Homesteading with kids

 Alex helps mow the grass

Tater helps plant pepper seedlings

One of the best parts about trying to live a more self-sufficient lifestyle is having the opportunity to pass on important lessons and skills to your kids. Resourcefulness, thriftiness, compassion, and the ability to think critically are all things that children gain from learning to garden and cook or having to take care of animals. Learning about food preservation instills that value of being prepared for the unexpected. Having chores or helping to fix things around the house builds self-confidence and responsibility. Considering the amount of time that most children in modern American culture spend consuming various forms of electronic media (7 hours and 38 minutes per day, according to a study done by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Stanford University), these are character traits that a lot of young people today are missing out on. My experiences in the classroom suggest to me much the same thing.

Once of my goals as a parent is to give my children as many character building opportunities as possible. I want them to have the chance to maximize their potential as intelligent, creative, responsible young people. That's not to say that other parent don't want those things for their children, but rather that I think a lot of parents today simply don't pay enough attention to actively fostering those things in them. With the hectic pace of modern life, it's easy to let things go on auto pilot. People are busy and tired, so they stop keeping tabs on how much time kids are spending online or playing xbox. Cooking from scratch and eating as a family become too much of a hassle, so they order out or heat something up in the microwave. Texting and Facebook updates replace face to face conversation. I suppose it is a time honored tradition of cranky old people to complain about younger generations, but an awful amount of my students seem to be self absorbed and completely disconnected from the world around them. They lack the ability to think and do things for themselves, and they are incapable of taking responsibility for their actions. Have kids always seemed like this? I suppose, but it doesn't mean that I have to idly sit by and accept it in my children.

Below is a short video of Erik helping me can salsa yesterday. I'm sure a lot of parents would squirm at the thought of letting an 8 year old do this. With all of that boiling water, hot jars, and bubbling salsa, there were ample opportunities for him to burn himself; and truth be told, he did burn his fingers a couple of times. But you know what? He didn't kill himself, and he learned how do it correctly in a way that he wouldn't have if he had simply watched me do it. True learning is born out of experience, and by doing it for him self, Erik learned that he is able to do much more than starring at a tv screen and pushing buttons. One of my greatest joys as a father is the look on my kids' faces when they find out what they are really capable of (look for it at the end of the clip).

Erik cans salsa

July 2011 Update

July is nearly over, I need to finish my art supply orders, and next week I have faculty meetings…school is right around the corner. Gak! Where did summer go? I’m about a month past due for a mid-year check up on my goals for the ‘Burbstead, so let’s see how things are progressing.

1. Egg Patch: The turnips failed to germinate. The carrots, while producing lovely tops, have only managed to make roots the size of my pinky finger (and they’re supposed to be 6-8” long). They taste good, but they aren’t going to feed many chickens. The okra is up and doing nicely, so I should wind up with a good bit if seed. I planted Bloody Butcher and Hopi Blue field corn. The Blue is for seed, since I only had a small handful to begin with. Any of the Bloody Butcher that produces ears will go to the chooks. This fall, I’m going to have another go at turnips and beets. I’m also going to try growing the Dinosaur kale that Autonomy Acres recommended. I may have had some bad luck early in the Spring, but I need to do better. Grade: C-

2. Season Extension: The peas, lettuce, and radishes that were planted under cover came in really well and way ahead of last year. I transplanted a bunch of Silvery Fir Tree and Amish paste tomatoes under a tunnel in April. The SFT’s are going strong, and they’re a couple weeks ahead of last year as well. As for the hoop house, I knocked together the base back in the Spring, and I found another trampoline frame. I have the hardware sitting in my car, and I dug up some lumber that will work for runners. I need to assemble the frame here in the next couple of weeks before school and football really get into full swing. Grade: A-

