Kitchen

Dehydrating Foods: My New Hobby

April 24, 2023 by Leigh Leave a Comment

This series is going to go over the ins and outs of dehydrating foods. We are going to look at the last 9 months of work, from dehydrating and reconstituting to mishaps and successes. As always on this blog, you will get the real story about dehydrating foods, not the glamorous jars and packages of foods. You’ll see our mistakes and failures but also the successes! Welcome to the first installment of my new favorite hobby: Dehydrating Foods.

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Dehydrating Foods Journey

I always shied away from dehydrating foods, though I’m not really sure why. It’s a pretty simple process, but I’ve always stuck with canning. I’ve owned an Excalibur dehydrator for over 10 years and used it a hand full of times, usually making small patches of yogurt. About six months ago, I ordered dehydrated peppers from Azure Standard. It was a game changer! No longer having to go out and buy peppers for taco night? Having an item on hand that doesn’t take up space in my freezer? Sign Me Up!

Last year, I had quarts of peppers coming in every day from the garden. Most of them rotted before we could use them. Then I realized that I could roast them, grind them and turn them into a seasoning powder. But I used my oven instead of my dehydrator…Why? Because I didn’t feel like getting my dehydrator out, talk about a waste of electricity. But this year? I have so many plans for that dehydrator.

Dehydrating Foods Save Money On Pantry Staples

Onions are a staple in my pantry. I freaking love onions. Onion powder, chopped onions, diced onions, you name it. There’s usually onion in 75% of my dishes. Because I buy big bags of them, they tend to go bad before I can use all of them. If I buy smaller bags or single onions, it’s never enough. Plus, I don’t want or need an entire onion in some dishes. So what did I do? Freeze the other half of the onion, or fed it to the chickens. While it’s not necessarily wasted, I usually forget about the other half of the onion in the freezer and spend the money at the store for more.

Another pantry staple is celery. In the depths of winter, we eat a ton of soup. But celery doesn’t can or freeze well. Usually it turns to mush in either of those two preservation methods. And buying an entire bunch of celery isn’t economic when you need a cup of chopped celery.

Dehydrating Foods Reduces Waste

One of the things I hate the most in the entire world is wasting food. It drives me insane to dump food in the trash because it rotted, gets freezer burn, or we were just too lazy to do something with it. I go back to onions and celery. We don’t eat either of those raw. One for obvious reasons. But there is still a far amount of food waste when you lose food in the freezer. Dehydrating these foods helps make sure that waste is minimized.

How many times have you bought limes only to have them rot before you get a chance to use them? Or thought for sure you would use that entire batch of potatoes for mashed potatoes? Throwing them in the dehydrator is a great way to reduce food waste.

Dehydrating Foods Help Clear Out The Freezer

For the last two years, we have purchased a half or whole cow from a local farm. The first year, a half cow lasted us a little over 8 months. This year, we purchased a whole cow. Let me tell you, we struggled to find enough freezer space and end up buying another freezer. I talk more in depth about buying meat in bulk in this post.

But dehydrating food helps to clear out the freezers from that bulk purchase of frozen corn, or random bag of onions that you forgot about. I don’t know about your freezers, but in our house, they become a jumbled mess of food. We try to keep our freezers “separated” by animal, but the reality is that doesn’t always work. Especially when veggies aren’t animals and most creamer is not actually dairy.

Should You Learn How To Dehydrate Food?

In short, yes. Dehydrators are relatively cheap, when compared to canning setups and the DIY options for building your own dehydrator are endless. I also think that having a well rounded approach to preserving your garden harvest is a must. Some things just aren’t going to freeze or can well like peas, celery, melons, zucchini, and summer squash.

Is Dehydrating Foods Sustainable?

Meh. Take this from someone who *gasp* reuses canning lids that are in good shape. Dehydrating foods really isn’t sustainable DEPENDING on how you do it. It usually requires electricity and sometimes requires a steady influx of mylar bags and oxygen absorbers. But canning sometimes requires electricity (you can can on a wood burning stove if you can get it hot enough or a propane camp stove), and after the initial purchase of jars, doesn’t REQUIRE additional purchase unless there is damage or a lot of use.

I don’t know that there is a truly sustainable food preservation method, except maybe fermentation, that ALL food can go through. So I think the question should be what food method is the most sustainable, but whatever.

What Do You Need To Get Started?

Pretty simple list here:

Dehydrator- with trays I like my Excalibur but I would recommend one with a door that actually shuts.

Mylar Bags– I would recommend different sizes. Also grab a heat sealer while you’re at it. It’ll make your life easier

Oxygen Absorbers– This one is based on the size of the bags or jars you are using. So again, I would get a multi pack if you can.

Mason Jars– This is what I use. I’m not a fan of the mylar bags only because I’m set up for jars. I’ve got 8 storage units built in the basement that are the perfect height for jars. Plus I have a bunch of jars and I don’t want to spend more money.

Silicone Mats– These are the mats I use for things that are a little gooey or rollie (like peas). They are great!

Funnels– If you’re a canner, you have funnels. If not the link provided are the ones I have.

Dehydrating Foods Is Easy

This is literally the most set it and forget it way of preserving food. While not technically forget it, it allows you to not be chained to your stove, in a hot kitchen for hours. Over the years, I have spent hours and hours in my kitchen, every summer and fall, canning hundreds of jars of food. Please don’t misunderstand, I absolutely LOVE it. Especially in the winter when I have quarts and quarts of soup at the ready. Or on days when I come from a 24 hour shift and hit the ground running for another 12 hours on the farm, having beef stew on standby is amazing.

I will always be a canner. But now? Now, I’m a food preserver. I can, freeze, and dehydrate.

Reaching into my cabinet for a colorful jar of dehydrated mixed veggies, adding it to a soup, and serve? Yes, please.

Seeing more food in my basement, knowing that no matter if the entire world crumbles, or just my own, we have food.

Knowing that I am teaching my children the value of nurturing a garden, harvesting the bounty, and not wasting food? Invaluable.

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How To Prepare Your Vegetable Garden

March 3, 2023 by Leigh Leave a Comment

It’s March, y’all! In just a few short weeks, we will be planting our first plants and I am ridiculously excited. There is not much more thrilling, mood enhancing, joyous, and prideful moment then harvesting your first vegetable from your garden. When you plant a bunch of peppers, dehydrate them, and use them in your dinner? It’s an indescribable feeling. But in order to get there, you have to do some work to prepare your vegetable garden.

Before we get too far into this post, I wanted to give a suggestion about keeping a garden journal. A digital garden journal is a fantastic way to keep track of past, present and future gardens. Our Digital Garden Journal is a great way to keep up with everything without getting too overwhelmed.

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Before You Prepare Your Garden

They say that the first thing you should do on your homestead is start with a garden. They would be right, unfortunately, most of us start with animals. We get attached to our critters and then end up with a poorly producing garden, or no garden. But your garden has the potential for being the most money saving thing on the homestead! So there are a couple things I like to do every year before I prepare my garden.

Check Last Years Journal/ Notes

Every year, I keep a garden journal. Mine is multi-year so that I can look back and see what we did, how it worked, etc. This really helps because there are a ton of finer details of a garden that sometimes get missed. Like how much you watered your peppers? Did you use pig, chicken, goat manure? What variety of melon did you hate? This information is important to make sure that you don’t make the same mistakes, but also so that you can make sure you are doing the “right” thing for your gardens.

