homesteading

Chicken Chronicles, edition 1

It’s time to update you on how the chickens have been doing! As chicks, they were brooded with zero electricity. Instead, we used a cold brooder and a Mother Hen box (you can read that blog post here). It has yielded some interesting anecdotal results, most notably: The Delaware and Blue Australorp started laying eggs [...]

Meet the Ranch Cat

This is Miss Kitty Mae, our new Ranch cat! And is she ever a sweetie pie. I have never known a cat that loves dogs the way she does either! Can't really call her a barn cat because we don't have a proper barn, but rodent control and feline friendship are her duties all the [...]

By |2022-02-12T10:32:27-08:00February 12th, 2022|Homesteading, ranch cat, Ranch Life|0 Comments

Brooding Chicks With Zero Electricity

In 2021, we needed to start a new laying flock. Living off-grid with only a small amount of solar power, we needed to learn how to brood chicks with very little- or preferably zero- electricity. We saw kerosene set-ups to provide heat. In pondering over it though, for one thing, Krystal is highly sensitive to [...]

Long Time No Blog

Can it really be so long since I last posted? Apparently so. As you can guess, it's been busy on the Ranch. Life in general get's that way! We've dealt with personal health challenges, installed a septic system, welcomed another granddaughter into the family, raised a litter of Havanese puppies, and survived a pandemic... among [...]

Being Ready for Winter

Every autumn the age-old question “Are you ready for winter?” starts to pepper local conversations. Being ready for winter in our remote mountain area means different things for different people. Some things need doing every year; others don’t, so our list changes from year-to-year. For 2018 it includes the following: Cut, chop, and stack firewood- [...]

By |2018-12-09T16:55:40-08:00December 9th, 2018|Homesteading, Off Grid Life, Ranch Life|0 Comments

The Trouble With Baking Soda

A few years ago, a friend mentioned something about chemicals in baking soda. I dismissed it thinking she must have meant to say baking powder, not soda. We all know there is aluminum in baking powder. And then I started watching this neat YouTube channel called Off Grid with Doug and Stacy. In one video, [...]

By |2019-04-24T08:58:07-07:00August 14th, 2018|Cooking, Homesteading, Ranch Life|0 Comments

Frontier Frittata

This frittata is one of my go-to dishes for its simplicity, versatility, and utter deliciousness. Whether for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner, a couple ingredients or chock full, it’s another great use of eggs when we’re swimmin’ in them.   The variations are limited only by your imagination: bacon with cheddar, ham and Swiss, pork [...]

Year of the Birds

Although the title sounds a bit Hitchcock-esque, I assure you there is nothing mysterious in the meaning! You see, spring/summer of 2017 has brought more wild babies of the feathered variety to the ranch than we have seen before, thus year of the birds. First, a Red Breasted Robin pair started things off by building [...]

By |2017-07-31T17:37:12-07:00July 31st, 2017|Homesteading, Ranch Life|0 Comments
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