in japan, and take simply means “mushroom.”
this mushroom is the species that my father has experience raising and we plan to inoculate most of our logs with these spores.
shiitake, like all of the mushrooms mentioned here, are anti-tumor, help to detoxify the body, boost immune function, and regulate blood pressure.
to me they taste like calamari when sauteed and are excellent cooked in mass quantities with nothing more than soy sauce!
their fruiting temperature is 50-80 degrees F.
their favorite wood is oak.

red reishi mushrooms, photo courtesy Wendell Smith

reishi, ling chi, or ling zhi (ganoderma lucidum)

this mushroom’s scientific name means “shining skin, shining,” named for its glossy sheen.
reishi mushrooms contain ganoderic acids which alleviate allergies by inhibiting histamine release. they also improve liver function, and thus help with detoxification.
eating this mushroom is said to provoke feelings of peace and relaxation.
their fruiting temperature is 70-80 degrees F.
their preferred wood is oak.

a delicious maitake mushroom, photo courtesy Janet Hudson

maitake (grifola frondosa)

grifola refers to the mythological griffin. it is also called “hen of the woods.”
it is very popular among mushroom lovers!
this mushroom stabilizes blood sugar, blood pressure, and may have an effect on free radicals.
their fruiting temperature is 50-65 degrees F.
their preferred wood is oak.
click here for a great article on maitake mushrooms.

lion’s mane mushrooms, photo courtesy Wendell Smith

lion’s mane (hericium erinaceus)

in korean it is called “deertail mushroom,” and you can see why. how cool!
this mushroom helps with memory and can even ward off dementia by stopping neurological breakdown. it also relieves digestive tract issues such as ulcers, and can aid is fighting digestive tract cancers.
their fruiting temperature is 60-75 degrees F.
their preferred wood is oak, but they also like maple.
click here for a great article on lion’s mane mushrooms.

for more information or for placing your own mushroom spore order, check out fungi perfecti and mushroom people.

.:.

maple syrup icicles: an unexpected surprise

February 14, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

our maple tree, showing its foliage in fall 2013

when we moved our chickens a few weeks ago, we decided to put their mobile pen and house underneath a small maple tree that we have in our front yard. in order to do this, i had to prune some of the smaller branches that came lower than my height, so that we could attach the bird netting to the top of the pen (keeping chickens in and swooping hawks out). without removing some of the smaller, downward growing limbs and twigs, the netting would have been tangled and ridiculously hard to hang up.

the pruning of the lovely maple and the hanging of the netting went off without a hitch, but i noticed something interesting the next morning…

the weather had been below freezing the night we pruned the tree and there were many little (and some not-so-little) icicles formed where we had cut off small limbs and twigs. some of these icicles were 6 or 7 inches long and remained all day. i broke off one and sampled it! and behold… nature’s first popsicle! i certainly tasted a faint sweetness in the frozen sap.

a delicious maple popsicle, formed at the end of a trimmed twig

i’ve recently learned that one of the legends about how the native americans first discovered the sweet sap of the maple was by stumbling across icicles formed at the end of broken twigs, just like me!

whether or not this legend is true, i certainly learned a lesson that day: discovering things accidentally by doing and by experimenting (as we adapted our netting to work around the tree) is often the best way to learn new things. because while researching and just already knowing things is valuable, sometimes you just need a new “ah ha!” moment to get your gears turning.

now our gears are turning and we’re thinking… “what about harvesting sap from some of our maples to supply us with the delicious maple syrup that we love?”

and now the seed of a new idea has sprouted, watered by the experience of trying that maple tree popsicle!

.:.

hibernation vacation: preparing for the winter storm!

February 12, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

currently at our house in stokes county, it is snowing! it has been snowing for the past few hours and we’ve already accumulated 1.5 inches.

our expected snowfall total: 6 to 10 inches, with perhaps a layer of sleet to top it all off. extreme! at least for central north carolina.

today’s snow storm, in progress

so far this year we’ve gotten a few other small snow storms, but nothing that can compare to what weather sources anticipate we’ll see today and tomorrow.

emma checking on the chickens after the snow 2 weeks ago

a few chickens come out to explore the winter wonderland

and while jason and i read, watch the snow, and research more plants that we want to plant in the spring, we’re also preparing in case of a power outage.