Look At What You Preserved

If you are using a garden for fresh eating, then I would take notes on what you are eating, how much you ate, etc. If you preserve your garden, go to your pantry and figure out what all you have eaten, used, etc and determine how much you need for this years gardens. For example, I know that we average 2 quarts of spaghetti sauce a week. That means that I need to make sure that we have at least 100 quarts of spaghetti sauce by the time my tomatoes are done for the year. This will help you determine how many plants you need.

Consider Your Animals Needs

If you have chickens, goats, pigs or other livestock, you should consider how much of their feed you could grow. This will look different for everyone based on the space they can dedicate to a garden and how many and the size of their animals, but this is something to consider. We have the space to have a fairly large garden, that means that I can absolutely grow a fair amount of feed for my animals. I know that pigs and chickens can eat basically anything in my garden. The goats require a little more care to make sure that whatever they eat, won’t make them sick. But I know that all of my animals can eat corn, beets, tomatoes, peppers, etc. So I will plant extra for them.

How To Prepare Your Vegetable Garden

On to what I know you are interested in.

Depending on your philosophies for gardening, you will want to go ahead and clear any debris, weeds, or other things you don’t want in your garden. Our garden is roughly 58ft by 108ft, the 8ft is just to account for gates. That is just over triple the size of last years garden. We are going to be producing more of our animals feed this year which is why we are taking up more space.

Clearing The Garden

Because we are making the garden much, much bigger, we have to go in and clear a lot of debris from the previous owners, as well as a couple of dead trees that are in the way. We also have to pull a lot of briars and other browse that the goats didn’t get to last year. This actually works out well because we can actually replant the briars in an area that we are leaving for the goats. Win, win.

Lay Out Fencing

Now, you don’t have to put up fencing around your garden. In fact, a lot of people don’t. But we free range a lot of our animals and the goats and pigs would absolutely DESTROY the garden if we didn’t protect it. Last year the ducks ate all of the garden and the goats used our baby fruit trees as scratching posts. So we learned to protect our food. Because we are expanding our garden, we removed the old fence and reused it when we put up the new one.

Consider Additives

I consider anything that I add to my soil (including more soil) an additive. You should have a soil test done every year to make sure that you are only using additives that you need. Too much nitrogen will kill your plants, even nitrogen loving plants like corn and tomatoes. You should also make sure that you aren’t adding hot manure straight to your soil.

All hot manure should be composted to make sure that it won’t burn your plants. Hot manure comes from pigs, chickens, horses, etc and should be aged or composted because they are so high in nitrogen. Cow, sheep, goat and rabbit manure are cold and could be put right on the plant with minimal adverse affects. However, I still allow my goat manure to compost in their bedding before adding it onto my plants. Just to be safe.

Other additives would be liquid fertilizers, pesticides, etc. This is where your philosophies will come into play. I do not spray or add anything to my plants. The reason is because I don’t feel like it’s necessary. I compost regularly for fertilizers, add mulch for weed protection and have chicken tractors in my gardens for fertilizer, weed control, and pest protection. I’ll be posting a whole post about our chicken tractors in the garden here soon.

Sourcing Your Plants

No matter what plants you decide on, either starting your own seedlings or buying starts from the store, the simple fact that you are starting a garden is amazing! Don’t freak out about not having the “right” things. Starting a garden is the best part.

Starting Your Own Starts

This is hands down the most economical approach but it definitely requires patience and some start ups. I use 1020 trays and 2in pots. Each 1020 tray will hold 50 2in pots. After soil, pots, trays and seeds, each tray costs me about $15. I usually don’t transplant into bigger pots because I feel it’s unnecessary but you do what you need to. Since my garden is so large (again 58ft x108ft) I need 100’s of starts.

The best part about starting your own seeds is that you have the ability to get a bunch of different varieties. I have 5 different tomato varieties and at least 8 different pepper varieties. I buy all of my seeds from True Leaf, Eden Brothers, or Territorial Seed Company.

Buying Starts

Buying plant starts can be a great way to start your garden. Again, just starting a garden is fantastic, so don’t think you HAVE to start your own seedlings. Last year, my ducks ate ALL of my starts. I found a local nursery that only charged me $2/ 4 pack tray. That’s a great price! Especially because big box stores charge $3-6 per plant.

The biggest downside to buying plant starts is the lack of variety. When you go to the store, you are probably never going to see luffa gourds. That’s sad because not only are they amazing sponges but luffa is great for goats!

Prepare Your Beds

Whether you are planting in raised beds, in the ground, or in containers on your patio, you are moving in the right direction! Playing in the dirt is one of my favorite past times and it makes me unbelievably happy. There is nothing like it. I am very excited that you are getting ready to start on your gardens. Big or small doesn’t matter. Starting does.

Building Your Beds

If you are using a raised bed system, you should be building these in the late winter early spring. For us, March is the last push to get any infrastructure for the garden done. This means building beds, sourcing soil, moving compost, etc. If you are building beds, you don’t want to run out of space half way through planting season and then get bogged down having to make multiple trips to the store for supplies.

Laying Out Your Garden

If you are planting in the ground, you should have a plan of what you want your rows to look like. Where are you putting the peppers, tomatoes, rosemary? Are you going to work on companion planting? All of these things are very important to figure out BEFORE you get too far into planting. So do yourself a favor and spend a few minutes planning your rows.

Irrigation

For some reason most people think about watering their gardens last. I don’t really know why since it is possibly THE most important thing. But I am equally as guilty of this. Last year, it was a last minute, oh crap moment that resulted in 4 trips to Lowes to get more irrigation hose. So do yourself a favor and put your garden in close to your water source, and figure out how much hose or water you need first. This year, the cost of drip hoses was going to be ridiculous, so we are toying with the idea of a sprinkler system. We haven’t decided yet. Because again, we are waiting till last minute….oops.

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Are You Interested In Learning How To Cook From Scratch

January 23, 2023 by Leigh Leave a Comment

Have you looked at your grocery bill lately? A blue box of mac and cheese is $1.50+. A box of flavored pasta is $2. Let’s not get started on the rising cost of bread, haha see what I did there? Have you looked at the label of those same things? It’s filled will all sorts of ingredients that don’t really exist in the natural world. But you’re pressed for time and dinner is a hassle, right? A lot of people are intimidated by from scratch cooking. That’s okay, so was I! But in the last five years I have made the decision to not only cook at home more, but to stop buying boxes and cans of junk that is not good for my family, but actually takes just as long (if not longer) to cook. So if you’re interested in learning how to cook from scratch, I got you.

Common Misconceptions About From Scratch Cooking

There are a million reasons why people don’t want to cook from scratch. While some of them are valid, I don’t think people realize how much easier from scratch cooking it actually is.

Time

The most common thing I hear from people who are interested in learning how to cook from scratch is time. They just don’t have it.

They come home from work and the very last thing they want to do is stand in front of a stove for hours cooking. Or they’ve been out in the fields all day working and the thought of getting out the yeast, flour and salt is just too much.

Fear

Some people are afraid of learning how to cook from scratch because they just don’t know how. And fear may be a strong word, but some people are just too afraid of failing to take the leap.

