My mom has finished up her colon cancer treatments, and has succesfully battled an infection after the surgery. She's looking great and she feels great.  I'm very thankful it was found so very early and has been treated so succesfully. I'm also thankful that she's doing well enough so that I can now turn my attention back to the important things, such as my writing and my homestead.

We sold our little pony filly, Libby. A woman in southern Ohio bought her to train to drive as a matched partner to another pony filly she has. They are a very close match for each other, with Libby having a bit more white on her.  I feel very good about the arrangement. I've already received some pictures of Libby at her new place. 

The garden is nearly all in.  I need to plant more turnips and rutabagas, but that's it for the next month or so, until the beans are done. This year we've planted, pole beans, bush beans, wax beans, roma beans, sweet corn, cukes, zucchini, yellow straightneck, patty pan squash, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, acorn squash, beets, turnips, rutabagas, parsnips, carrots, tomatoes, sweet peppers (green, red, and yellow), hot peppers, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, potatoes, onions, garlic, leeks, celery, egg plant, watermelon, and pumpkins. Everything looks great so far. We've had some good weather, all in all this year so far.

I'm getting a new puppy. It's an afghan hound, and it'll be ready to come home around my birthday, July 5th. I'm not sure if I'm taking a male or a female yet. We used to have 2 of them. They are the best companion dogs imaginable! They love to romp and play outside, yet they calm down immediately upon being in the house. They are known to be couch potatoes indoors.

We cleaned out the woodshed and have been stacking our wood for the winter in it. By the time the cold weather sets in, the wood will all be dry and excellent to burn.  It's already seasoned, but has been outside in the elements, so it needs some time to really dry out. It's always a nice feeling to go into the winter months with full freezers, a full store room, a full hayloft, and a full woodshed. It's a feeling of security that no amount of money can buy.

Our honeybees have really done amazingly well this spring. We've caught 6 swarms and doubled our colonies. Some of the bees are feral bees and are so very dark that they look black. They are "hot" or fairly aggressive, but they are very healthy and are doing great!  It's almost time to rob (harvest the honey) for the first time this year.  On a really good year, you can rob three times. On average, it's twice in a year. On a bad year, you may only get one robbing. So, we'll be extracting and bottling honey soon.  I already have people on a "waiting list" wanting new honey.

Our chickens are doing well and keeping the eggs coming. We sell about 8 dozen eggs a week, and give the missionaries free eggs whenever they need them. The rest, we use ourselves, or feed to the pigs and dogs. Nothing goes to waste here. It all goes to help feed the farm.

I'm really working right along on volume III of Today's Homestead.  I'm delighted that it's almost finished! Yay!!   Then, it's on to volume IV.

My friends, it has been a while. I haven't neglected this blog, or you, my friends intentionally, but rather real life certainly has a way of interjecting itself into things, sometimes, rather harshly.

A few months ago, my 83 year old mother was diagnosed, through a routine colonoscopy, with colon cancer. She needed a colon resection (major surgery for anyone, but especially one of her age), and whatever follow up treatment her oncologist deemed appropriate after the pathology results were in. It seems I was running her up to see one doctor or another nearly every day, either to the family doctor, the cancer center, her surgeon, or to the hospital for all sorts of scans and tests. Finally, she had her surgery, and seemed to be recovering fairly well from it, until infection set in. It was a difficult time for her, a lot of pain and depression too. It was hard for all of us to see mom suffer like she was. I live the closest to her, so most of the responsibility fell to me to care for her. After a long and ugly course of big time antibiotics, she's finally over that hump and slowly getting back to herself. She's my little miracle mom!  Luckily, they caught her cancer so very early that surgery is all she needed. No chemo or radiation. (She didn't qualify for radiation anyway due to the location of her tumor). So heres to routine cancer screenings! They really do save lives!

It is spring here on the farm. We are behind in getting our garden in because of all the rain we've had, and because I've been away from the farm so much caring for mom. (She lives in a senior apartment in town. She wants to be "independent", and insists on living alone.) I will now devote the majority of my days to getting the garden planted. 

