KW Homestead

Pasture Raised Poultry & Edible Landscaping Plants Since 2013

Category: her thoughts (page 21 of 21)

farm food friday: sweet potato ginger soup recipe

this is to be the first of many posts detailing farm fresh recipes with homegrown ingredients!

let’s start with a recipe that suits the cold weather well… perfect for a snow day or gelid temperatures. It also makes use of our abundant sweet potato harvest.

snow day on the farm!

snow day on the farm!

a few days ago, when i had a snow day off from school, i made a triple batch of my sweet potato ginger soup. i made this much because jason’s family is coming to visit soon and my dear friend, who has a marvelous photography and portraiture business in north carolina, is about to have a baby. i wanted to be sure that she had a little bit of easy-to-reheat and nutritious food on hand after the baby comes!

the sweet potatoes i used when making my triple batch

the sweet potatoes i used when making my triple batch

here are the ingredients:

  • 4 large sweet potatoes (raw, peeled, cut into 1″ chunks)
  • olive oil
  • 2 large onions (peeled and chopped)
  • 1/4 stick of butter
  • sugar
  • 8 garlic cloves (or even a few more!)
  • garlic powder
  • 3 teaspoons of freshly grated ginger
  • cayenne pepper
  • 64 oz. chicken broth
  • salt, pepper
  • a food processor or blender

some things to have prepared first:

  • peel and chop up the potatoes (they take a bit of time) and onions
  • set out your food processor/blender
peeling sweet potatoes

peeling sweet potatoes

diced sweet potatoes

diced sweet potatoes

 

 

 

 

 

 

and the directions:

  • heat olive oil in a large pot (don’t skimp on the olive oil, but you can add more later if needed). put in the diced sweet potatoes and onions and cook them on medium for at least 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
sauteing the diced potatoes and onions

sauteing the diced potatoes and onions

  • add thickly sliced garlic cloves. let these ingredients cook for 10-30 minutes on medium (continue to stir frequently), until the potatoes begin to brown and become mushy around the edges.
add garlic cloves to the pot

add garlic cloves to the pot

  • lower the heat and add just a pinch of sugar and all of the butter. allow this to cook at least 10 minutes longer. continue to stir frequently. grate your ginger during this time.
i use a simple, handheld grater for my ginger

i use a simple, handheld grater for my ginger

  • add the ginger, as much cayenne pepper as you like, salt, and pepper. stir and saute for 1 minute, until the ginger becomes fragrant!
  • add 1/3 of the chicken broth. cut back up to medium and simmer for 20+ minutes or until the potatoes are soft.
add chicken broth and continue to simmer

add chicken broth and continue to simmer

  • mash the mix while it cooks and add another 1/3 of the chicken broth. add a bit more garlic powder, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper (if desired).
mashing the soup!

mashing the soup!

  • once most potatoes and pieces of potatoes are cooked through, cut off the eye of your stove and let the soup cool off sufficiently before placing portions of it in your food processor/blender. i use a cuisinart food processor and it does a great job pureeing the soup. we are hoping to get an immersion blender sometime this summer, though!
  • blend the soup in installments, placing the pureed servings in a separate container. once the soup is all pureed, add it back to the pot and reheat on a medium temperature.
freshly pureed, waiting in a separate container

freshly pureed soup, waiting in a separate container

  • add some or all of the remaining 1/3 of the chicken broth (this depends on how thick you want your final product to be).
  • add more of the spices, if desired.
the finished product. delicious!

the finished product. delicious!

  • serve and eat. yum!

note: i always think it is an excellent idea to make extra and freeze some for a future date. soup reheats so well, after all!