Do you know how many times Jared has eaten some dish that I have concocted that was freaking TERRIBLE!? Can you guess how many times we STILL go scrounge in the basement for dinner when we just can’t stomach whatever I made? The amount of times we eat shark-coochie boards for dinner (yes, I know that’s not how you say it but that’s how Jaxson says it and it stuck), is kind of amazing.

Knowledge

If you grew up anything like me, everything came in a box or can. From sides to muffins to entire dinners. That I’m aware of, the only time my mom ever cooked from scratch was when she baked. PS I’m still waiting on my banana bread, Mom!

I didn’t learn how to cook from scratch at my mom, grandmother or great grandmother’s knee. I really didn’t learn how to cook from anyone. Sure, I helped my mom cook occasionally, but I didn’t really KNOW how to cook until really the last ten years.

Convenience

This is probably the biggest reason why people never learn how to cook from scratch. When it’s easy to reach for a jar of tomato sauce, why on earth would you EVER want to spend six plus hours making tomato sauce?! If I want a sandwich, why would I take the time to make a loaf of bread? A tube of biscuits costs $3+ and takes minimal effort and little clean up.

I totally understand! I’m busy, too! I work 24 hour shifts and sometimes the last thing I want to do is make a loaf of bread or a batch of biscuits. Don’t get it twisted, I have boxes and cans of over processed food in my pantry and cupboards. But I can’t tell you the last time I made a blue box of mac and cheese. Because cooking from scratch is actually really easy.

What Is Cooking From Scratch

Sometimes, cooking from scratch is as simple as melting butter, adding some flour, milk or cream, and then cheese. Bam! You have a cheese sauce! Other times, it’s realizing that you have no buns for burgers and you whip up a batch of rolls.

Or, if you’re like me, it’s making a HUGE batch of biscuits and putting them in the freezer.

But learning how to cook from scratch has to first start with what your definition is. If you’re definition of from scratch cooking is whipping up dinner every night like Ma Ingalls? I’m definitely not your girl.

If you are looking for ways to reduce the number of boxes, jars and bags in your trash? This I can help with.

Taking Your Time Back

You don’t have to spend hours in front of the stove. In fact, you can make an entire batch of yeast rolls in about 20 minutes. Making burgers only takes an extra 5 minutes on top of their cook time. Pork Carnitas takes no more time than browning ground beef.

It takes planning to cook from scratch. The first step is a meal plan. When you know what you’re supposed to be cooking, it makes everything easier. By having a plan, you will not only save money because you are only buying what you need, but you will also save yourself a ton of headache.

Meal Prep

Before anyone jumps on me, because a surprising amount of people are TOTALLY against the term meal prep, really look at how you are spending your time. For the sake of not upsetting the masses, well call it cooking in batches.

There is absolutely no reason to make one meal at a time. Seriously! If you are having ground meat three times this week, you could absolutely make all three batches at the same time! The only differences is usually seasoning.

Let me give you an example of a good meal plan.

If you are making breakfast for dinner one night, you could legitimately cook three dozen biscuits and freeze the left overs. Then you could make four pounds of bacon and have breakfast for the rest of the week. If you don’t mind the taste of “left over eggs” you could scramble up 18 and be done.

But if you look at Day 2 dinner, you get three meals out of that one roast!

Dirty Rice? Same thing. Not to mention turning spaghetti and meatballs into meatball subs? Delicious.

Manage Your Expectations

At the end of the day, you need to manage your expectations of what you are trying to accomplish. Yes, cooking from scratch 100% of the time is amazing. But sometimes that just not going to happen. I’m here to tell you that while we cook at home 95% of the time, only about 70% is from scratch.

I have blue boxes of mac and cheese in my pantry. Easy noodle kits? Yup, got those, too. I buy tacos from the store. That’s OKAY! Sometimes a pizza from the store sounds better than ANYTHING I could make at home.

But when you make an entire meal from scratch? That feeling of pride is addicting.

The Point?

Cooking from scratch doesn’t have to be a long drawn out process. In fact, you could easily cook 100% of your meals from scratch every day.

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2023: Infrastructure And Self Reliance

October 26, 2022 by Leigh Leave a Comment

When Jared and I sat down to go over our infrastructure for 2023; the projects, plans, and goals, we really wanted to get us to a place were the projects were done. That way we could focus our finances in other areas. Now, we all know that projects on the homestead are never truly done. But if we can get some of these bigger projects out of the way? We will be well on our way to self reliance and that is huge.

What Does Self Reliance Look Like To Us

The best way to set up goals is to ask yourself some questions. Like WHY do you want to be self reliant? What does self reliance look like to you? How are you going to become self reliant? These questions will have answers, but more often than not, they lead to more questions. But to give you our starting off point, we see self reliance as a way to decrease spending, reduce off farm hours, and create a eco-system here on the farm.

The more we become self reliant, the less we will spend at the feed and grocery store. The less money we spend at the grocery and feed store, the quicker we can pay off the farm and any debt we have. The quicker we pay off our debts, the more we can reduce off farm hours. If we can create an eco-system where our garden and land feed our livestock, and we can harvest our garden and livestock. Then we will be back to reducing our need for the feed and grocery store.

This symbiotic relationship with our land and livestock are paramount in not only becoming self reliant, but being good stewards to our land and shepherds to our herds.

Setting Up Our Infrastructure

As I’m sure you can tell, Self Reliance is the keyword for our lives for the next few years. It is the cornerstone of every single thing we are doing and planning. So we are starting the first year with infrastructure. I talked in depth about what infrastructure is in this blog post. But the point of that post was to get you to think about your own infrastructure and what that means for your homestead.

When it comes to our homestead, we are really trying to focus on self reliance. Keeping in mind that the 3 big dreams are spending less money, reducing off farm hours, and creating an eco-system are the most important things. We created our infrastructure list and plans around that.

The goal of 2023 is to set up the homestead with those three big dreams in mind. For example: we have made the hard decision that if we can’t sell our bucklings, they will become meat goats. We’ve also made the decision that we will no longer buy chickens because we like the way they look, or how many eggs they lay. All chickens will be a meat variety instead of dual purpose. The gardens are going to go be overhauled into a “bulk garden” and a “kitchen” garden. We are going to start working on water movement so that we are no longer laying hoses throughout the property to get water to animals and gardens.

Meat

Then there’s closing the holes in our food security. One of the things we decided was to focus on heritage breeds. While they take more time to mature, they are more efficient with what they eat. We recently purchased 2 American Guinea Hogs so that we can stop relying on other farms for our pork. We are also going to be purchasing several Bourbon Red turkeys to further reduce our dependance on the grocery store or other farms.

The caveat to these animals is that we are also only going to buy animals that can work as well. One of the things that we learned at the HOA conference in Virginia, was that the animals should work for you too. Pasture rotation is a thing we knew about, but when listening to the lectures, we learned about what pigs can do for revitalizing the soil.

Gardens

Our gardens are going to look very different then they did last year. We are going to bring the pigs and chickens into our side yard and allow them to root, scratch and poop on that area and will turn it into another garden. That garden will hold all of our squash, cucumber, melon, herbs, etc. Then we will turn our old garden into the “bulk” garden for corn, tomatoes, peppers and food for the animals.

We are making lists of what we buy at the grocery store and of that, what can we grow? One of the things we can grow to spend less money growing cumin. We use a TON of cumin and at $20 a container, that’s a lot of money every year. It’s the same thing with lettuces. We feed our bearded dragons mustard, turnip, collard greens. At $4 a bag, and we by 4 bags a month? That’s a huge savings if we grow those things ourselves. Not to mention, that the pigs will eat the excess turnips.