3. Growing more herbs: I wound up deciding against putting an herb spiral into the garden, but I used some pots that were laying around to make an impromptu herb garden on a patio table. I planted Sage, Thyme, Basil, Cilantro, and Mint. It was looking pretty good…until we went to Branson for 5 days. The temperatures were in the mid – upper 90’s the whole time we were gone with no rain. When we got back, most of the plants were fried to a crisp. I should have gotten some of those little water globe things they advertise on tv. The Sage is still good, some of the Thyme is straggling by, and one of the Basil plants is still green-ish. Hopefully they will bounce back with plenty of H2O. I also have dill and cilantro sprinkled throughout the garden. That’s doing good. Grade: B

Herbs before

Herbs after

4. Documenting my harvest: In the past I’ve done a fair job keeping track of planting and harvest times and other garden notes. I wanted to do that, plus keep more specific track of how much food I was actually growing. Then, sometime in early May, I lost my garden notebook. Rather than making a new one, I just stopped doing it all together. Shame on me for being a lazy bastard. Grade: F

5. Front yard gardening: My efforts in the front yard this year have been largely experimental, but I think they’ll set the stage for more robust planting in the future. I planted a couple of rows of kidney beans along the front of our side yard fence. Next to the driveway, I planted corn, amaranth, lettuce, herbs, and flowers. It’s interesting to see how slight variations in the amount of daylight can affect the growth of the plants. Also, the wabbits have pretty much left the plants alone. Next year, I want to have a more substantial front yard garden, but so far, I’m happy with what I’ve gotten. Grade: A-

Front yard beans

Front yard corn and amaranth

6. Rain Catchment: Oh right, that…errr… Grade: F-

7. Clean the chimney: So I borrowed my Uncle Randy’s chimney sweeping tools, and spent a Saturday afternoon on the roof and in the fireplace cleaning a few years worth of squirrel nest out of the chimney. I got it to the point where I could see clear out the top. I lit a fire, and there was still a lot of smoke coming into the living. This fall I may have to call on the services of someone who is better trained than I am. Grade: B

8. Ramp up / organize food storage: I’ve just started my food preservation efforts for the year, and I’ve already put away a bit more pickles than I did last year (including my first go at Bread and Butter pickles). I have enough tomatoes now that I can start making some sauces and salsas and preserves. I need to hit up the farmer’s market for some more food, because I have yet to press my dehydrator into service. This year, I would like to try drying some strawberries and peppers, making peach jam, and freezing more squash and okra. I need to make sure I don’t get lazy on this. Grade: B+

Pickles July 2011

9. Solar drying / cooking: Ok, I haven’t done any solar drying or cooking this year, even though this summer has been pretty much perfect for it (perhaps a bit humid, but still hotter than blazes). However, I have managed to take advantage of the sun’s energy in a different way. When June got here, I finally broke down and turned on the AC. In an effort to offset the increased electric bill a little bit, I strung some clothesline up on the kids’ jungle gym in the back yard. It won’t completely negate the cost off running the AC, but the dryer is the next biggest electricity hog, so minimizing its usage can’t hurt. Grade: B

Swing set-clothesline

10. Meat chickens: Well, we didn’t get a bunch of meat chickens, but we did manage to increase the size of our layer flock. At one point, we had 13 chickens. The white hen Cookie succumbed to the heat (I think), and I took 5 of the new chickens to my parents’ when it became obvious that they were roosters. That puts us at 7 chickens. However, upon further review, one of the remaining pullets turned out to be a roo. At this point, he’s not very good at crowing, so I think I’m going keep him a little while longer until he’s big enough to butcher here. That will mean that I raised a meat chicken on the ‘Burbstead. Here’s to meeting the most unlikely of goals, even if it is by a technicality. Grade: A

My final "GPA" winds up being a 2.65 (C+). The two F's really hurt, but there's room improvement pretty much everywhere. By the end of the year, I'd like to be up to a B or better.