.:.

homemade dog food!

when we got bolt as a puppy in july of 2013, jason and i wanted to make sure that we started off in the best way possible with him, health-wise (A great resource for us has been dr. pitcairn’s complete guide to natural health for dogs and cats).

bridey was 7 when i inherited her from a friend, and she had always eaten the same purina dry dog food. i tried to switch her to a new dog food one time, years after i got her, but her bowels did not agree. i also also tried to give her homemade dog food (chicken, rice, and other ingredients) and her body didn’t like that either. since she’s clearly doing fine on that same old purina dry food, i’m loathe to change her routine on her now.

bolt's first day at home, sleeping under the corn

bolt’s first day at home, sleeping under the corn at 10 weeks old

but with bolt, who we got as a puppy, we wanted to be sure he grew up to be a big, strong, farm dog. so, we wanted to do something different and natural.

our latest dog food recipe for him per day is:

  • 4 or 5 cups of diced, raw venison
  • 4 or 5 cups of grated carrots
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • a pinch of green sand mineral supplement
  • a pinch of kelp mineral supplement
  • as much olive oil as desired
  • a dash of salt
  • a dash of cayenne pepper

every few days we add a small pinch of diatomaceous earth or raw pumpkin seeds to help prevent intestinal parasites.

our future plan is to begin adding brown rice to the mix for both dogs and to continue giving both of them a boiled or raw egg to eat every few days.

with the above recipe, bolt always gets a small amount (maybe a half of a cup) of his dry dog food for the crunch factor. eating the dry dog food always slows him down, too, which is nice!

three cheers for strong, healthy puppies and dogs!

IMG_1174

bolt, at 10 months, with a bit of carpet fuzz hanging from his lips!

.:.

sweet potatoes: jewels of the soil

we have been eating so many of our sweet potatoes this winter, both baked as warm, delicious snacks, or made into my delicious sweet potato ginger soup.

this fall, we had a sweet potato yield of about 12o pounds. this is more than we expected since, frankly, we didn’t really know what to expect because this was our first time growing them.

the recommended planting dates for sweet potatoes in our region are may 15-june 15 and our plants went in the ground on june 11, 2013. the 100+ plants were given to us by my father, and jason planted them 3-6″ deep in two of our raised beds. each plant was 12″ apart within rows, and 36-42″ apart between rows.

the first harvest day: halfway harvested and halfway to go

the first harvest day: halfway harvested and halfway to go

within a few months, the vines went crazy and flourished. we had a small issue with a groundhog who was trying to munch on the vines, but jason dealt with that effectively.

since the average number of days until maturity for sweet potatoes is 105-135 days, we decided to wait until the later end of that spectrum, hoping for larger potatoes. i harvested the first half of the sweet potatoes in mid-october and jason and i harvested the other half together at the very end of october.

jason, placing freshly dug sweet potatoes in a box

jason, placing freshly dug sweet potatoes in a box

since the first frost of fall was on october 22, we cut all of the sweet potato vines off at the ground the night before to make sure that the frost wouldn’t run into the ground and damage the potatoes. this meant that the potatoes sat in the ground for about a week without their vines, which is not a cause for alarm. still, the sooner you harvest the potatoes after cutting off their vines, the better.

i harvested the first half on a harvest day, according to blum’s farmer’s and planter’s almanac. i also encountered a black widow while i dug up the vines, and learned later that black widows love sweet potato vines more than many other hiding spots. be aware while digging up your potatoes of all kinds!

the first harvest: a bushel of potatoes waiting to be cleaned and sorted

the first harvest: potatoes waiting to be cleaned and sorted

neither day that we harvested was sunny, so we did not leave them outside in the sun to cure. instead, we wiped as much dirt off of them as possible, sorted them by size (keeping the tiny potatoes for bolt to eat as treats), and stored them in our guest bedroom/farm room.

sweet potatoes sorted into crates

sweet potatoes sorted into crates

our harvest, stored in the farm room

our harvest, stored in the farm room

 

 

 

 

 

 

we’ve stacked them in multi-tiered, open-air crates to help with the curing and drying process. currently, 3 months later, most of the potatoes continue to store well and we intentionally choose the iffy ones to use first when cooking and baking.

we are proud of our first sweet potato crop and in 2014 we plan to plant even more sweet potato plants than last year! this year, when may comes, we’ll be ready to get those plants in the ground even earlier!