Animals

We already discussed the hogs, turkeys and chickens. But to go a little more in depth, every single animal on our homestead is going to have a purpose. And if they require additional feed that the farm can’t produce? That is something we need to look at or they aren’t going to stay long. This has led to some hard decisions when it comes to our personal animals.

We aren’t going to just get rid of them. But this thought process has shown us the amount of money spent on the dogs, cats, dragons and snakes for pleasure, hurts our bottom line of spending less. That means 1) no new animal will be brought to the homestead unless it serves a purpose and the farm can sustain it. And 2) has made us really look into how we can feed animals alternatively without affecting their health.

Another point with the animals is keeping around animals that are not producing. The animal lover in me struggles with the idea of just butchering an animal because it is no longer useful. But the homesteader in me says, but that’s their job. It’s very conflicting and confusing.

Permaculture And Self Reliance

This word has been rattling around my head for the better part of a month. One of the things we have been talking about pre-conference was that while we could afford our $600/mo feed bill, we didn’t want to. After the conference, we realized that we could grow most of the food our animals need without having to use as much feed. This lead us to the idea of permaculture.

The plan, and resulting infrastructure, is that we are going to use electric netting to rotate the pigs and chickens throughout the property. We’ve had a lot of predator problems with our chickens and we are hoping that by giving them a safe space, with electrified netting, this will keep the predators down. For the pigs, we are planning on giving them a large space to root and poop in hopes that they will break the soil and allow the good things to get into the soil. After they have worked the soil in that area, we will move them to the next area and let them continue through the property.

While I love my compost, and we will always have and use it, the idea of schlepping wheelbarrows up hill and all over the property is not my idea of a good time. BUT I can take bedding waste, wasted hay, and other compostables and just put it in where the chickens are. They can spread it around and the soil can break it down there.

Another part of permaculture is instead of ripping out gardens when they are done, we can put the pigs, chickens or goats in there and let them “rip out” the garden. This will reduce our work load, feed them, and put them to work. That seems like a win to me.

Bringing Self Reliance Into The House

While at the HOA conference, we were told that the house is not as important as the land. I, wholeheartedly, disagree. While the personal how’s and why’s of that is not important, what is important is that having a safe, secure, and comfortable home, is just as important as the land. And yes, part of it is vanity on my end. While I don’t want the best of the best and need designer things. I do need my home to be safe, secure, and comfortable.

We have to update our electrical panel, breakers, and some wiring. We need to take down some trees that would absolutely demolish our home if they fell. Then there’s the fire safety aspect of putting in tile accents in front of the fire place. We have to paint the exterior of our home because cedar siding will be damaged if it is not taken care of property. Oh, and our back deck is about to fall of the house. So while yes, the land is important so is the house.

I understand what these other homesteaders were talking about in regards to making sure that the land is the priority. But at the same time, so is the home. I know that they don’t mean, “Don’t worry about the electrical panel! You need to put pasture rotation into effect first.” But at the same time, me being comfortable in my home is equally as important as the land. And to be honest, we can do both.

The Food Storage Room

One of the other ways we are going to work on our self reliance is to finish up our food storage room. While most will call this a pantry, it’s going to be much more than that. In this storage room, we will have all of our canned goods, garden harvests, coffees, etc. It will also have a dehumidifier and vents on a thermometer to help control the temperatures. It will be insulated and have a door to keep animals out. We will also be storing our crockpots, stock pots, and other larger kitchen appliances in there so that we can reduce the amount of space they take up in the kitchen.

So I will be working on making the house comfortable for my family, while Jared is out there cutting down trees and replacing the electrical panel. I may even help him paint the house.

What Is Your Self Reliance Infrastructure

At the end of the day, you have to do what is right for your family, your land and your animals. It’s not about them or me. It’s about you and what you are trying to accomplish with your life. I hope this post has opened your eyes to what you want to do with your homestead.

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Our Thoughts On The Homesteaders Of America 2022 Conference

October 20, 2022 by Leigh 2 Comments

When we go on trips, we try to have a purpose behind the trip. When we went to Yellowstone, we wanted to have fun and see all the mountains and animals. But we also wanted to make it educational for all of us, get some photography to sell, and enjoy time with family. When we went to Virginia for the Homesteaders of America Conference, our purpose was purely educational and they knocked it out of the park.

Homesteaders of America Conference: Day 1

Prior to leaving for the conference, we made sure to look at the schedule and see which classes/ lectures we wanted to take. We put those into our Google calendar so that we weren’t having to scramble to figure out where we wanted to be.

Planting Fodder For Livestock

The first class we took was Shawn and Beth Dougherty about planting fodder crops for livestock. Let me tell you, this couple is extremely engaging. If you haven’t heard of them, check out their website at the link above. Their lecture, and their entire philosophy, is to reduce input onto the farm, increase soil fertility and become more self sustaining. They talked in depth about planting crops that preserve well and that animals can eat.

This was fascinating. While I knew that we could plant food for animals, I hadn’t really thought much about it. In my head, I planted my garden for my family and the animals got any excess. I figured, animal food came in the form of grain from the feed store. Again, I knew that we could grow their food, but didn’t really think much beyond that. But with a $600/mo feed bill, I’m starting to see the draw to growing their food.

We walked away with more information on rotational grazing, increasing soil fertility and how to use livestock for more than just enjoyment.

Homestead Security Class

The second class was for homestead security, and to be honest, I tuned out most of it. This was a class for Jared. While I 100% believe in homestead security, it’s just not something I’m interested in. I didn’t take a single note. Not to mention that within about 10 minutes, I was bored out of my mind. I actually left the class and went to walk around to the different vendors. Jared really enjoyed the class, but I don’t know that he took any notes. Mainly because the class covered things that he/we were already doing.

Farm Set Up and Checklist

This was put on by Daniel Salatin and one I enjoyed almost as much as the Dougherty’s. Daniel talked about how to set up farms and how livestock should be the last thing brought to the homestead…. oops. But the biggest take away that we needed to work on getting water capture and stop relying on hoses and buckets to transport water.

Another thing that was interesting was pasture rotation. Now, we knew pasture rotation is extremely important. But one of the things that we struggled with was the idea of permanent fencing for that rotation. We want our animals to free range, this by itself will reduce worm load. But there are a ton of other reasons to rotate pasture. And at the top of that list is soil conservation and fertility.

Homesteaders of America Conference: Day 2

We were extremely excited about day 2. There were a lot of good speakers lined up, but really it was the day we got to go home. I loved the conference and we will definitely go back, but I missed my goats…. and kids.

Sustainable Broiler Breeding

This class was enlightening because we had raised meat chickens already and weren’t a fan. We wanted to move away from buying broilers and move towards hatching our own. We didn’t necessarily want hybrids or other crosses like the Cornish X. The biggest reason was expense. If I have to buy chicks every year to feed my family, then what I am going to do when I can’t buy them?

Tom from McMurray Hatchery explained that while there are birds that are dual purpose, they are not really meat birds. For example, a Brahma is marketed as a meat bird, but it takes 1-2yrs for it to reach market weight. That’s a lot of feed for a big bird. Not to mention that once it hits market weight, the meat will probably be very tough.