what we’ve done so far today:

collecting water in tubs and buckets in case of a power outage

i filled up a large rubber bathtub with water so that we can flush the toilet if the power goes out. i also filled up a 5-gallon bucket with water to use for chicken and dog water, even though if things become really crazy we can always thaw a bowl of snow for the birds. we’ve done this is because we have a well and the well pump needs electricity to operate.
i filled up a few gallons of water and our tea pot for our drinking water. considering that we have juices and milks in the fridge, i imagine we’ll fare just fine even in a worst case scenario.

storing drinking water in gallon jars

we have plenty of non-perishable food items (such as canned meats and canned vegetables).
jason made a venison stew last night that we will enjoy all day today and tomorrow (recipe forthcoming)
we have an 800-watt duracell inverter that we can use to charge devices once it stores charge from one of our cars.
we have plenty of candles (both real ones and battery powered candles) and many flashlights and extra batteries.
we also have headlamps and these amazing, warm hats with a light built in that jason’s mom got us for christmas!

later today we plan on cooking a few more items to have some ready-to-eat things available. some of these include:

lots of popcorn for a snack
basil beer bread, made with our very own basil and a beer jason brewed (recipe forthcoming)
pasta… filling, versatile, and not likely to go bad anytime soon even if it’s unrefrigerated for a day or two.

animal tracks on our frozen pond from our snow 2 weeks ago

otherwise we plan to lay low, watch the olympics, and read. the dogs and cat are spending time with us, sleeping and playing with (or thoroughly annoying) each other. the chickens will be fine in their house and since the wind isn’t blowing as of now, they will remain dry and warm. later today, we plan to go for a walk and check out our snow-covered pond to see which animals may have been walking over it lately.

so, if it’s snowing where you are, think of safety and prepare, but don’t panic (no driving to the store now!) and enjoy your hibernation vacation!

.:.

our new egg labels: kuska wiñasun gets fancy!

February 10, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

our new egg labels!

i’m so excited about our new egg labels.

they are simple, but perfect for us right now. these new labels are adhered to the top of blank egg cartons. so far we’ve given away about a dozen dozens of eggs–most of them in our new packaging.

on our labels, we’ve noted the chicken breeds that are producing the eggs and the name of our eggs: aurora eggs. aurora means dawn in spanish and also reminds jason and i of the northern lights. we’ve named our eggs after the dawn because of the color of their yolk: bright orange (especially after breaking open the yolk)!

at first i wished for a colored label, but since we do not have a color printer i realized that a colored label might not be worth all the effort and/or cost. now i’ve come to love the simple, black-and-white label with the easy-to-read design. plus, i think our eggs are colorful enough!

we’re excited to share our eggs and to see if any of our pals will be interested in procuring any more from us in the future…

.:.

kuska wiñasun gear: jason’s new hat!

February 6, 2014 / Emma / 2 Comments

i made jason a new hat for his birthday! i was really excited about my gift to him this year because his birthday is right around new year’s day, the same time that we began the our ochre way website adventure.

i bought a plain hat and embroidered it with kuska wiñasun homestead. i was proud of the design and how i was actually able to make the words look the way i wanted them to! since i am an inexperienced seamstress (to say it nicely), i was so excited about my accomplishment that my sewing adventure ended with me breaking out in song.

jason’s birthday hat!

this year will be a great year for us on kuska wiñasun homestead. we have a lot of exciting things planned and a lot of hopes for our farm and gardens. and with our wedding happening at the end of september, we have a lot to look forward to as we grow together.

what to do with 100 eggs: baking, boiling, gifting, and selling

February 5, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

so, what do you do with 100 eggs?

what a great question! and a “problem” we did not realize we would ever have until just recently. since we get between 12-14 eggs a day, we certainly have a surplus! currently, we have 14 dozen eggs in our refrigerator… and you can imagine the space that they take up.

our delicious, orange aurora eggs, waiting to be scrambled for a yummy brunch!

of course, one of the ideal solutions to this “problem” would be to sell every dozen for a profit, but since we haven’t established a customer base yet that isn’t an option right now.

the following is a list of some things we’ve been doing with our eggs to lessen the load. i suggest trying all options if you have a surplus!

boil them! i boil a dozen every few days and we take about 5 or 6 (between us) to work every day for breakfast in the car or an easy snack.