.:.

coveralls: a woman’s favorite garb

coveralls. oh, coveralls. i would not be the woman i am today without coveralls!

i grew up seeing my father wear them outdoors in the winter time, and when i bought a scooter in adulthood i used a pair as my safety gear and also as my dog-walking-in-winter outfit when i lived in an urban setting.

my lovely coveralls, hanging by the door and ready to be donned

my lovely coveralls, hanging by the
door and ready to be donned

i feel like women are less frequent wearers of coveralls than men (especially in public), and i can understand why. firstly, wearing coveralls disguises your body shape and on your worst days might make you feel like you are wearing a sack. otherwise, they are associated with mechanics and other laborers, and thus usually thought of as masculine attire.

despite what might drive a woman to think they aren’t the best option for her, i urge you (women and men) to rethink their value as an article of clothing! the coveralls that are quilted inside are extremely warm in the wintertime and one can simply wear pajamas (or even nothing, as i’ve done before) under them when completing outside winter homestead chores. they also serve the dual purpose of protecting your underclothes from mud or dirt. i often wear my nice work clothes under them in the morning during my chore routine without worrying at all about ruining the garments underneath. super convenient!

not to mention, anytime something happens outside that deserves immediate attention (i.e. an attack on our chickens in the middle of the night), it takes less than 30 seconds to be fully suited up and ready to run out the door.

emma, suited up and ready to face the winter chill

emma, suited up and ready to
face the winter chill

coveralls beat the value of a coat hands down because they don’t allow any drafts to blow up under your clothes, as a coat might. often they have double hip pockets, where one pocket allows access to the pockets of your clothes beneath and the other holds things as any pocket should.

i often collect eggs in my coveralls, placing up to 12 eggs in the breast pockets of the suit.

to me, coveralls are a convenience, a coziness, and my very favorite garb. if i woke up one morning and couldn’t find them hanging in their usual spot, i would have a foul day indeed.

coveralls to the rescue!

.:.

 

choosing a chicken: standards vs. bantams

i often wonder about different people’s motivations for choosing certain breeds of chickens. some choose chickens that lay many eggs, others choose chickens that are showy and beautiful to look at. still others choose chickens to be their friends or those that are friendly around adults and children. many choose chickens who are better at foraging and taking care of themselves.

i’ve mentioned before that we have both standard chickens and bantam chickens. i wanted to take some time to describe the differences (that we’ve experienced) between these birds of a feather, just in case you’re interested in how their traits may fit into your lifestyle as a chicken owner.

the standards that we have are barred rock (black and white speckled) and buff orpington (which look much like any regular chicken except they are golden/tan in color). our standard rooster, rex, is a barred rock and looks much like the bird on the rex goliath wine bottle.

our bantam chickens are all mutts. each of our females are primarily black, some with varying neck colors such as white speckled or golden banded. our bantam rooster, roosty, has a lovely, deep green tail and an orange-red body and neck.

feeding time: our bantum rooster, roosty, with standard and bantum hens

feeding time: our bantam rooster, roosty,
with standard and bantam hens

now, before i compare their observed personalities and traits, i think i should mention the nicknames that jason and i have given the different breeds. we got the buffs and the barred rocks a few weeks before the bantams and spent our first few weeks as chicken owners comparing these two breeds. i started calling the buffs the “pilgrims” and the barred rocks the “blackfeet,” partly on account of their gray legs (while the buffs have cream colored legs) and partly because of the blackfeet native american tribe. our joke was that when the pilgrims showed up in north america, they were less survival fit and “stupider” than the resident native americans. this reflected in our flock, where the barred rocks seems to be less ditsy and clueless about the basics of finding food and avoiding walking feet.

once the bantams arrived, we continued the nicknames, but quickly realized that the blackfeet couldn’t hold a candle to the survival skills of the smaller, speedier chickens.

after many months of observation and chicken chasing, i have a few thoughts about standard chickens vs. bantams. keep these in mind as you make choices about the makeup of your flock.

the standards (barred rocks and buff orpingtons):