Tom’s suggestion for a sustainable bird was a New Hampshire Red. They grow quickly but not so quick that they suffer from the major health problems that a Cornish x will. He also suggested Rocks and Sussex due to their fast growth and good market weights at young ages.

Sustainable Homestead

Shawn and Beth had another class that we were excited to sit in on. This one was similar to their fodder crop class but focused more on how to grow your SOIL and reduce input to the farm. Their idea is to stop bringing input onto the farm and let the farm grow and nurture itself.

The big thing with a lot of these well known farmers like the Salatin’s, Dougherty’s, Rhodes’, etc is that you want to create an environment where the soil is protected, encouraged and treated like the most important thing on the farm.

The idea is that you want to use animals to do the work. You put goats/cows in a pasture and let them eat the grass, browse and other tall material. This will allow the plant to kill off roots which will leave carbon in the soil. Then you bring in the chickens. The chickens will peck through the manure, eating bugs and larvae, spread the manure and lay their own. They will eat the low lying grasses as well. After the chickens you bring in the pigs to eat any left over grains, manures, and break/till the soil.

When it’s done, the pasture has a chance to soak up all that carbon, nitrogen, etc. and have a chance to take off. It will improve the soil. New plants that couldn’t grow in impacted soil. But when these creatures come in, they are able to rework the soil and increase the fertility of it. Soil, sunlight and water are the keys to good farming.

Pastured Livestock

Daniel Salatin’s class on pastured livestock echoed the same things from his previous class on setting up a homestead, as well as Shawn and Beth’s class on setting up a sustainable homestead. But it was much more in depth on the HOW. He talked about the 4 R’s of pasture management: Rotation, Rest/Recovery, Removal, and Recon.

Rotation is pretty obvious. Rotate the animal onto new forage daily, or weekly depending on the animal.

Rest/ Recovery- allow the plants, soil, etc. to recover. When plants in the area have reached mature potential you can allow animals back onto the pasture.

Removal of nutrients- we want the soil to pull nutrients back into the ground. If that doesn’t happen, then the manure should be removed. Having multiple animals move through the same pasture but eat different things is paramount to creating not only good soil but healthy animals.

Recon/ Observation- Did it work? Daniel said to take a picture of the same pasture during all 4 seasons and do it every year at those same times. Why? We want to see if we are improving the soil and plants in that area. If we are making it worse and it is not recovering, then we need to do something different.

Catching Free Bees

This was my favorite class of all because I want honey bees so badly. Unfortunately, I am the only one that will take care of them because everyone else is terrified of bees. So until I am ready to take over that chore 100%, I am putting them off. Plus the cost is huge. You’ve got boxes, frames, paint, bees themselves? I’m not totally ready yet.

But listening to Kaylee talk about catching a swarm and how to do it, got me thinking. If we can set up our farm so that everything they need is here? Maybe we can do it?

We learned about how to catch bees and how to work with them, which will decrease your cost for getting bees by 100%.

Our Thoughts On The Conference

I think that anyone could learn something from this conference. It’s a great place to go and learn, to ask questions. Every single speaker that lectured also answered questions and were so passionate about it. We were able to talk with Shawn and Beth about free ranging our goats. They not only answered our questions but gave advise on how to do it effectively within our own “ecosystem” of animals and plants on the homestead.

We walked away with new products to try and books to read.

But most importantly, we walked away realizing that we are not alone. There are thousands of people out there just like us. Just trying to live in harmony with nature, to get back to the land. Raise our children and animals in a way that Mother Nature would approve. To get dirty, be wild, and have fun. These people are a wealth of knowledge and they are willing teachers.

If you have the opportunity to go to next year’s conference, I highly recommend going. Even if you don’t have a homestead yet. Even if you are just dreaming. It is absolutely worth it.

If you can’t get to the conference, here are some books that I highly recommend based off what I learned while I was there.

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The Homestead Holiday Gift Guide

October 2, 2022 by Leigh 1 Comment

The holidays are coming and with that comes the desire to get those that matter to us gifts that are meaningful and useful. If you are living on a homestead, or have relatives that do, this list is packed full of great ideas to help you get the most bang for your buck. While also get something that they will love. Some of the things on this list are things that are on our own holiday wish list. Others are things that we have already bought and absolutely love. This homestead holiday gift guide is sure to have something for your homesteader.

If you are a homesteader, and your family doesn’t know what to get you for the holidays? Share this with them. Or, if you are going to a holiday party and need a hostess gift? Check out the $0-$50 section below. It’s got a ton of great ideas.

Homestead Holiday Gift Guide

I have broken this guide up into price points because that’s important. No one wants to find the perfect gift and realize it’s outside of their price range. Also this entire post is filled with affiliate links. Buying from these links doesn’t charge you any extra but it does allow us to make some extra money for the farm. You can read more about our affiliate disclosure by clicking the link.

But First Some Housekeeping

The holiday season is a time for giving. As the giver, you are giving someone a gift that you thought they would like or that made you think of them. And friends? That is amazing. As the recipient, it is an awesome feeling when someone hands you a gift and says, “This made me think of you.” But also as a recipient, I don’t want you to waste your money on me. I would rather you donate that money to a good cause like animal rescue, save the bees, or really anything where the money actually goes to the cause.

Sometimes though, the gift giver simply wants to give you a gift. And if you are getting a gift for a homesteader, you may be a little lost on what to get them. You know they don’t want anything, but you are bound and determined to get them something. Most homesteaders would love to receive a gift that works on the farm. So let’s talk about homestead holiday gifts.

$0-$100 Gifts

First and foremost, GIFT CARDS. I can not stress this enough. I know, it seems like such an impersonal gift. But it is seriously the BEST gift I could receive and I know a lot of other people feel the same. I hate wasting money and when people buy things that I can’t use, it bothers me. Not because I’m spoiled, although that is true too. It’s because that person spent their hard earned money on things that won’t get use, can’t be returned, etc. So seriously consider gift cards to places like Home Depot, Tractor Supply and Amazon.

Digital Prints, Digital Art Work, or Printables– I have several different digital photography prints in my Etsy store and they are a huge hit. Unlike regular artwork, these are digital and can be printed at any size you want. These make fantastic hostess gifts, too. You will usually find prints for less than $10 and it doesn’t cost more than a few more dollars to have them printed at Walmart, Target, Sams, etc.

Ask About Their Amazon Wish List– Almost anyone that regularly shops on Amazon has at least one wish list. I have 10. But ask them for a link to their wish list so you can be sure to get something that they will love.

Donations– Every year there is that one person that you have absolutely no idea what to get them. I’ve got a family full of them. Instead of getting them a present that is going to hang out in the garage for the next 5 years, you know who you are, make a donation to their favorite charity. Get them a card, explain what you did, and put the receipt in the card.

Books– If your homesteader is a bookworm then I’ve got the list for you!

Homesteading

Cookbooks

Animals

Gear- Whether it’s stuff for butchering, milking, or building having extra gear is amazing. Gift cards would be amazing for this stuff as well because you may not know the difference between hoof trimmers to get, or which power tools they need batteries for. But I will tell you this, getting me gear so I can do my chores better? Score.

Sharp Things

Tools

Miscellaneous

Cast Iron, the good kind from antique stores.
Boots are always a plus
Coveralls! Seriously.

Seeds!!!!!!!! This would probably be better as a gift card, but I don’t know many homesteaders that will turn down packets of seeds. Tomatoes are usually pretty safe. Cucumbers are too if they have livestock. But check and see what they grow. and then check out Territorial Seed Company or Eden Brothers.