Our plums tree blossoms were nipped by a late frost and so most of our plum crop was lost this year. Our pear trees are more than making up for it though as they look heavy with fruit. Our apples are also sporting more fruit this year as are our cherries and peaches. The strawberry bed is awash with white blossoms and small, still green berries that promise tasty things to come! Our gooseberry bushes are also heavy with fruit for the first time since planting them. Now, if I can only get to the fruit before the birds. Those crafty things seem to be able to figure out how to get to the berries right through the bird netting we "protect" them with each year.

In March Karl hosted a "grafting clinic" where we had a fruit tree propagator come teach us all how to graft apple trees. Out of the 51 apple trees we grafted, only 1 didn't take.  That's a fantastic result! We focused on heirloom apples, such as Norfolk Biffin, and old British variety dating from the 1600's, and Rhode Island Greening, Charles Ross, George Cave, Wealthy, Northern spy, Gravenstein, and Grimes Golden. We also tried our hand at some of the newer and more unusal varieties, such as Sekai ichi, Pink pearl (a green apple with pinkish red flesh), and Kidds' orange red. We have some good old standby's too, like cortland, goodland, and norland.  Next spring, we'll do it again, but we'll focus on pear trees, but we'll do apples again as well.

This past weekend, Karl hosted a beginners honey bee clinic. It was cool and damp, so most of it was conducted indoors, however, we did head out to the hives after it warmed up and dried out a llittle. I managed to put together refreshments that were all honey based.  Now that Mom is doing better, I'll be able to participate more fully in these clinics and homesteading weekends here at the farm. In June, we're having an herb swap!

We've had a rough time with our bottle calves this spring. It's been so cool, wet and windy here that we've had a battle with pneumonia. We lost 3 of the little darlings, but managed to get another 5 of them over the hump and they are doing so much better now. Hopefully, it'll be sunshine and smooth sailing for the next little while.

We're heading down to VA to pick up some dorper and Katahdin sheep in a couple of weeks. We sold our wool sheep and are excited to begin our adventure into hair sheep.

We also have some Amish friends coming to build our new barns sometime during the month of May. It will be a great relief to get those barns as we need the space very much. We're also cross fencing for more paddocks to increase the options with our intensive grazing plan.

All this time with Mom while she was so sick has put me a couple of months behind in my writing. Luckily, I have an understanding publisher! I'm trying to make up for some lost time, but with all the gardening and farm chores I've missed, I'm still not going to make my deadline for volume III of Today's Homestead. Karl has also tried to pick up some of the slack I've left, but with working full time off the farm, he just can't do it all.  I guess it's this sort of thing that keeps life interesting!

This  has been a crazy winter so far. We had snow earlier than usual in December, and then it turned unseasonably warm, and stayed that way for weeks! January rolls around and the warmth persisted for a while. Then, at the end of the month, we were hit with a bad ice storm. Our power went out, and stayed out for over a week. We were fine, with our wood burning cook stove and oil lamps and candles, it was downright cozy. We also had the generator for the freezers and refrigerator, so we pretty much sailed through with no problem. There were many, many others in our community who didn't have it so easy. Many were without power for weeks, and many had to leave their homes because they had no way of heating their homes, or cooking. I am so thankful for our preparedness in that we had everything we needed and didn't have to leave our farm.

Our trees didn't fare as well as we did either. We have extensive tree damage at The Queen's Blessing Farm. As soon as the weather permits (it's still rather cold and wet) and as soon as Karl's work schedule allows, we'll be doing our tree work. The storm caused widespread tree damage that has really increased Karl's workload.  I suppose, with the economy what it is, we should be thankful for the steady work. But with spring right around the corner and so much work to be done before the real warm weather sets in, it's hard to keep in mind the blessings of steady work outside the farm sometimes.