  • slower and easier to catch if they escape. they are also much more reliant on their “homebase” than the bantams and if they happen to escape stay close to the others inside the fence rather than laying low and hiding in bushes.
  • pushier and less skiddish of humans. when it’s feeding time, they are always underfoot!
  • less busy finding their own food in the earth. don’t get me wrong, all chickens do the scratch-and-step-back but i find the standards spend much more time lazying around the yard than the smaller guys.
  • they tend to go into the house to roost later in the day than the bantams.
  • rex draws much more attention to himself than roosty does. he likes to show off and is quick to stand in defense of his ladies and put on a big show.
  • they move differently than the bantams, for sure. they are much more dinosaur-like, both in their walk and in their features. to me they are very t-rex like (and lean forward clunkily when they run).
  • the breeds we have are good layers, with each hen laying around 250 eggs per year.
  • rex is a good, loud crower!
  • they have average or medium sized eggs that range from tan to light brown in color.
rex, our barred rock rooster, spending some time with his lady friends

rex, our barred rock rooster, spending
some time with his lady friends

the bantams:

  • much faster runners and expert dodgers. on the occasions that they have escaped they have tried to roost in bushes and fallen trees and have waited a long while to come back out of hiding. jason is fast and not afraid to dive for a chicken and yet these skills have rarely earned him a feathery prize! i am constantly amazed at how fast those little buggers can move.
  • prefer to fly under the radar when feeding time comes. the standards pick on them a little but they stay at the fringe of their yard when any humans happen in. they are very aware of where we are at all times and will always stop eating to run away from us, unlike the standards.
  • almost always busy searching for little snacks or taking dirt baths. they never seem idle and are constantly on the lookout.
  • they tend to head into the house to roost at the first sign of dark.
  • roosty doesn’t have much “bark” but jason and i suspect he has a whole lot of “bite” when it comes down to taking care of his flock. his spurs are also 3 inches long and he is such a fast little mover that i am more wary of him than of rex, whose spurs are still coming in and only an inch long.
  • the bantams move like sure-footed little quails who seem to float over the ground when they run. they appear to be dainty and are more lady-like rather than their lumberjack-like roomates.
  • our bantam hens are not as prolific as the standards, and we only get a few eggs per week from the whole flock. this could be due in part to their age; my father had many of these hens for years before giving them to us and the standards have just now matured and started their adult cycle.
  • my father has also observed over the years that many of the hens are good mothers, even raising standard chicks if they hatched them. they are very protective and good at teaching their babies how to be chickens. this is a trait to look for in chickens, with not all breeds (or individuals) having the mothering instinct as strongly.
  • roosty is also a good, loud crower but he sounds as if he hasn’t yet gone through puberty. his crow is much higher pitched!
  • their eggs are smaller than standard eggs, but the yolk is about the same size with less egg white. their eggs are off-white in color.

overall, i would choose a similar situation if we had to make the choice about chickens all over again. the standards give us many eggs and the bantams are lovely to look at while also being great mothers for our future chickens. they both provide meat for our household and they are equally valuable, in different ways. the standards eat more, but also produce more.

we love having a mixed flock. or rather, two flocks living harmoniously together. the roosters do not fight–perhaps because they do not bother or claim each others’ hens and all chickens roost and eat together. it is one fun and complex extended family we have in our front yard, and it’s perfect for us.

we recommend raising both standards and bantams, and trying them out together (at least at first) to see if they can co-exist peacefully and productively!

.:.

old lady dog: a friend, a mess

today i came home from work to an interesting scene, one not very unlike other scenes jason and i have both experienced…

let me preface by saying that our sweet, older dog, bridey, is getting a little loopy as she gets older. she just turned 15 and i’ve had her since she was 7. so, needless to say, she’s been one of my very best pals over the years. she’s always been there for me, silently supporting me and/or speedily running from the vacuum (in her youth, anyway. now she loves the vacuum).

bridey, napping with bolt in july 2013

bridey, napping with bolt in july 2013

in the last 6 months jason and i have noticed a change in her. she has lost most of her hearing (this decline into deafness actually started about a year and a half ago) and her eyesight isn’t the greatest anymore. sometimes she misses the doorway and veers a bit towards the door-frame. concerning, but also comical.

i’ve discovered, actually, that most of what an old dog does is both concerning and comical. perhaps we find humor in the changes because there is nothing else we can do. we know that her time with us will end, but we hope it will end later rather than sooner. and we also want to be sure that she continues to have a good time in her last years.