Plants- Territorial Seed has some great plants including coffee plants! Etsy is also another great place to get edible plants so consider berry bushes, grape vines, etc.

$100-$250 Gifts

You had better be pretty good to get something off this list. While I know I haven’t been super good, if my family is reading this? I would like this milker please!

Greenhouse– There are some greenhouses that will come in under $250 that are great for seed starts or house plants that are too big to come inside. If you know they are short on space, a greenhouse may be a great option.

Pressure Canners– I will never say no to an additional canner. I’ve been saving up for this canner, but just having another one is a time saver for me. The All American 931 can hold 19 quart jars and is a double stack. When I’m hip deep in canning season, this helps a lot. The Presto is a great canner and you can usually only get 7 quart jars in there.

Camp stove- Along the same lines as a pressure canner, having additional burners would be amazing. Not to mention not heating up the house. This camp stove has been on my list for a while and I’m hoping to get one before next canning season.

Bench Grinder– You have no idea how quickly sharp things get dull on the homestead. Having a good bench grinder is a great gift to give. Jared is able to sharpen all the knives, scissors, shovels, axes, and more with ours.

$250+ Gifts

If you’ve got a from scratch chef that has made you some amazing meals, check out this Kitchen Aid Mixer. Yes, it’s pricey but well worth the money spent, especially if that means you are going to get some awesome home cooking from it. This one is on my wish list as well

Got a homesteader that has goats? Or other hooved creatures? Hoof Boss is definitely a time and back saver. When we have to trim hooves, it takes hours. It’s hard on the back and trying to wrangle all the goats? Well, they’re lucky they’re cute.

Chainsaws– Now, this one will need a little bit of research, but an extra chainsaw is always great to have around. Not to mention the chains, sharpening equipment, etc.

At The End Of The Day

Your homesteader will love whatever gift you give them, we are grateful like that. But if you want to give them something that they will use, or need, check out some of the offerings on the homestead holiday gift guide. Or better yet, ask them what they want or need. I’m sure they would be ecstatic to receive something they need.

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10 Things To Start Preparing For Winter

September 2, 2022 by Leigh 8 Comments

I know, I know! It’s only September. BUT you can never be too prepared, especially when you have lives depending on you. Here in north Georgia, it’s 90*+ and it feels like winter is forever away, but trust me when I tell you, it’s all down hill from here. The leaves are already starting to fall, albeit one at a time. The mornings are cooler and though it’s still hot, it’s not as unbearable. So I figured I would talk about the things we are doing now, to prepare for winter.

Preparing For Winter Is Easy…When You Do It Early

First thing is first, go ahead and make a list of all the things you think you’ll need. Then check it against my list and maybe google some other blogs like Southern Dreams Homestead, The Homesteading RD or The Farmer’s Lamp to help give you a few more ideas. Below is simply part of my list that I think everyone could benefit from.

The List

1) Firewood! Seriously, if you haven’t started sourcing, chopping or collecting firewood, stop everything and go do it right now. Like, now. If you haven’t been able to get around to it, make the time. You still have some time to get a few cords chopped and drying if you make it a priority. Also, check around with neighbors or even different market places. You may find that someone has a tree they need cut and hauled away. Easy firewood. You can find a small electric log splitter less than $300 or even a big gas powered one for less than $1,500

I’m going to throw candles in here too. A small tea light candle can heat a small room for several hours. It can even cook food when placed in terracotta pots. SO maybe having a million of these little buggers around would be a good idea too.

2) Pantry Restock– I restock our pantry/ food storage room quarterly. That means that I go through and find all the things we have used or are running low on and make a run to the store. This tends to be a big haul for us and has things like toilet paper, laundry detergent, etc. But you don’t want to find out in the middle of a snow storm that you’re out of toilet paper. If you don’t have a place to store it, check out Home Depot for wire shelves or check out my post on our shelves.

3) Canning– The entire month of September, I am canning the last bit of the summer garden and soups. I will put up about 300qts and 200pts of soup to prepare for winter. The way I see it, if the power goes out, I can still heat soup on my wood stove. If you haven’t already, check out The Canning Diva’s cookbook. She has a ton of amazing soups. This book is my holy grail for soup season.

4) Coffee– If you are a coffee drinker, go ahead and can several quarts of coffee. I know, it sounds crazy, but when our power went out last year, guess who didn’t have coffee? So yea, can a couple quarts. I waterbath can my quarts for 20 minutes. Now, I can just heat it in a pot on the stove. I’ve also got a great recipe for homemade creamer too.

5) Extra Blankets– We have a million blankets and every year, I am tempted to throw out half of them. BUT it’s nice having the ability to close off rooms, layer up, or even insulate freezers if necessary. Not to mention if livestock needs to come inside because it’s freezing or they are injured.

Finn had to come inside when he busted his shoulder.

6) Portable Battery Banks– We have a bunch of these guys around and they are really handy to have. When the power goes out and the boys last device is dead, this thing saves my sanity. Plus, we can hook it up to our kitchen radio and still have news updates and more.

7) Animal Feed– This isn’t just Fido’s dog food. If you have any kind of livestock, now is the time to make sure you are sourcing enough for winter. For us, that means finding enough hay to get through the winter. It also means sourcing grain, alfalfa pellets, and other miscellaneous food stuffs they need.

8) Animal Bedding– Don’t forget their bedding! While it doesn’t get super cold in Georgia, it does still get cold. And wet. So make sure that you’ve got some form of bedding for them. We use the deep litter method and pine shavings. The deep litter method really helps insulate them in winter and helps keep them off the cold ground. We also spread Diatomaceous Earth between layers to help keep down bugs. Again, it doesn’t get super cold here so winter Lice/Mite infestations happen.

9) Emergency Medicines/ First Aid– This looks different from homestead to homestead, but having the ability to treat various illnesses or injuries is extremely important. I talked about the basics needed to care for goats but you also need to include yourself here. Sometimes band aids just aren’t going to cut it. You may need sutures, super glue, etc to close lacerations. Or when you’re animal suddenly develops pneumonia, having the ability to treat that without calling for a vet is a huge time and money saver.

10) Something to alleviate boredom– It’s true. The hustle and bustle of summer makes way for a slower winter. Maybe not 100% of the time, but more often than not, the weather keeps us inside. Extreme weather could keep us inside for days. I am a bookworm and have at least twenty books on standby waiting to be read. But my boys and Jared are not so lucky. We have games, puzzles, cards and more. They still refuse to let me read, but at least they have something to do.

I hope this helps you start preparing for winter at least a little bit.

How To Can Corn

August 27, 2022 by Leigh Leave a Comment

Jump to Recipe

Whether you got a great deal at the grocery or your garden has exploded, learning what you can do with surplus corn is great. There are so many uses for corn; feed for livestock, food for people, dry it for popcorn or dry it for corn meal. The options when it comes to corn are endless. But today, I want to show you how to can corn.

What do you need?

Corn- We had approximately 120 ears of corn and it didn’t take us long to get it all processed. It also yielded us 32 quart jars

A Pressure Canner– we have two of these that run pretty much non stop since they only hold 7qts each

Canning Tools

Jars– Pints or quarts will work

Either a corn de-cobber like this or a knife and a bunt pan

Salt is optional. We don’t use it but if you want to, make sure you have enough salt for the amount of corn you have

Don’t forget to add these items to your Walmart cart and have them do the shopping for you! It saves time and a ton of money.