We have another ewe, a speckle faced ewe, who is all bagged out and looks like she'll be delivering her lamb/lambs within the next few days. The little ram that was born last month is turning into a monster! He's half oxford, a quarter suffolk, and a quarter dorset. He's just huge! We'll keep him for our freezer lamb, and we're selling his mama and the other speckled faced ewe who's going to give birth soon to some friends of ours who are new to sheep. We're going to sell the entire flock of suffolk, hampshire cross sheep at the sale barn in Hillsboro next Monday. Then, we can get the pastures ready for hair sheep later in the year. We specifically want to raise katahdins.

There's a new beekeeping organization started in our area, and Karl and I were nominated for administrative positions within it. Elections are to be held during March's meeting, so we'll know for sure then.  Here's the website for anyone in Southern Ohio who may be interested in keeping bees, or already does keep bees and would be interested in joining our group. It's  www.browncountybeekeepers.org   The big goal for this year in Ohio is to work toward creating an all Ohio strain of honeybee so we don't have to keep importing honeybees from other states. We want to minimize the risk of introducing the africanized (killer) honeybees into Ohio if at all possible.

I've ordered all my garden seeds and simply await the calendar and mother nature.  I'm getting spring fever! 

It's been a crazy month! In early January my family went on a long weekend hunting getaway to the cabin. While we were gone, I left my mom to house and puppy sit for me. She did a great job, all except for letting my puppy chew my laptop cord in two!!   Karl repaired the cord for me, but the damage had already been done to my poor laptop. It simply died! So, I ordered a new computer and had to sit patiently out of touch until it arrived. I finally got it, and got it all set up and ready to go (I bought a desk top computer this time) and was looking forward to getting back amongst you all, and getting back to writing volume III of Today's Homestead, when Mother Nature decided to thwart all my plans!

Last week we had a very bad ice storm. It did a lot of tree damage here on the farm, including some of our fruit trees, and our power was knocked out for 5 days. We were fine though, with our kitchen wood stove to heat our home and cook our meals on (and even bake bread in) and we have lots of lamps, lanterns, and candles, as well as a generator to keep our freezers and fridge going, we hardly noticed it. We did heat canner loads of water on the wood stove to fill the tub for a nice hot, soapy soak.  I did miss the hot tub, but I guess that's not exactly a neccessity eh? I really feel for all those people who are still without power and will probably remain without power until mid-February, especially those who aren't as prepared as some others. Lets keep these families in our prayers!

Janie was in heat this week, and Dudley was  most definitely interested. I'll keep my fingers crossed that he got the job done and we'll have puppies in a couple of months. Dudley is getting older and won't be with us for too many more years. Great Pyrenees only live on average of 11 years. He's 9 now. We'd love a puppy to take his place on the farm. This would be Janies 2nd litter. Her first was 2 1/2 years ago and every one of her 7 puppies sold quickly.  They are sold as livestock guardian dogs as they are farm raised around livestock.

We haven't had any more lambs born since this last little guy a month ago. But with the weather so nasty, I suppose that's a good thing! It's supposed to snow today again. This is the type of weather all the lambs were born in last year, and we had one weak little ram lamb that had to be put in a tub of warm water and drenched to save. It was touch and go for a little while with him, but he pulled through and was healthy and rambuctious!

Stay safe and God Bless!

I've been working on my recovery from this surgery, and all is going wonderfully! Karl took me up to the barnyard to see the livestock yesterday, something I've very much missed doing. When we got up there to the sheep pasture, look what greeted out eyes!

This little ram lamb is hopping and jumping around, nursing from mama, and playing in the hay.  I just love little lambs! I guess this is just the beginning of our '09 lambing season.

It's still warm and rainy here.  It just doesn't feel like winter at all!

Thanks Tina, I'll accept your offer to be my weight loss buddy.  I'll email you with my updates, and you have my permission to scold me, encourage me, advise me, and comiserate with me!  :)  Thanks again!