perhaps bringing the ridiculous and pushy puppy, bolt, home wasn’t her favorite thing, but i think that having his youth and spunk around has made her feel a little younger herself. she seems to be annoyed by him most of the time, but when we separate them for her sake, she looks over the gate at bolt longingly (one of our jokes is that she’s simply forgotten that bolt is as annoying as he actually is).

her memory has also gone, for sure. she remembers us, but sometimes thinks it makes sense to bite at us or walk in circles. sometimes she goes the opposite way when she knows it’s time for a walk… perhaps she knows of a secret back door that jason and i are neglecting.

her new favorite bizarre activity is to bite the edge of the water bowl when the water has run out (and it does often because she trips over it and knocks it over a few times a week so we keep less water in it and refill more often). and when i say bite, i mean bite. you can hear her old lady teeth banging up against that thing from a mile away!

in addition to her failing memory and auditory and visual senses, she has also lost some control over her bowels and bladder, as can be expected. we tried a lot of different approaches to dealing with this since when we are gone for the day she gets too confused and forgets that she’s pooped on her bed and lays in it or steps in it and tracks it everywhere. we tried crating her (which we never did before because in her youth she would rather explode than use the bathroom in the house) and that only worked to a certain degree. it caused her to think that she should try to hold it longer, but if she had to go she would always end up laying in it. ahh!

we tried keeping her in the hallway while bolt was in the kitchen but the hallway is carpeted and a few times she somehow pooped in her own water dish. seriously. i had never seen anything like that before. our theory is that she got turned around and “stuck” in a corner and then let it fly.

the latest method has been the best; we’ve kept her in the kitchen with bolt. we decided that he’s old enough to leave her alone for most of the day and if she uses the bathroom the vinyl can certainly handle it. the last few months she’s been doing much better, and we’ve barely had any accidents.

and then today happened…

i came home to find pee drops and smears (where she had laid on the ground after laying in pee) all over the kitchen, poop on 2 of the rugs with other little bits of poop strewn all over the room.

the worst part, though, was this: bolt’s bed (which is made out of a synthetic material) had become a cauldron of poop soup. the middle of the bed was water tight enough to hold a lot of pee and within the pee i found some poop that had dissolved. so, poop soup.

poop soup.

the cleanup was unappealing, as you can imagine, but i have long since gotten used to strange concoctions that bridey accidentally prepares for us while we are at work. the thing that i was most grateful for was that neither dog had anything on them–i have no idea why–so neither needed a bath to rid us of dog-doused-in-poop-soup.

this story illustrates, once again, how bridey is aging and getting a little loopy. and while i used to complain and get downright angry about these kinds of things, in recent months i simply just feel lucky to know her. lucky to know her after all these years.

she’s been my best friend for a long time, and always held up her end of the bargain–loving me and looking out for “bad guys” as best she can. i hope she continues to have fun on the farm and share with us her old lady dog “scents of humor.”

i’ve done a little emotional preparation for the time when she’ll leave us, and dr. pitcairn’s complete guide to natural health for dogs and cats has an excellent chapter about loss and letting go of pets when the time is right.

but for now, bridey continues to make our days better, albeit somewhat messier. but, isn’t that all that life is anyway? different sorts of messes and learning to love and appreciate through them all? bridey is one hell of a mess, but also one hell of a friend.

and i am grateful everyday to see her face.

.:.

–to bridey, my first life partner

our garden: just the beginning

since we moved to our new, 16 acre land in march of 2013, we’ve added the first portion of our backyard garden. it took time and effort, but all of the work has been rewarding and all the fruits of our labor (vegetables, really) have been delicious!