bake with them! jason has developed a delicious german pancake recipe (recipe forthcoming) that uses 4-6 eggs. he has also made spaetzle and i often make a delicious breakfast casserole that has sausage, veggies, and cheese (recipe forthcoming).

give some to the dogs! since we have so many, we don’t need to be stingy about the dogs getting a few eggs throughout the week. whether they are cooked or raw, the dogs love them and it makes bridey eat her dry food all the faster (without eggs she sometimes walks away from her food before finishing up). and bolt gets his eggs with the shell and all!

these are all of the eggs that i have thus far blown out for gifts or for future art projects.

blow them out to save the shell! i have blown out around 30 so far, to save as gifts or for utilizing in future art projects. when i blow them out, i usually do a lot at once, and i time it so that i can use the eggs for baking or feeding to the dogs soon after.

invite a lot of people over for a meal! jason’s family was in town last week and it felt great to use 14+ eggs in our scrambled egg brunch. it’s also a great feeling to feed our own healthy food to those we love. i think we’ll have to have more people over for brunches in the near future…

give some away, for pete’s sake! we’ve given away dozens of eggs to our family, neighbors, co-workers, and friends. not only is doing this rewarding because you are giving, but there is a chance that a few of these friends or co-workers might just want to purchase your eggs from you after realizing how how delicious they are!

freeze them! we’ve not done this yet, but i’ve learned that freezing eggs is a great way to preserve them (if you want to store them longer than 3-6 months in the fridge). just make sure that you have cleaned the eggs first so that when they freeze–and inevitably bust through the shell a slight bit–you don’t have contamination issues on your hands.

and last but not least… get creative!!! look up new recipes, make up your own recipes and experiment as much as you can with ways to cook eggs. think about it… with a surplus of delicious, hearty eggs, what time is better than now to dive into the new, fresh, and creative?

.:.

children’s homestead books: it’s never too early or too late to start collecting

February 4, 2014 / Emma / 2 Comments

jason and i are still a few years off from having children but we started collecting children’s books 2 years ago when we worked, for a short time, organizing thousands of books for an old book store.

both of us have always loved books, and i especially have always cherished children’s books. when he and i combined our libraries, we ended up with a double serving of every harry potter book and various other folk tales, fairy tales, myths, and legends for children.

courtesy of abee5

after viewing many kid’s books at the old book store, we realized that a lot of them were in alignment with the life lessons and science/nature topics that we really hoped our child would have in their children’s books. so, we decided to buy a lot of them for our future child(ren)!

among the ones that drew our eye the most were those that were set on a farm, homestead, or in and among nature. some of the titles that i was most excited to see and read were:

henrietta and the hat, written by mabel watts and illustrated by joan miller–in this tale, henrietta the horse desires a farmer’s hat. but, once the farmer is done with it, he uses it for other things and does not give it to her. over time, the hat gets worn out, all the while becoming more and more perfect for henrietta. in the end, perhaps she gets the hat after all…
the great race, written and illustrated by paul goble–based on cheyenne and sioux mythologies, this beautifully illustrated tale tells how humans gained control over the mighty buffalo, with the help of a certain magpie ally.
stopping by woods on a snowy evening,written by robert frost and illustrated by susan jeffers–this beautifully illustrated version of robert frost’s classic poem is illustrated in simple, black-and-white with splashes of color throughout. a treat!

although we chose many fiction books (oh, how i love fiction–especially fantasy and/or magical realism), i noticed that we trended toward choosing books that were based around the animal world (as many kid’s books are) where the main characters prove to be very brave and/or kind and unfailing loving.

the non-fiction that we chose were very science and fact based, usually also about animals or nature. some of my favorites of these are:

bats, written by celia brand–this book is one of many of the eyes on nature series, which features many species of animals and includes dozens and dozens of fantastic bat close-up photos and interesting facts.
desert discoveries, written by ginger wadsworth and illustrated by john carrozza–this book hosts beautiful drawings of desert animals with accompanying factoids. kids are also asked to find certain animals in a picture, and the book thus becomes a where’s waldo? of the desert!
water dance, written and illustrated by thomas locker–this peaceful text talks about the water cycle in a rare, poetic form. this book certainly inspires awe in me.