I'm really looking forward to '09 and all cycles of the farm life. 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We sure did! It was nice to have the entire family together on Christmas day.  We spent our holiday at a hunting camp in the mountains of south eastern Ohio.  It was so awesome! It's a ranch style cabin with 2 bedrooms and a loft. Besides my husband, Karl, and myself, we had our son and his wife and little son, and our daughter, and her husband and 2 of their children. The guys went out hunting every day, and the girls stayed home at the cabin and tended the children and cooked the meals on the woodstove, worked on a couple of beautiful jigsaw puzzles and just chatted. It was really nice. The cabin has indoor plumbing, but no electricity. It does have a generator, but it's noisy and we didn't want to terrify the deer, so we didn't use it. We used oil lamps and candles instead. It was so nice! At night you could look outside and see nothing but bare naked trees swaying in the cold breeze, and thousands of stars glittering in a velvety black sky. There were no other lights visible at all anywhere, and it was soooo hushed and quiet. We're looking into building a hunting cabin of our own now.  Oh, and Karl got a doe, so we have some venison in the freezer now too.

My ankle is healing up from my surgery nicely. I'm taking PT two times a week now that we're home from vacation. It's still sore, but I know that will work itself out over time and therapy.  I'm really pleased with the results of the surgery!

So, do we have any resolutions for the New Year?  I am determined that I'm going to lose this stubborn 25 lbs I've gained over the past couple of years. I've joined Weight Watchers, and I'll let you all know how it goes.   I want to be at my target weight by June of 2009.  Anyone want to be my weight loss buddy?

I'm also resolute about getting my fiction finished and published. My goal is to get the work finished by December 2009, and look for a publisher for release in 2010.  I will also continue with my homesteading series, Today's Homestead.  Volume III should be out by March or April, at the latest.

I'm disappointed in how little snow we've had so far this year.  We usually have several inches by this time of year, but it's been in the 50's and if we get any precipitation, it's rain.  No white Christmas for us this year, and 2009 is coming in green and entirely too warm.  This can't be good for the orchard trees, or for the sap run this year.

We've received our seed cataloges and are busy planning our 2009 garden. Are you all planning your gardens too? What are you all considering planting? Trying anything new this year?

Have a safe, and blessed New Year everyone! 

I want to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving! I know we all have a lot to be thankful for. Karl and I have been very blessed over the years, especially this year, and we are so very thankful for all of His blessings.

Well, I had my ankle surgery on Monday, the 24th. Monday was a good day, but then, I was pretty much pumped full of pain killers. Tuesday is another story. By Tuesday morning, most of the drugs they'd given me in the hospital had worn off and I really felt the pain. I have a hard cast on my leg from the toes to just below the knee. The ankle is swelling, and I have to keep it elevated. When it swells, the pressure in the cast is very uncomfortable.

Karl had to work yesterday, and I was going to be home alone. He got me set up on the couch with nearly everything I could need for the day. But I hate taking pain killers, especially the percocet and ultram they gave me, so I took nothing most of the day. By afternoon, I hurt so bad! I tried to take Ibuprofin, but it did little to numb the pain. So, instead, I laid on the couch and cried and felt sorry for myself. What a silly girl!

By the time Karl came home from work I was so depressed and in so much pain. He made me some dinner and then helped me to get to bed. He gave me a blessing and then gave me some of the prescription pain killers. Within half an hour, I was asleep and I slept like a baby all night.

This morning was much better. I took advil throughout the day to keep the swelling and pain under control. I'd like to keep the narcotic type pain killers for bedtime only. Tonight, Karl had a church meeting and I'm here at home alone on the couch watching some television and using my laptop. I'll take another prescription pain killer before I go to bed tonight.

My daughter is hosting Thanksgiving dinner for the entire family tomorrow. It will be nice for the whole family to be together again. I really love the Holidays!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Tina reminded me that I hadn't posted anything about the release of the second volume in my homesteading series. Thank you for that reminder, Tina.  I guess that just goes to show how busy I've been around here, and where my mind has been,or hasn't been, as the case may be!