the picture below shows what our yard looked like before we started digging…

backyard before garden

a picture of the backyard of our home a few months before we purchased it in march of 2013

and here is the first step we undertook in building the beds:

hugelkultur experiment

digging the first, and most downhill bed

since we wanted raised beds, first we dug down about 8 inches and scooped the soil out. as you can see from both pictures, we decided to line a portion of this bed with small, felled trees and dead brush. this was jason’s hugelkulture project and he wanted to experiment with how much the slow rotting and decomposition of the wood would benefit the roots of the plants growing above. the portion of the bed that is unfilled was later filled with leaf mold from the woods. this was my project: i wanted to see how the decomposing leaf mold would benefit the plants in much the same way as the decomposing wood. after filling the ditch with these materials, we layered all of the dirt on top and dug out an adjacent path (also about 8 inches deep) and placed that dirt on top too.

making a hugelkultur raised bed

the base of the bed–half filled with small trees

the reason for the half-and-half bed liner was simple: i wanted to do it one way and jason wanted to do it another way. so, we compromised and split the bed in two. this way, he could have it his way, and i could have it my way!

later in the season we planted tomatoes, peppers, basil, amaranth, chia, squash, potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, and various other crops. considering that we started everything much later than desired, the garden made quite a bit for us this year (much more on this later).

you can see our small dwarf apple tree in the foreground of the the picture below, and the tomato cages; we use woven wire bound in cylinders and pinned to the ground with bent electrical piping (my father’s tried and true method).

the first season's planting in our garden

the first season’s planting in our garden

our sweet potato vines really took over and yielded around 120 pounds of “wild man candy bars,” as my father calls them. you can see the lush vines in the second nearest bed.

raised beds with sweet potatoes, chia, peppers and tomatoes

the first season’s planting in our garden. you can see our barn in the background.

all in all, it was a great year for our first garden together. we learned something about compromise and also what you do when groundhogs threaten to eat all of your sweet potato vines…

i also documented each of the planting and harvest dates for our crops and whether or not each crop was deemed a success or a dud.

i will be posting the calendar that we followed this year and the outcome of our different plantings soon. this way, perhaps we can start a dialogue about planting and harvesting in our region!

.:.

where have all the cowboys, er, EGG CARTONS gone?

this post was originally posted on our older blog shortly before the end of 2013 but i thought i would re-post these thoughts since our chickens and their eggs are constantly on my mind.

also, a new thought: since winter is coming (and will be officially be arriving tonight when it gets down to 3 degrees), i am wondering how the chickens will fare. i’ve tried to seal/insulate their house a little better and i hope they won’t get too chilly. since it isn’t supposed to get above 22 tomorrow, i wonder if any of the eggs will freeze once they lay them? i guess we’ll find out soon!

 

originally posted on DECEMBER 30, 2013:

“we have 29 chickens. we started with 30 but one of our barred rock females died… no signs of a sickness or an attack so we aren’t sure how she died.

we have 2 roosters… one bantam rooster named roosty and a barred rock rooster named rex.

our hens are: 7 parts buff orpington, 8 parts barred rock, and 12 parts bantum (27 in all). we will post some images of our chicken tractor and fence set-up shortly, but in the meantime i would like to talk about one of the great gifts of the chicken: eggs!

the bantums, as a whole, lay only 1 or 2 eggs a day; they are older hens that my father has had for many years, and perhaps their egg-laying has been somewhat hindered by having to live with a bunch of slightly less-than-genius dinosaur-bullies (the standard hens).

for the first few months of our standard hens’ laying cycle we were only getting a few eggs a day. we were not concerned at first but after receiving feedback from others, we realized that maybe we were not feeding them enough food. so, we doubled their food and now supplement them with extra sources of calcium and also cooked meat. largely due to this change, we’ve been getting between 10 and 13 eggs a day for the last 2 months. which means… we need egg cartons to hold all of these ovular treats!

and yet… it has been difficult finding egg cartons at the store we frequent most. we have checked 2 store locations and were told that neither has had them in stock for the last 4 months! shocking! one theory of the staff there is that they are usually in demand in spring more than in winter and so their stores have not been shipped any new ones.

as i write this, jason is stopping at another store to pick up some cartons… finally! after much calling and question-asking, i was able to find at least one store in our 40-mile radius which carries them!

i’ve asked him to get at least 10 cartons to give us the chance to store the eggs that we currently have laying around or overflowing from little baskets in the fridge. soon, perhaps tonight, we are going to look into prices for egg cartons if purchased in bulk online. we are thinking this might be a cheaper bet. the cartons he is buying today run at 39 cents each, and we think that with a little more research we can find a more reliable source for carting our eggs!!!

we would love to hear any suggestions from fellow chicken owners and egg eaters. leave us a comment if you have any insights about places or websites to order cheap (and reliably in-stock) egg cartons!

as for me, i’m counting the minutes until he gets home with the egg cartons that i’ve been fantasizing about (no, literally!!!) for weeks!”