Shucking Your Corn

120 ears of corn is a lot and I absolutely despise shucking corn. I will snap green beans until my fingers fall off, but shucking corn? No thank you. This is usually Jared’s job because he really enjoys it. It’s his version of green beans. If I had two bushels of green beans to go through, and he had two five dozen bags of corn? We would be in heaven. We both turn our brains off and let the beauty of our homestead take over.

After he shucked all the corn, he put it into our huge cooler filled with water. The husks and silks go to the chickens and compost for the garden. I guess we could have given it to the goats but they weren’t interested in the husks.

De-Cobbing Your Corn

There’s a million ways to skin a cat, and getting kernels off a corn cob is no different. We have tried a ton of different gadgets over the years. To be honest, the best one we have found is a knife. Those gadgets may work for a specific size of cob, or only once. The knife is going to work 100% of the time. So if you want to “waste” your money, any of those linked will work…. maybe.

We use a knife and bunt pan or just a knife and a cookie sheet. Nothing fancy. The downside of using this method is that it can dull your blades because you are constantly smacking the knife into the metal. But I like sharpening my knives so that’s not a deal breaker.

As you are getting all those delicious kernels off your cobs, keep in mind that the corn milk will spray EVERYWHERE. Don’t keep open drinks, electronics or anything that shouldn’t get wet anywhere near where you are working. Oh, and it’s extremely sticky.

As we de-cob the corn, we put all the kernels in a smaller clean cooler filled with clean water. This starts the soaking process.

After the corn has soaked for thirty minutes to one hour we will either change the water and let it soak again or we will go ahead and get it into jars. The reason we would resoak is if the water was completely white. If you don’t want to soak, don’t mind the milk, etc. Don’t soak or resoak. It won’t hurt anything.

Prepping For Canning

Once your kernels have soaked, it’s time to get them into jars. The first step to this is to make sure your jars are clean with no chips, cracks, dings, or dents. Usually, I just give them a quick wash and let them dry while I’m getting my canner ready.

I have two Presto 16qt canners and they hold seven quart jars. So when I can corn, it’s a multi day process. I also have a three burner camp stove that I can on to help keep the heat down in the house. I’m hoping to get one of these bad boys soon, but at $500 it’s a little steep right now. The trade off is the ability to stack quart jars in it.

Getting my canner ready simply means making sure that the canner is safe to operate per my manuals instructions. Mine uses 3qts of water and once that’s in, I put it on the camp stove to get it boiling.

Back to the kernels, I start draining/straining out the kernels from the water and adding them to my jars. Once filled to a 1″ headspace, I add fresh water, wipe the rim with a damp vinegar rag and place the lid and ring. Remember only fingertip tight. That means you should only use your finger tips to tighten the ring, not your bicep.

They go into the canner as they are ready. Once my canner is filled and the water is ALMOST boiling, I will put the lid on and lock it. I usually let me canner vent for 5-10 minutes depending on how full it is. Meaning, if it’s filled with pints, I usually go 10 and quarts 5. But follow your canners instructions. Place your weight and wait for your weight to jiggle or rock. Then slowly start to lower the stove temp until the weight is barely moving. We don’t want the weight to blast off into space.

Corn is processed at 55 minutes for pints and 85 minutes for quarts at 10# but if your elevation is over 1000 feet, go with 15#.

I also have a quick reference guide that you can download get in my members only section. Sign up below and you will be emailed the password.

It’s Done Processing, Now What?

Depending on your set up, you can just turn the burner off and let the canner depressurize naturally. Or if you have a camp stove and the other side is in use, you can CAREFULLY move the canner somewhere it can cool down. When I say careful, I mean be friggin careful! Seriously, no one needs to have their face melted off because the weight moved. If you’re using your stove at home, do not slide it. Pick it up. If you can’t pick it up. Just don’t even touch it. Seriously, it’s not worth the risk.

After the canner has cooled and the pressure valve has dropped, you can crack the lid and allow some heat to escape. I usually weight 10-20 minutes and then remove the lid completely. Once the contents have stopped boiling, I will unload the canner and place all the jars on a toweled surface.

That’s it!

It’s not hard to can corn at home. And it definitely beats store bought every day. But I’m sure you have some questions. So…..

How many ears fit into a quart or pint jar? It takes approximately 4 ears of corn per quart or two per pint.

Do you use salt? We don’t, but that’s only because we choose to season our food when we cook it.

Is there a zero waste method? Sure, you can boil down the cobs and make corn cob jelly. You can also drink the milk. Our zero waste method is to give it all to the animals. They love it.

What if I don’t like canned corn? You can absolutely freeze it instead. Just layer a cookie sheet with parchment paper and do a single layer of corn. Once frozen, put into a freezer bag.

What if I have extra jars but not a full canner? You can put them in the fridge for immediate eating or you can freeze them. Another option is to can water. This will give you sterile water in case of emergencies.

What if I don’t have coolers? Or a big cooler? Work in batches. If we know that each jar takes approximately 2-4 depending on the jar, then only do a full canner full at a time, and store the rest in the fridge. You can also use a clean sink.

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Canning Corn on the Cob

This is the fastest and easiest way to can corn on the cob

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Equipment

1 Pressure Canner
1 Canning Tools
1 Jars Look in the post above for the rough conversions on how many jars you will need

Ingredients

1 Corn on the cob
1 Tbsp Per Quart jar Optional

Instructions

Start by shucking your corn and getting as many of the little hairs off.
Grab either your de-cobber or knife and start cutting the corn off the cob. This can be tricky so watch your fingers.
Place corn in clean water to help get the milk out. You may have to rinse and repeat if your corn was really milky
Using funnel, scoop corn into jars leaving 1" headspace
Fill with water again, leaving 1" headspace.
Remove any bubbles with chopsticks, straw, or other debubbling tool
Wipe rim with damp vinegar towel.
Add lid and ring and put into canner
Fill canner with water to manufacture recommendation. Ours is 3 quarts
Set it on the stove and get the water heating, we usually put ours on high as we are loading it
Once the canner is loaded, place your lid per manufacture instructions.
We let our canner vent for 5-10 minutes then place the weight on the vent pipe.
Once the weight starts rocking, slowly decrease the stove temp until the weight is just barely rocking.
Let this process for 85min for quarts and 55 for pints
Once the time is done, remove from heat and let the canner cool and depressurize naturally. This usually takes about 30-45min depending on processing time
Once the canner is safe to open, remove lid and, if the contents of your jar are not obviously boiling, pull the jars out with the jar grabby thing and place on a towel to cool completely
Remove rings and wash threads. Corn is extremely sticky so the rings may be hard to remove. Not doing so can lead to mold, rust and rotten food.
Wash the threads of your jar (where the rings were) with warm soapy water. Write the date and store

How To Make Kombucha

August 8, 2022 by Leigh Leave a Comment

I did a whole post about how to bring back your kombucha. But I realized, I never did a post about starting booch in the first place! There are a million articles, blog posts and more about making kombucha but I wanted to tell you how I do it and the products I use to make kombucha.

I almost exclusively use Cultures For Health for all of my culture needs and Farmhouse Teas for our second batch needs. We do collect a commission from links at absolutely no cost to you. This helps us keep our blog and homestead up and running. You can read more that part here. Back to CFH and FHT.