You can click on the pictures to order the books. They are also available at www.amazon.com or www.booksbydona.com

It's been a while since I've written. Not that I haven't been thinking about all my friends here, but we've been so very busy on the farm, getting things ready for the long winter months ahead.

We've nearly finished all the butchering. The pigs and steer are all in the freezer. The last of the rabbits to go to freezer camp are also pack in. We have a few chickens, one turkey and a pheasant left to butcher. We also have a lamb to fit in there somewhere.

Speaking of lambs; fall lambing season is just about here. We've been working on getting the lambing jugs ready for that. We have 2 ewes who should deliver fall lambs and the rest should all deliver in the spring. One of our fall ewes looks like she might be carrying twins!

We have over 100 laying hens right now. We're going to sell some of the 2 year old hens and keep most of the younger flock. We bought some new cuckoo marans, black australorpes, white rocks, and silver laced wyandottes (baby chicks) in October. We'll add Welsummers to the farm in the spring. This is part of our effort to deliver the rich colored, dark eggs our customers prefer.

I go in on the 24th of November for my ankle surgery. I broke my ankle in a car accident 3 years ago, and it hasn't healed right, so they are going to clean it up and fix it right. Hopefully I won't be so unstable on this ankle after the surgery. I'll be in a cast for about 4 weeks, and then in a boot for the next 4 weeks. I decided to do this in the winter as I can afford to take some down time then.  It would interfere with too many things if I had it done in the spring or summer.

Karl is on vacation from work this week, and he's spent all his spare time, what there is of it, deer hunting on our property. We have a thicket of "Autumn Olives", a weedy shrub that spreads like wildfire, where the deer like to hide out. He noticed this year that there's a bumper crop of berries, so he picked about 5 gallons of them. I've made 12 jars of jam, and I'm working on the fruit leather. We all love autumn olive fruit leather! Here's the recipe, for all of you who are lucky enough to have this weedy shrub growing on your property;

Autumn Olive Fruit Leather
4 cups of Autumn Olive Berry pulp
1 Tbsp Lemon juice
1/4 to 1/2 cup raw honey

To make the berry pulp, add one half cup of water to every 4 cups of washed Autumn olive berries. Bring to a boil, and cook until the seeds have separated from the berry.  Run through a food mill or a sieve to remove seeds, and return pulp to saucepan.  Add the lemon juice and honey to taste.  Lay a piece of waxed paper on a cookie sheet and spread the pulp on it to about 1/4 of an inch thick. If you have a dehydrator, you can cover your trays with waxed paper and spread the pulp on them. Then, dehydrate as usual. If using the oven, place the cookie sheets of pulp in an oven at the lowest setting, generally between 140 and 170 degrees, for 10-12 hours. When the leather is done, it will peel up from the paper and will be slightly tacky in the center, but not sticky.  You can cut the cooled leather in serving size peices and roll them up if desired. Leather should be stored in an airtight container or in plastic bags.

I've finally got my new webpage up and running. On it, you can purchase my book, or check out the latest happenings on the farm. We have a new homesteading forum set up there too, where we can all get together and discuss our homesteading adventures, share pearls of wisdom with one another, and make new friendships. Come check it out! www.booksbydona.com  A few boards are still under construction, so bear with us for a little while! Part of the reason I've set these up is because I've been getting so many requests and questions that I'm having a hard time keeping up, so I thought this would make it easier for all of us. I sincerely apologize to all who've messaged me that I haven't responded to yet. I'm just overwhelmed with it all. (I guess I'm not as organized as I could be!)

I've had 3 colds, (count them 3!) so I've not felt up to doing a whole lot.  I keep getting these colds from snuggling and kissing my grandchildren, I know! We pass it back and forth amongst us. I know I shouldn't, but I just can't resist.  I'm trying to behave though, just until the cold has moved on to some other corner of the county and then it'll be huggin' and kissin' time again!