.:.

raindrops keep falling on my head… and the chickens’ heads… and the wood…

because i grew up in a large north carolina city, summer rain often meant running outside to play, the smell of wet asphalt that so many city folks think of when they think of rain (i still love that smell!!!), and sitting on the porch watching the sheets drops down like buckets poured from the sky.

country rain has come to mean different things to me: different work but also different joy.

in any season in the city, the most that rain really meant to me was: “go roll up your car windows!” or perhaps close your home windows so the rain doesn’t come pushing in sideways through the screen and ruin your window sill.

in the country, rain means even more than that. not just an increased appreciation for the garden getting a drink (in the city i had a garden too and was even then excited about the rain for my plants’ sake), but also more tasks to be completed before the rain arrives, if time allows.

now i check the weather almost religiously and we hope to get home before the rain starts or prepare the night before.

these new tasks that are forever on my mind when i think of winter rain are:

  • cover up the firewood. some of our woodpiles are in the middle stages of being processed; they are either stacked in large pieces and ready to be split or they are already split but have not yet been toted to the corn crib to spend a few months drying out of the rain. we cover these piles with sheets of weighted down plastic, but we also uncover them when the forecast calls for sunny skies for a time, to help them dry out quicker. rain coming means hoping to get the piles covered back up before the drying wood gets ruined in an instant!
  • uncover the crops. i should be doing more of this, i know. we have a large cold-frame set up over our peas, bok choi, and kale (it turns out its value as a deer deterrent is just as helpful as its value as an insulator). each time when the rain comes we decide whether or not we should uncover the crops for a time.
IMG_1101

chickens taking shelter during feeding time

  • open the eaves of the chicken house. our chicken house/tractor is made of an old truck camper and has windows on both sides that can be propped open to vent in the summer or to act as an extra dry space during a rain. this is especially great during cold, winter rains. the chickens also have dry spaces inside or under their house, but most often one of their feed pans hangs out near/under one of the eaves. often, i forget to open the eaves for them, and when i do i always feel guilty! there is something miserable (but also humorous) about the sight of a wet, soggy chicken!
  • put the chicken feed pans either under a dry space or inside their house. this chore is related to the previous, but sometimes i remember one and forget the other (how silly of me!). when their food gets wet it is quickly forgotten by them and ends up being a big waste.
  • take our sweet, old dog out to pee before the rain starts. sometimes it rains all day, of course, but in the moments we can feel the rain coming we try to take bridey (our 15-year-old, long-haired shepherd mix) out to pee so she can avoid getting soaked in cold winter rain. our other dog, sirius bolt (a 9-month-old lab/boxer mix) likes to act as though we are torturing him when we take him out during the rain, but he is young and short-haired and his fur dries quicker than you can say “you wet and stinky dog, you!”

sometimes we just can’t get everything done before the rain comes in, but sometimes we can. sometimes we forget or even get a little lazy, but that is the way of things, i guess. you do the best you can for yourself and your animals until you feel those rain drops falling on your head. sometimes you stay out in it a little while (since even cold winter rain can be wonderful to feel if you’re wearing the right garb), and sometimes we come racing back inside and immediately start the hot tea kettle.

whether you live in an apartment or on a homestead, some activities are always completed which herald the rain coming. these activities are the rituals of our lives, and though they can be viewed only as chores, i think it would be better to view them as small traditions and memories in the making.

i still have distinct memories about the rain from my childhood… playing in it with friends… watching the rain on the porch with my dad…

and now i have some new distinct memories to add to that list or perhaps the list of my future children… covering the wood… taking the dog out… opening up the chickens’ windows…

what will our children say was on their list of rainy memories…?

.:.

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