Monday, May 18, 2009

Duck Devastation


My ducks, Aflac and Blue Moon, have been MURDERED and I know not by what, except that it was an animal. They were fine last night at 7, right after Daniel got home from work. This morning, at 6:30, when the girls went outside, they were dead. Something had jumped the fence, killed one right there on the spot, started eating it, and then went after the other one, taking it over the fence as it fled. There is one body and a trail of feathers and blood leading away from the pen. What gets me is that I am 5'8 and the fence goes every bit up to my arm pit. What ever it was was good. Now I'm afraid I will have to build a pen with a top on it that I can still get in. It is a devastating thing to have to happen. My only consolation is that they were 8years old and had a good life. I am sad and frustrated though.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Mosquito Danger



The Mosquito danger is back with us and in full force. We have got early mosquitoes that are large and aggressive. The moment they bite you you know it and you feel it for a while after. We all know about the diseases that mosquitoes carry. West Nile seems to be the most concerning one at the moment. Each years the spread seems farther and farther around the country.



It is very important that we take extra precautions around our homesteads not to encourage the growth and spread of mosquitoes by giving them an environment ideal to their multiplication. Standing water and then tall grasses are the two things that mosquitoes love the most. And don't you know, I have an abundance of both on my property. I walked around on Saturday dumping out and turning over everything I could find that was holding water. I got bit several times in the process. I have a couple of welts on my legs that I didn't appreciate getting. But, then again, I didn't take any precautions to prevent myself from getting bitten, so it is my own fault.

One of the safest ways to get rid of mosquitoes is by placing a sauces of water with a couple of drops of Dawn dish soap in areas that mosquitoes frequent, or around the yard when you are having an outdoor activity. The mosquitoes are attracted to it, drink it, and die. But kids and pets don't if they get into it. Try it. It works. Just a thought.



































































My Little Homestead on the Prairie


This is my little homestead on the prairie. It is a 2,ooosqft modular on a full basement. The original home that was here was a 1,000sqft bi-level home built in 1892. I loved that little house so much. But, a friend of mine burnt it down several years ago and now we have this one. There are eight of us so my husband is building some bedrooms, a bathroom, a storage room and a family room in the basement. It's slow going, but getting there. We live on eight acres of honest to goodness prairie ground. The upside is that we are surrounded by farmland, except our acerage, and we only have one neighbor across the street and not another one for miles in every direction. The downside is that because we live on prairie, what we don't activly cultivate gets swallowed up by thick, unyielding prairie grass and the fastest growing trees you've ever seen. Since we weren't able to rebuild right away, our land has been overrun by the trees that grow like weeds. It's a gigantic mess. Daniel, my husband, almost feels powerless to do anything about it. We don't have the right equipment to deal with the problem and we don't have the liquid funds to keep renting the heavy equipment needed. We just keep doing our best, though, and eventually it will come together.
On our property we have a big metal double car gaurage with a side entrance section for the tractor, which we don't keep in there. Actually, the only two cars in there right now are Daniel's Mustang (he's restoring it) and a geo that he's trying to find an engin for. We also have a washhouse, that is now my studio since our modular came with a laundryroom; a library, that was actually the chicken mansion that Daniel and I built to hold 177 chickens; and a couple of animal pens, two that were there already and two that I put up because I wanted animals. There had been a barn but it burnt down before we bought the property. So instead of a barn we have a slab of concreat. There is a silo in the field that is falling apart one piece at a time. There is also a spring fed seasonal creek that runs at the front of our property. A couple of times this spring it has actually become a little fast moving river. Our area has gotten a lot of rain and has flooded in many places. We are lucky to be one of the few that have not been fludded (knock on wood.) We have a section at the top of our property that is wooded and everything else is just open field. There is not much too it, but it has all the potential that I need.
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Sunday, May 10, 2009

Butchering - A Good Skill to Learn

My husband, Daniel, is new to hunting so every year I beg him to ask the guys at work to get me a deer or two. They didn't really start coming through for me until I told them that I would butcher it myself. Daniel asked one of his co-workers if he would come out and teach me how to do it the right way, hands on, my favorite way to learn. He did and I've been doing it by myself ever since. This one is fairly little. *2007* This day it was freezing cold, about 23 degrees. My hands and nose were frozen. I didn't have a pair of gloves that were big enough or thin enough for me to use and do what I had to do, so I just suffered through. It took me longer than usual because I kept stopping to warm my hands up in my pockets.

I think everyone should at least learn the basics of butchering. If you never need to do, more power to you. But if you do, and you don't know how, you could seriously compromise your meat. Plus, if you know how to butcher you save A LOT of money. You don't have to buy meat at the store or pay a processing fee at the butcher's. The other up side is that you can cut the meat any way you want. We don't eat very many steaks, but we use a lot of ground meat and roast, so I generally cut off the roasts and grind everything else. Every now and then Daniel wants to try to cook the meat a different way, so I cut it to his desires. It's a wonderful thing and a great skill to learn. Try it. You just might like it.

Leo

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Why I am here

It doesn't seem that long ago that I was a little girl and could think of nothing else, it seemed, than to be the mom of a hundred kids, live on a huge farm out in the middle of nowhere with a river, forest, wild animals, a log cabin, lots of animals, and a mammoth garden. This dream, though, kept getting interrupted by an add-on of my husband and I with our hundred kids going around the world teaching people how to take care of their part of the earth and us saving the animals in the many different places we traveled to.


Well, I'm all grown up now, not really: my hundred kids ended up being only six; my huge farm is only eight acres; the middle of nowhere is fifteen miles from the nearest town with only one neighbor, I got close on this one; my river is a seasonal creek; I do have some wild life but not much; my log cabin is a new modular; animals come in and out of my life on a regular basis; and I'm still working on my mammoth garden, though I don't ever think it will be quite as mammoth as I want it to be. I'm in school because I still want to reach that add-on goal to teach the world how to take care of their piece of earth and I still want to save the animals. This part may just have to wait until I've raised my children. I'm not worried though, because if even someone like Colonel Sanders didn't start seeing the fruits of his dreams until after he was fourty, I have some good years left to put into practice and learning.


I haven't given up on any part of my dream. A couple of things I have had to tweak, but it's all still here and all still me. Every year I work hard at staying true to my 11 year old self. That's why I'm starting this blog. Over the years I've tried and tested many ideas, proven and new, and thought that there just might be some folks I could help as I continue to reach for my stars. Along the way I hope that there will be some people willing to help me.


I don't know everything, and have never claimed to. I fully believe in sharing information, being inspired by others, and in finding unique and interesting ways to accomplish my goals. I hope to find like minded people around the world who wouldn't mind letting me travel along with them as our journeys meander their way through the mountains and valleys of each other's lives.


In this blog I want to tackle topics from asthma to zoo keeping, because that's what my life feels like some times, and everything in between. I am passionate about sustainability, do-it-yourself kind of things, and learning, learning, learning. Of course, everything I talk about will have something to do with an aspect of my life. If it didn't then you really wouldn't be Living with Leo.


Come along for the ride. It will be bumpy at times, I guarantee it, but I'm sure it will be fun all along the way.