We're putting the garden to bed, letting the animals enjoy the last of it's fruits before the frosts hit. We'll then spread it with compost and till it all under, and await spring. Only another couple of months before the seed catalogs arrive in the mailbox! YaY!

Volume II of Today's Homestead, which deals with all different types of gardening issues, will be out in November.  There are chapters on vegetable gardening, herb gardening, orchard management, and raising berries and grapes. I'll let you all know the date as soon as I know.

We've managed to find new homes for all of Meg's kitties. We are keeping two for barn cats. They are both males, orange and white, and will be neutered as soon as they hit 4 months of age.

We had a bit of an accident on the farm, when a tree fell on our logsplitter during a violent windstorm. It crushed the motor and bent the frame a little. We ordered a new motor for it, and we can still use it despite the bent frame.  Thank goodness! They are so expensive and this one is only a little over a year old! We have a lot more firewood to cut up so that it can season for next year. Our woodshed is full of firewood for this coming winter. I love the feel of the woodstove on a blustery winter day! There's nothing like it!

Hope to see you all on the forums!

~Dona

People all over this country are concerned about their economic future. It really makes me thankful for everything we have here at The Queen's Blessing Farm. We have plenty of food, plenty of firewood, and plenty of things to keep us occupied during these difficult times. I can't imagine being one of the many who have to buy all their heating fuel and food each year. Prices are so high for everything!

We had a very bad wind storm here a couple of weeks ago. It was actually the remnants of hurricane Ike, and it did a lot of damage and left a lot of people with no power for a week, and more in some cases. We were only without power for a few short hours, but we try to be prepared for power outages all the time. We have a generator for our freezers, lots of oil lamps and candles, and plenty of board games!  Karl actually got called out to work during the worst of the storm and is still working on storm cleanup. He was supposed to take vacation next week to oversee the building of our new barn, but the main office has cancelled everyone's vacation until the storm damage is under control. We've postponed the barn raising until November. It'll be a little colder, but it shouldn't be too bad. I'll keep the woodstove going so the guys can come get warmed up when they need to/want to.

I need to make soap this week.  I'm nearly out,and I've been so busy that I haven't made any in a few months, and it takes a full month for the soap to cure enough to use. I have plenty of laundry soap still, so I don't have to worry about making that right now.

Deer bow season started a week ago. We haven't had a lot of time to go out hunting, but we have gone out a couple of times. Last year Karl got one on opening day. This year, we were too busy to go out on opening day.

I hope you all find peace of mind in these tough times. Take refuge and comfort in your homesteads. Gather your families in and keep those bonds strong. That really will make these difficult times a little easier.

There's so much to do, and not enough hours in the day to get it all done! At least the garden is nearing an end for this year. I still have a few tomatoes ripening and some bell peppers maturing on the plants, but for the most part, the garden is spent. I harvested the last few butternut squash yesterday. I also pulled the cucumber vines and fed them to the pigs. We've been picking the dry beans lately too. They're always good in soups and such during the winter.

We had a very bad wind storm last week (the remnants of hurricane Ike) that knocked out our power out for a while. Many people have been without power for a week now. We were only out for 12 hours. Our power went out at 3pm on Sunday, and my husband was called into work at 4pm. Being a tree surgeon for a major tree company, he get's the option to work on "storm" calls, which are good money and he loves to be "in the thick of things" anyway. He worked all night long and got a 2 hour nap in his truck from 6am Monday morning to 8 am, when he headed out to work again. He then worked until 7pm Monday night. By the time he got home around 8pm, he was just exausted. I let him take his shower and go right to bed, and I went out and did all the farm chores for him. Our power came back on around 3am Monday morning. Karl has been working mandatory overtime to help get all the storm damage cleaned up as the power company tries to restore power to thousands of people.