M

Goals for 2011

Ok, so 2011 is a week and a half old now, and it’s time to get organized for the coming year. There are plenty of things that need to happen around the ‘Burbstead. Some of them are exciting, new projects, some of them are lingering from last year. Rather than calling these resolutions, we’ll say that they’re goals. Goals strike me as something that you can chip away at a bit at a time, rather than something that has to happen all at once. I’ll try to check back in a couple of months to see how my progress is coming.

Garden:

1. Grow an “Egg Patch” in the garden. This coming Spring, will make two years that we’ve had chickens here. We give them every opportunity to forage in the yard and are constantly feeding them kitchen and garden scraps, but the bulk of their food still comes from the feed store. While the eggs we get are of a noticeably higher quality than store eggs (a fact made obvious when I happened to use one of each in a recipe recently), we’re essentially buying our eggs from the feed store. In an effort to increase our degree of self-reliance, I’m going to dedicate a portion of the garden this year to growing food for the chickens. At this point, I plan to plant Mangel Beets, Danvers Carrots, and Turnips (for roots and greens). I also want to include cracked corn and sorghum seed from my parent’s house. The root veggies will be shredded or chopped somehow, and mixed with the other stuff.

Goal: Grow ½ or more of the feed my hens eat this coming year.

2. Get serious about season extension. I’ve dabbled with cold frames and low tunnels in the past, but it has certainly been nothing to do my collection of Eliot Coleman books proud. I currently have lettuce and spinach under cover, and it has supplied me with a couple of salads this winter. I plan to use it along with my cold frames to get an early jumpstart on the garden this Spring. The bigger plan, however, is to try to complete the larger hoop house that I’ve been planning for a year or so now. The idea is to use the frames from a couple of old trampolines to build the hoops, and use lumber (1x4’s) to connect them. The end result would be 12’ wide and about 20’ long. I have one trampoline now, and I’ll need 2 more. I’m keeping an eye on Craigslist, as people occasionally list them in the free section.

Goal: Maximize my existing season extenders, and complete work on a 12x20 hoophouse.

3. I need to grow more herbs. Thus far my herb growing hasn’t extended much past cilantro, basil, and a bit of oregano. I have seed for a variety of different things, I just haven’t made planting and using them a priority. This year I want to expand my garden beyond just vegetables, and then learn how to the things I grow.

Goal: Grow more herbs than I have before, including a traditional herb spiral somewhere in the garden.

4. Documenting my harvest. For the past couple of years I’ve kept a garden journal of sorts. I generally start off keeping pretty specific records of what varieties I’m planting, planting dates, where things are going in the garden, the progress of different plants, etc. By the time that the end of summer rolls around, my record keeping is much more sporadic, and by the end of the fall, it’s fairly non-existent. These records have been helpful from year to year, but I’d like to have a more concrete idea of how much we’re actually getting from the garden.

Goal: This year I need to keep up with my garden records better than I have in the past, specifically tracking the amount of produce that we harvest.

5. Planting in the front yard. 2011 is the year that my garden is going to break out of the back yard. The front side of our house faces west, so parts of the front yard get decent mid-day to late afternoon light. However, there is an enormous oak tree right in the middle of the yard, so a lot of space is in pretty constant shade. The challenge will be to find a mix of partial sun and shade loving plants that are edible and landscape well. Also, I’ll have to figure out how best to keep wascally wabbits out.

Goal: Plant/install edible landscaping in front of the house that is aesthetically pleasing, productive, and compatible with the front yard’s microclimate.

Projects

1. Rain catchment. It was just about a year ago that I got a 275 gallon tank from a guy off of craigslist. It was purchased with the intent of running a gutter downspout into the top, and putting a spigot for a hose in the bottom so that I could water the garden with rainwater when things got dry. Somehow, it has not managed to work its way to the top of the priority list in the past 365 days. I need to get off of my ass and make this happen this Spring.

Goal: Finish the rain catchment tank…pronto.

