Friday, March 22, 2019

Plants, Herbs & Trees on our Homestead

    Our homestead is in SE Oklahoma.  It sets on 40 acres whereas, only 5 acres are actually ours.  The other 10 acres belong to my hubby's brothers (5 acres each) but neither plans on ever living out on their properties so we kind of utilize it all for now.

     We live in a very rural area and that is exactly how we like it.  The nearest town has a population of only 1500 people and we sit in a valley surrounded by "mountains".  The nearest Walmart is 45 minutes away and the nearest mall is in the next state (Arkansas) and is 1 1/2 hours away. 

    Our property consists of a combination of meadows and woods.  

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A meadow that is on our property.


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Sunset on our property

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Big cedar tree on our property.

    Among the meadows and woods we have many wild medicinal plants and herbs growing.  I went to practical nursing school (and graduated) but never went and took my license.  I worked in the medical field for over 10 years and know quite a bit when it comes to medical care.  Now that I have a family and we live so far out in nowhere, getting to a doctor is not always the easiest thing to do.  I started learning all about homeopathic remedies and finding out what plants that we have access here can do for us and was so pleased to learn how much we can do with the plants and herbs we have on the property.

      One of the medicinal plants we have on the property is Yarrow.  All of the ground parts of Yarrow medicinal.



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Yarrow in the early budding stage.

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Yarrow flowers.

     We have learned to look to the woods to see what God designed and how it works without our interference.  We watched “Back to Eden” and were inspired.  Think about it:  we do not go out into our woods and fertilize the trees or plants.  We do not go out and rake up the leaves and groom it all to encourage it to grow.  But you know what?  Out in our woods, where man really has no hand in it, the woods are thriving.  There are wild fruit trees, nut bearing trees, mushrooms, super tall trees, shrubs, and vines and they are all growing wonderfully and thrive together.  We are trying to mimic what is going on out in our woods in our gardens and land.  We want it all to be productive and yield us everything we need for medicine and for a lot of our food.  We want it to grow and flourish without a whole lot of work on our part.  That is our goal. 

    
     Fruit trees and bushes and nut trees we have growing on our land include:   peach trees, an apple tree, a lemon tree, crab apple trees, sand plum bushes (tons of them), blackberry bushes, a lime tree, an apricot tree, an orange tree, a giant raspberry bush, beauty berries, 2 mulberry trees, persimmon trees, walnut trees, hickory trees, and oak trees, and all kinds of flowers.  We are striving to have a sustainable landscape and to increase biodiversity on our plot of land.

   Other things we have growing out here are:  honeysuckles, catalpa trees, birch trees, honey locust trees, willow, sycamores, sweet gum, prickly pear cactus, pine, cedar, elm, Bradford pear, and elm trees.

     We have seen all kinds of wildlife that include:  squirrels, skunks, rabbits, fox, opossums, armadillos, moles, bobcat, mountain lion, black bears, raccoon, coyotes, deer, wild turkeys, wild ducks, geese, otters, beavers, turtles (box and snapping), many kinds of snakes (copperheads, water moccasins, coach whips, etc.) and all manner of birds.

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    We have a small pond and a branch running through the property and we have a free running creek that runs right behind our home and a watershed lake is about a mile away, definitely within walking distance.  We do what we can to conserve our precious water resources.  We do not use chemical herbicides or pesticides.

    We also have 3 wells and a large sustainable garden with permeable soil and grow beds.  We are all about going back to the basics and to our natural roots.  We try to forage our land and grow what we can so we don't depend on the supermarkets for our needs.  We also raise dairy and meat goats, chickens, turkeys and ducks.  Life is good in the country and I am so glad we live here!

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Bambi, a pygmy goat, shortly after being born. 

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Ellie Mae, 3 days old, pygmy fainting goat. 

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Sugar, a pygmy goat, 5 days old.


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Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Another Baby Girl

   Last night at about 6:30 p.m. our Pygmy Fainting Goat "Daisy Mae" gave birth to a blue eyed little girl that we have named "Ellie Mae".  She is such a cutie.  "Little Moo" is the daddy and he is such a good buck for us.  He throws out girls mainly and often times they have blue eyes.  That makes u 4 girls and 1 boy born so far and we still have 4 more goats due in the next week.  I love this time of year!

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Daisy Mae

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Little Moo


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Ellie Mae & Daisy Mae

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Ellie Mae

    Isn't she a cutie????

You can find the posts about the other babies born here recently here and here

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Thursday, March 14, 2019

Elsa's New Babies--Twins Again! (Goats on the Farm)

     On March 6, a day after Gracie had her twin girls, Elsa had twins too.  Elsa had a solid white little boy named "CJ: and a solid black little girl named "Midnight".   They are exact opposites in color and personality.  CJ is pretty calm and laid back and Midnight is super rambunctious.  Also, CJ has light blue eyes and Midnight's are a pretty brown.

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An hour after CJ was born.

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Midnight is just an hour old here.



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They are 2 days old here.

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3 days old.



    The video is a short little video of Midnight running around and having fun.


Hope you enjoyed seeing these new babies.


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Sunday, March 10, 2019

Baby Goats are Here! (Gracie's Twins)

    We woke up on March 5th to twin baby girl goats.  They were born to Gracie (pygmy nubian cross) and Little Moo (pygmy). 

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Gracie

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Little Moo

    We have named the twins "Jessie" (dark one) and "Sugar" (the white one).  Ronny came up with the names and we fit the names fit.


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Jessie, Gracie, and Sugar, a few hours after the twins were born.


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Sugar, 2 days old.

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Jessie, 2 days old.


    Hope you enjoyed seeing these new babies.


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Friday, March 8, 2019

Hewing--Part 2

    My oldest son, Bub, loves to work outside and enjoys making things.  He is all about doing things the "old fashioned" way and hates using power tools.  He enjoys it and is quite good at it.  We recently shared Part One of a video that he made on "hewing lumber".   Here is part 2 of the video.
 I think you will find it quite enjoyable and learn a lot from him.



    Enjoy it!

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Thursday, March 7, 2019

How to Cook Ground Deer Meat



   Deer meat is lower in fat and cholesterol than other red meats.  It also has a higher amount of Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12 and the Omega 3 fatty acids.  

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      I know a lot of people who refuse to eat deer meat because they say it tastes too “gamey” and it’s true it can taste that way but if you prepare it correctly, you can keep the majority of the gamey taste away. 

     The first thing you need to keep in mind is that venison (deer meat) is very lean and does not have the “marbling” of fat that beef does.  I fix this problem by adding a really decent amount of olive oil to the meat.  

    I have found the best way to cook ground venison is low and slow.  I just place 2 pounds of the ground venison into a pot on low heat.   I then add in 2 tablespoons of olive oil per pound of deer meat and a teaspoon of lemon juice per pound also.   Citrus tends to help mask the strong flavor of the deer meat. 

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   To also help with the taste, I add in a tablespoon of dehydrated onions and a ½ teaspoon of garlic powder per pound of meat.   
 
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Cook the meat on low heat, stirring as you brown the meat.  

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     Once it is done, I divide up the meat into baggies and freeze it until you are ready to use it as I would ground beef.   I love using venison in my delicious No-Bean Chili Recipe
 
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How to Make a Classic Christmas Rainbow Poke Cake

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