I went to an annual nursey and greenhouse auction last weekend in Hillsboro. I bought 13 new fruit trees to add to our orchard. 3 peach trees, 1 plum tree, and 8 apple trees and a pear tree. That brings our total to 5 peach trees, 4 plum trees, 12 apple trees, 4 pear trees, 4 sweet cherry trees, and 2 pie cherry trees. That's a good start, but we'll need twice that many before our orchard is complete. It will be several years still before this "pick-your-own" venture of ours comes to any fruition (pardon the pun!).

I've been asked to post my cornmeal yeast recipe, which I promise to do tomorrow. It's late here now, and I should be in bed. I have an early day at church tomorrow.

Peace to us all,

Today was yeast making day. I made potato yeast, and old fashioned corn meal yeast. The potato yeast makes a lighter, fluffier loaf, especially when combined with a little active dry yeast, while the corn meal yeast makes for a heavier, more full bodied, yeast flavored loaf. We love them both, and I usually alternate between the two. I also do a conventional sour-dough. Karl loves sour-dough! He especially loves sour-dough pancakes on a cold winter morning with home churned butter melting between the cakes and real homestead maple syrup drizzled over the top. MmmMmmm! Now that's a satisfying breakfast, especially when paired with our own sugar cured and smoked bacon!

Meg's kitties are getting big and are very playful. They'll be ready to go to new homes in another couple of weeks. They are such adorable little things! We're keeping two males (to be eventually neutered) for barn cats, and my daughter is taking the 3rd male. All the males are some variation of white with orange markings. My mom is taking a little calico female. All the females are some form of calico. So, that will only leave 2 little females to find homes for. Then, mama-meg is getting spayed!

I believe Janie is bred too! I really hope so. Dudley is getting to be an old boy, and we'd love to have one of his pups to keep.

I just bought a smooth top stove for the kitchen. The old coil top stove will go down in the new basement kitchen where we'll do all the canning and butchering. We'll keep the honey extracting equipment down there and use that space for a honey kitchen too. We have the countertops already, but we just need to find some time to actually install them! Hopefully this winter, when things slow down for us. Then, we'll be all set to use the basement kitchen for the '09 harvest.

We removed several trees from the site of the new barn last weekend. It sure looks bare now, compared to what it looked like before. But the barn will cover a large area and will have a chicken house attached to it. The barn itself without the chicken house is 30 by 40. It will used primarily for a lambing barn, but will serve many different purposes, including equipment, hay and feed storage.

I really need to get out the camera and post some pictures of The Queen's Blessing Farm.

Greetings friends!

It looks like we might actually get some rain today. I'm keeping my fingers crossed! Our pastures need rain desperately.

Sally has asked for my sweet dill pickle recipe, so here it is. Sally, thanks so much for reading my blog!   I'm happy to share my sweet pickle recipe with you.

Thanks to all of you who have purchased my book. I welcome all questions, reviews and comments.

I canned some calico tomatoes today. Calico style tomatoes are red and yellow tomatoes canned together. They make an attractive, tasty, and colorful product.

I went through my cucumber patch and picked the last of the cukes. Quite a few of them were yellow already, so I'll make a batch of senf gherkin, also called thunder and lightning pickles. It's a great recipe for using over-ripe cucumbers.

Meg's kitties are out and about now. They're chasing every ant and beetle that crawls along the paths. Meg just seems to want to find some place where the kittens are not! They are only 5 weeks old, so not old enough to be without mama yet. I'll start them on solid food this week.

Our church is coming to help build a new barn next month. We have a lot of prep work to do, with removing trees and getting some dozer work done, and setting the main poles, that we'll be busy for the next few weeks!

Again, thanks to all my friends out there.

Greetings all!

Sherry-it's great to hear from you! Did you finally get that pup to behave around your goats and act like a good LGD? We have finally been able to keep Dudley in the pasture with the sheep, and have been able to let him off the lead line.