2. Clean out the chimney. For right now, the wood stove thing doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. We do, however, have a perfectly good fire place right here in our living room. I hadn’t had a fire in it since we moved in almost 2 years ago, and when I tried to start one in early December, it clearly wasn’t venting properly. A trip to the roof plus some climbing into the fireplace revealed that there is an undetermined amount of leaves and sticks in there. I recently borrowed my uncle Randy’s chimney sweeping tools so I can clean it out, and use the fireplace again.

Goal: Get the fireplace up and running in time for it to help heat the house this winter. Also, scrounge up enough free wood to make this worth while (no $5 bundles of gas station wood for me)

Food Storage/Prep

1. Get organized. I’ve been canning for 3 years now, a little more each year. This year I’m going to try using one of my mom’s pressure canners. Last Fall I bought a dehydrator, and I have an upright freezer in my basement. I’ve used all of these food preservation methods in varying capacity, but I haven’t really pushed myself on any of them. This year, I’d like to really work at filling my storeroom. I want to start my food preservation earlier in the summer, and put up food in quantities that are going to have an increasingly meaningful impact on our food security.

Goal: Preserve more food than I have in years past. Utilize freezing, drying, and canning to maximize my food storage; and look to farmers markets and grocery stores – as well as my own garden – to find food to preserve.

2. Solar cooking. The use of solar and haybox cookers is a practice that goes back over a hundred years. While I don’t figure they will replace our stove or oven any time soon, I think it’s a smart thing to investigate, and a useful skill to have should the need ever arise. I don’t currently own a solar cooker or a haybox, but both can be built fairly easily and inexpensively.

Goal: Build a solar cooker and haybox. Learn how to use them proficiently enough that Renee and the kids will eat meals I cook with them.

3. Meat chickens. Oooh boy. Of all these goals, this is the one that is most fraught with marital danger. I purchased our initial flock of chickens at the Baker Creek spring planting festival in 2009. I did so without consulting my wife first. To say that she was not thrilled would be a gross understatement. Over the course of the past year and a half, she has wasted no opportunity to remind me of the time I “drug home those damn chickens”. To be honest, they don’t really affect her day to day life that much. The kids and I feed them and check for eggs. Occasionally she will help me move the coop. Nevertheless, that initial shock of finding poultry in our house has put a bad taste in her mouth with regard to further chicken ownership. Still, I think anyone who has ever seen the conditions in which industrial chickens are raised and processed has to at least consider raising their own birds. Sure you can buy free range chicken from local farmers at the farmers market, but to be honest, that stuff is always way more expensive than I can afford. Will I be able to convince my wife that it is a worthwhile investment of time and money to raise our own meat chickens? I don’t know, but after the last time, I’m certainly not going to buy them without asking first.

Goal: Expand our small livestock operation to include meat chickens. If they get the ix-nay, plan B is rabbits. Wish me luck

Prepping and Pocketknives

Rob - who blogs at One Straw- recently posted a genius, if somewhat generalizing, thought about how to tell people who are interested in preparedness and self-sufficiency from those who are not.

"I have often thought that one could draw a loose, but fairly accurate, line through male society along the line of Those That Carry Pocket Knives and Those That Do Not. Go to any birthday party and when the stubborn ribbon hits, there is always one or two people there that quickly reach into their pocket to produce a small tool to do the job."

I grew up around men who carried pocketknives, almost to a person. It seems like a silly little thing to make note of, but it really is indicative of a broader mindset - when push comes to shove, I'll try to do things for myself. I always carry a small folding pocket knife and a leatherman-type tool. I think it's also indicative of the mindset of young people raised in a dependent, frightened, urban environment that most of my students express fear or anxiety when I get my knife out to use it for something. In most of their eyes, a knife is a dangerous thing, and the only reason that someone would have one on them is to do bad things. I hope to raise my kids to understand how to properly use and appreciate tools, and to have an "I'll do it for myself" attitude. In short, I want them to be pocketknife carriers.