The reason is because they are pretty much a one stop shop when it comes to all thing fermented or cultured. That being said, this post is heavily linked with their products but also products that we use on our homestead. Feel free to click through the links to find what you need.

Shopping List:

Vessel– I use one very similar to this one but mine is a thrift store find. You can absolutely use something smaller but make sure it is glass.

SCOBY– I bought mine from CFH. I have enjoyed their other cultures and have been very happy with their SCOBY and other cultures.

First Ferment Tea- This is where it gets a little tricky. While I love CFH, I prefer the Three Sisters Black tea blend from FHT. I’ve tried other tea blends and they’re okay, but I really like this tea for my base blend.

Second Ferment Teas- For my second ferment, I really like the Strawberry Mojitio and the Mango from FHT. Those are specific to their kombucha teas. BUT they also have some great teas that work with a second ferment. The first is their iced tea blends. If you like iced tea then you can make it on its own, but I don’t. I prefer to do a second ferment with it instead. The other is using their herbal teas. They have so many different fruity flavors that really make your booch delicious.

Bottles- I really like old GT kombucha bottles, but it can get confusing when I end up having to buy some and can’t remember which is which. So I also get these swing top or Grolsch bottles. I use these swing tops for everything from booch, tea, lemonade or creamers.

Make it

Pulled from Bringing Back Your Booch from here

First, brew your new sweet tea. I like my tea a little stronger and sweeter so I use 6 teaspoons of half black/ half green tea. While I have a kettle going for water, I add a cold brew filter to a wide mouth, half gallon mason jar and add my tea to the filter. Once the water is boiling, I pour over the filter and let it sit for about 10 minutes or until I remember I have it steeping. I could set a timer, but I usually don’t remember I even have one.

***** Very important! Use dechlorinated water!!!!! If you are on city water or are unsure if you have chlorinated water, use bottled spring water or leave a gallon of water out on the counter for 24 hours. If you use chlorinated water you will kill all the good bacteria we are trying to grow!******

While the tea is steeping I add about a quart of cold water to my vessel. I also use ice to get the water nice and cold so that I can keep the process to a minimum time wise. I use a vessel very similar to this, but mine is a thrift store find. The biggest thing to remember is that any spigot that you use will get clogged with debris from the SCOBY so make sure you are cleaning it whenever you make a new batch of booch. Rinse REALLY well because we do want GOOD bacteria to grow, not the bad kind.

Once the tea is done steeping, I remove the filter and compost the tea. Then I stir in about 1 1/4 cup of plain sugar into the mason jar with the tea. I stir until the sugar is almost completely dissolved. Then I add the tea to the vessel and add about another 2.5-3 quarts of cold water. I usually just use the half gallon mason jar so I can get any tea or sugar that is left behind. Before adding your SCOBY and starter tea, make sure that none of it is more than about 70*. If it is, add more ice or cold water if necessary to hit that 70*. A little colder is fine, too hot and it will cook your SCOBY and probably kill it.

Once your sweet tea is cool and in the vessel, add your starter and then finally your SCOBY. It’s worth repeating though, you don’t want to add your starter or SCOBY to tea that is too warm because it will kill your SCOBY. Anything over 75* will start to cook the good bacteria and yeast that makes up your SCOBY.

This is all called your first brew. This takes the longest time but gives you just under a gallon of booch for pennies compared to the store.

I love kombucha. As a former soda addict, it gives me the fizziness and flavor from soda without having all those harsh chemicals.

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Goat Milk Coffee Creamer

August 6, 2022 by Leigh 8 Comments

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When life hands you lemons, you are supposed to make lemonade. Well, I did that yesterday. Today, well today there was a mishap in the freezer. Instead of letting it get the best of me, I decided to get a project done that I have been meaning to do, but never had the time…. Today was the day I was going to make a batch of goat milk coffee creamer, whether I wanted to or not.

Before we get too far into this, I have a great course on the basics of goat care. I call it Goat Crash Course: Goat 101. In this course, I explain things like types of shelter, types of feeds and hays, basic assessments and so much more! Check it out!

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They say you shouldn’t cry over spilled milk

I don’t know who “They” are but I almost cried today when I went to put up two half gallon mason jars of goat milk. When I looked in our freezer, I saw that two jars had burst and I felt tangible pain. I started checking over my other jars and sure enough twelve half gallon mason jars were broken. I had a decision to make, either leave them in there and deal with each jar as we pulled them out to use it. Or fix it now while I had the chance. I’m not one to kick the can down the road, so I grabbed a milk crate and brought all twelve jars upstairs.

Finally after almost six hours, I finally had all of the milk melted, jars thrown away, and all twelve jars triple strained. I wanted to cry every time I found a glass shard, but this is precious milk. This is the only milk I can drink without stomach issues and when we have to help bottle feed, this is the milk we use. Not to mention, the only way I can get more is by breeding goats, and then waiting six months.

After everything was all said and done, I had managed to salvage all the milk except a few drops, only to run out of freezer bags. **facepalm** This is my life.

Now, I am not 100% sure what caused the jar failure. I have frozen mason jars for years and never had an issue. If I had to guess, I would say either a head space problem or half gallon mason jars shouldn’t be frozen. It doesn’t really matter since I won’t do it again, but it would be nice to know for the future.

Anyways, the whole point is I have one and a half gallons of goat milk that I need to do something with. I could refreeze them, and I may still. But right now, I am making coffee creamer. I may even try my hand at making cheese so stay tuned.

How to make Goat Milk Coffee Creamer

I’m going to start this with saying this, you do NOT need goat milk to make your own creamer. Any milk will work. However, since I have goats and gut issues, I use goat milk.

Using a 1:1 ratio whisk your milk and condensed milk into a thick bottomed sauce pot. You can make your own condensed milk by adding about 2/3c sugar to 2c of milk. Stir until sugar is dissolved and then let simmer for about 30 minutes without stirring on low heat.

Allow it to heat for a few minutes to mix really well. If you are going to use any flavorings now is the time to add them. I’ll go over my flavorings below.

Pour into your creamer vessel, I use these if it’s going in the fridge, or old creamer containers if going into the freezer.

Allow to cool. Then store in either fridge or freezer.

That’s it! You don’t have to be some wizard to make creamer. If you don’t like “Foo Foo” creamer, just whisk your milk an condensed milk together. Done.

When you are ready to drink it, make sure to shake really well first.

Peppermint Mocha on the Left and Cinnamon Cake on the right

Flavorings

All flavorings are based on a quart, so adjust your recipe as needed. Also start with small amounts and then add more if you want. It’s harder to take away than to add more.

Peppermint Mocha

1T cocoa powder 1t peppermint extract (be careful with peppermint extract, it tends to taste very oily)

Cinnamon Cake

1T cinnamon, 1t butter extract, 1t cake batter flavoring

Banana Nut Bread

1t cinnamon, 1t butter extract, 1t cake batter flavoring, 1t maple syrup flavor, 1t banana flavor

Pumpkin Spice

1T Pumpkin spice flavor on this one, you can add additional cinnamon or cake batter to give it a more cake-y taste but test it first with just the pumpkin and see how you like it.

While I’m still mad about the jars breaking, I am glad that I was able to finally get around to making creamer for us. I just hate that it had to be like that. Oh, well.