Blog Archives

Snowberry

11/23/2014

This beautiful boy has greatly enriched our homestead. He comes from an extremely loving, natural- rearing focused home (Thank you, Miss Alison) and he has amazingly soft, silky (not cottony) and dense fiber! That excellent start on life makes him especially easy to care for...He can consume vast amounts of greens happily, with only positive effects and is always full of energy! He is the first we've found from another home with this vigor and fiber and he confirms why we strive to raise ours the same. It also shows why smaller numbers can mean more attentiveness to care and higher quality fiber. This continues to be a month of affirmations and support to further hone the focus of our homestead and we're pleased to share such a beautiful example!

Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness. Psalm 29:2

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Dual Purpose Feed

11/16/2014

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The seeds of pumpkins have long been known to be a natural *vermifuge. Each year we harvest as much as we can from a local farm and use it as a wonderful, dual purpose feed additive for our animals. Just as the flesh and seeds are tasty to us, they are relished by the animals (the rabbits, not so much.) and this huge stock pile that filled our trailer and truck bed has already been consumed.
Even the farmer didn't know the benefits of this simple feed, having grown them for commercial use for many years. This is an old practice that has been lost through the years, but it cements the necessity of planting them not only for ourselves, but the animals too.

*Vermifuge: n. [L. vermis, a worm, and fugo, to expel.]
A medicine or substance that destroys or expels worms from animal bodies; an anthelmintic.
American Dictionary of the English Language By Noah Webster 1828

Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play. Job 40:20

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FREE! Mount Rainier Background

11/9/2014

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Thanks to 'Lil Miss for this beautiful photo she captured when we visited a sweet friends' long standing homestead. Formerly a dairy farm begun by her parents, with parcels now housing many others; Miss Judy reaps a bounty from her hillside garden watered with the original spring that has quenched her thirst from childhood. The original home, with an addition her family built, is a testament to sound craftsmanship; while her diligent land stewardship enables her to happily share the abundance with others and will serve her needs well into the future! Examples like Miss Judy serve to further affirm our own endeavors while delighting and inspiring our homestead goals.

This picture and verse point us back to our Creator, who really deserves the praise:
True thanks, awe, and glory belong to the Lord Jesus Christ!

We've created a large file size image that can be downloaded and enjoyed on your desktop!

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Natural Dyeing results

11/2/2014

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Yay! You can see the variables we encountered with our natural dyeing trials we first mentioned here. We used a beautiful Blue Faced Leicester (pronounced "Lester") and a lustrous Bombyx Silk we'd sourced from vendors in the past (Sorry, don't have the info. to share.) . We used vinegar with each of the dye baths, but also included a copper scrub pad as mordant with all but the 'Golden' Lichen batch. The herbs were harvest fresh from our property or the neighbor's (lichens) with no chemicals used in their growth...all except the Tumeric and onion peels - those were from Azure Standard.
Our experience only served to challenge our creativity and consider other plants on the property - and others to plant next year. We've been harvesting mosses and other lichens that the winds are bringing down and with further reading we're learning about the color potential of some of the bark and leaves on our property. Reading a biography of George Washington Carver only further stirs our imagination, considering every God-given color around us. If Mr. Carver could create dyes with peanuts, sweet potatoes and clays...we'll certainly enjoy the outcome of our many plant experiments.
Another pleasing outcome has been learning the herbal dyes leave a naturally sweet odor in the fiber. Like fresh air after a cleansing rain...

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting system through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune Him in. - George Washington Carver

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What's Happening...

Snowberry

Dual Purpose Feed

FREE! Mount Rainier Background

Natural Dyeing results

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