also, we selected some books from the early 1900s which amazed us! one of these is called trees every child should know by julia e. rogers (copyright 1909) and it is a full length, 250+ page guide to identifying trees native to the united states. i was immediately excited about the potential for this book to educate me about trees just as much as my children. and, what a concept that needs renewing… the fact that there are trees that every kid should know!

i’ve realized through the process of creating a children’s library in our home, how selective i actually am about the kinds of books that my children will read–at least at first. of course our library will grow once these children actually exist, and the shelves will undoubtedly be lined with ballerina and/or zombie tales, but for their early years i would like them to start off by connecting to reading in a different way. i want their reading to be linked with learning, awe, and the true nature of the world–that’s why i am drawn to books about nature, science, “magic,” and relationships.

the way i see it, there will be plenty of time for them to identify other exciting themes and topics that they want to read about (and i by no means plan to limit their interests in any way), but in the beginning of their understanding of reading, i want to be able to read them books into which i can graft my own awe and joy, so that my excitement about nature, animals, loving, and living will be palpable for them.

later, when they can read the words themselves, i fully expect to see them reading some books that i would not have been caught dead opening in my own childhood (really? the power rangers?).

it would seem that the books we’ve chosen supplement very well what we have chosen to do here on our homestead: work towards self-reliance, build relationships that last with each other and our land and animals, value nature and all that comes with that, and find awe and joy in the little (but very big!) things in life.

this is my sense of peace and happiness and i hope to instill that in my children, in a small part through the books that they hear me read to them as babies and as little, young, monkey kids.

.:.

farm food friday: roasted sweet potatoes, raw spinach, pecans, and parmesan

January 29, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

jason and i gave my dear friend, georgia, some of our sweet potatoes and she created a delicious recipe from our crop:

she roasted the diced sweet potatoes tossed in olive oil and pink himalayan rock salt on 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. then she tossed them with raw spinach, pecans, and fresh grated parmesan.

georgia’s meal was well-plated as well as yummy. this is not surprising considering the great artist that she is!

delicious! i believe we’ll have to try that ourselves!

.:.

wind egg, fairy egg: the smallest and most amazing egg in the world!

January 27, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

something amazing happened to me the other day. i’m so excited about this that you would think that i happened to lay my own egg! (that will come some day, but not yet!)

here’s what really happened:

i was collecting eggs in the afternoon and i found an amazing, tiny egg snuggled in the nest box with the other standard and bantam sized eggs. at first i thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. but i quickly realized that there was in fact a tiny, darker egg laying in the nest box with the other eggs.

the wind egg, laying on top of other standard eggs. you can see that the wind egg is darker and much smaller!

having never seen or heard of this before, i clutched that little tiny egg closely, being sure to cradle it in my hand until i got inside and placed it somewhere safe.

later, i used a technique that my mom taught be years ago for preserving beautiful or interesting egg shells: blowing out the egg. this technique allows you to preserve the egg for many, many years!

the procedure is simple, really. you use a safety pin to poke a small hole in the bottom of the egg (a couple millimeters across) and an even smaller hole in the top. then you proceed to blow into the top hole so that all of the contents of the egg are blown through the bottom hole (be sure to save the egg for using in a recipe or for scrambled eggs).

as i was blowing out the egg, i saw that there was no yolk inside, and the egg white seemed a little murky and did not look very delicious. so, jason did some research about the tiny egg!

he found that such small eggs are often called wind eggs. they are commonly a shade lighter or a shade darker than the hen’s usual egg and they are usually a hen’s first attempt at laying. these little eggs do not include a yolk because, well, they are not really an egg, actually. they may have an egg shell around them, but they could not support life as an egg should.

they are usually made when some portion of the hen’s reproductive tissue breaks off (no harm to her, though) and her body thinks that the tissue passing through her nether-regions is the beginning of an egg. so, her body slaps a shell on that baby and sends it on out into the world.

these eggs are also called fairy eggs, and i can see why: what child wouldn’t want to believe that a fairy had been playing with her chickens! in the past, these eggs were called cock eggs, and because of their size and the fact that they aren’t viable, people originally believed roosters had laid them.

how amazing! an amazing history for an amazing little “egg.” i will certainly forever cherish my little wind egg, and keep it as a reminder that there is always true magic that nature has to offer us!

.:.

KW Homestead

Pasture Raised Poultry & Edible Landscaping Plants Since 2013