My summer as a full-time homesteader is rapidly coming to an end, and after next week I will return to work full-time as a teacher. I often catch myself rushing to complete tasks as if, after the first day of school, I will no longer be able to do anything. This is, of course, ridiculous – I will be tired, but there will still be several hours of daylight after work in which I can do any homesteading tasks that need doing. There is a silver lining to the start of school; it indicates that fall is around the corner. That means amazing garden harvests, cool temperatures, and dazzling scenery. Plus, apple cider donuts. There’s always something to look forward to.
As a reminder, I’m striving to achieve self-sufficiency through the pursuit of several goals, which are organized into categories. There are a couple of affiliate links in this blog post; purchasing through these links helps me pay the feed bills.
Food Production
The rear south-east bed is cursed. I have planted carrots four times, and I have lost carrots four times. The latest iteration included a welded-wire cage over the seedlings; I had convinced myself that birds were the culprits in the loss of the prior three plantings. Since I’ve lost them again, I’m now convinced that it is grasshoppers that are eating the newly germinated carrots – although the birds and grasshoppers could be working together, as one morning I found a bird trapped in the cage.
Thankfully, when I planted carrots in the cages, I tucked additional carrots in and around other plants throughout the garden that are all doing well. The carrot issue and two beetle-killed cucumber plants are the only real problems in the garden at this time; everything is else is growing and producing beyond my wildest dreams. I’m bringing in pounds of beans, the tomato branches are sagging with the weight of green fruits, and the corn is sending up tassels. Not only am I enjoying the harvests, but the chickens are enjoying the scraps!
Aesthetic Utility
I cobbled together a wood shed using two pallets, two panels of metal roofing that I unearthed from the previous owner’s scrap pile, and the lumber that was delivered last week. I attempted to copy an image that I found on Pinterest, and at first I was a bit disappointed in the outcome because it felt pretty rickety. Thanks to some advice from social media, I added bracing on the back which increased the stability. As it starts to fill up, I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out!
Resource Acquisition & Preparedness
I have continued to dehydrate herbs, both in the dehydrator and by hanging bundles in various places throughout my house. It is very gratifying to see the shelves in the basement fill up with packed jars. I bought a mason jar vacuum sealer to improve the quality of the stored herbs, and I’m pleasantly surprised by how well it works! I store a lot of bulk dry goods in mason jars, so it will be very useful even beyond the dehydrated herbs. It also came with a bunch of lids that I wouldn’t trust for canning, but should work just fine for storing grains.
I attempted to bake two loaves of sourdough bread, but I fell asleep before moving the dough to the fridge to proof overnight. I didn’t want to waste the overproofed dough, so I finished the process and baked the loaves anyway – as expected, they turned out dense and gummy. I immediately turned one loaf into croutons using my homegrown basil and oregano for seasoning, and froze the other loaf for future croutons.
I changed the oil, spark plugs, and air filter on my John Deere X350 riding mower. This was an all-new experience for me, but I was too stubborn to spend several hundred dollars on dealership maintenance and I feel that being able to do my own maintenance should be a core tenant of my self sufficiency. Despite procrastinating for most of the summer, the whole job only took a $65 at-home maintenance kit, an oil drain pan and funnel left behind by the previous owner, my dad’s spark plug socket, and about an hour of my time.
I brought in two more loads of firewood; the rounds are starting to pile up next to the new wood shed. I am trying to acquire logs while I can, because I can always chip away at splitting and stacking in smaller time increments after I return to work. I also brought home some roadside hardwood left by tree workers; on the first evening I filled the trunk of my Subaru, and the next morning I borrowed a truck to bring home another load. I left behind some absolutely massive logs because the truck was full and I did not feel comfortable wielding a chainsaw on the curb in front of someone’s house. This is probably a discomfort I need to embrace – I left behind approximately two weeks’ worth of wood.
Moving Forward
I have one more week to accomplish as much as I can, and then my daily schedule will shift to accommodate the pesky job that gives me a paycheck and makes all of this possible. Since the major summer projects are complete, I expect to have a pretty routine week – I’ll harvest and preserve garden produce, find and process firewood, and take another (hopefully more successful) stab at sourdough.
KC