Bob- So far as fruit trees are concerned, it really depends on your location. Where are you? The further north you live, the better your selection is, although too far north and you limit your choices a little again. They're making more and more cultivars that can tolerate a colder climate. It's harder to find fruit trees, such as apple or pear, that survive in the south due to the chilling requirements of the trees. A lot also depends on your property. Do you have the room needed to plant standard size trees, and the patience to wait the necessary 5 to 10 years for them to bear? Do you need to plant dwarf varieties because of limited space, or the desire for fruit in the near future? Then, there are the semi-dwarf, which are a nice compromise between the two. We've planted some of each. The nice thing about standard trees is that you get a very high yield on one tree. 

Our garden is starting to really ebb now. Thank goodness! I'm still canning tomatoes though. I've given away a couple bushels of produce, mainly tomatoes, pickling cukes, and greenbeans. We just planted far too many. Our winter squash, (butternut), are ready to harvest. The vines are nicely dried and the squash have that warm tawny color to them.  I have a few sugar pie pumpkins on the vines that aren't ripe yet, but within the month they will be ready.

We picked pears last weekend, and we canned pears and made pear mincemeat and pear sauce. We also made crab apple jelly, crab apple butter, and a luscious crab apple cake. I froze a few quarts so we could enjoy crab apple pie and another crab apple cake during the snowy days of winter.

We also harvested honey and extracted it for a second time this year. Our honey flow has been great this year, better than anything we've had in recent years! We got about 6 gallons this time. We have one hive that was not doing so well. Karl went through them about 2 weeks ago and found that they are queenless, so he put in a frame of brood from another hive. We checked them a couple of days ago, and they have made 2 queen cells, so we feel a little better about their prognosis now. I tell you, Karl's bees are like his pets! I'm surprised he doesn't have them all named yet!

I'm back working on the 3rd book in my homesteading series. I took a bit of a break in between the 2nd and 3rd book, but it's time to hit the word processor again!

Only 2 1/2 weeks until fall. The leaves are still emerald green here. Only every once in a while can you find the hint of color creeping into a few maple leaves or poplars. It's been drier than usual here too. I'm still looking for the hickory nuts and black walnuts to start hitting the ground, but they're just not there this year. I haven't seen many acorns either.  It's going to be a hard winter for some of the wildlife at this rate. The Farmer's Almanac is predicting a cold, snowy, and "wild" winter this year. I'm glad we have our firewood in for the year already!

Crab apple cake

Here's the first volume of my homesteading series of books. I've been working on this series for a very long time! Volume II should be out in late fall.  You can learn more about Today's Homestead, and buy your copy at www.booksbydona.com  or at amazon.com  It can also be ordered at most major booksellers across the country.

What a weekend! It all started Friday night when Karl brought home half a bushel of Dolgo crab apples. I made rosy crab apple jelly, spiced crab apple butter, and crab apple pancake syrup. I have about a quart of crab apples left that I'm going to make into crab apple cup cakes for Karl to take to work and share the bounty.

A elderly friend also invited us to come pick her pears, as she isn't interested in them this year, and while we were there, her daughter, who only lives a short distance up the road, asked if we'd be interested in picking her concord grapes, as she wasn't going to do anything with them this year. While Karl picked pears, a friend and I  went and picked the grapes. We divided them evenly and still have a LOT of grapes!  Karl picked 2 bushels of pears. Wow! What blessings! Our own fruit tress and grape vines are still so young that many didn't produce at all this year, and those that did, didn't produce very much at all. (Our pear trees blessed us with one pear, and we got 4 peaches off of peach tree this year. Our cherry trees did very well though).

So, I came home on Saturday afternoon and we started in making grape jam and all the crab apple goodies. I've sorted the pears, and the biggest ones will go into canned pear halves, the smaller ones will go into ginger pear sauce.  I also have a lot of tomatoes coming in all at once and need to make spaghetti sauce and salsa.

My son and his wife are on vacation this week, so I won't be watching my grandson until they go back to work next week. I have more time to get everything done and get my home cleaned up again. My housework gets so neglected during canning season.

I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father for allowing me these bountiful blessings, as well as the opportunity to share them.