Putting raw milk on your soil

I thought this article was very interesting.  Just another reason to sing the praises of raw milk!


Finally, An article featuring the attributes/observations on applying raw milk to the soil.
Mon, 2010-03-08
 "This article appeared in the March 10, 2010, issue of the Unterrified Democrat, a weekly newspaper published in Linn, Mo., since 1866.  In addition to writing for the paper, Voss raises registered South Poll cattle on pathetically poor grass that he is trying desperately to improve.”  
Nebraska dairyman applies raw milk to pastures and watches the grass grow
An Illinois steel-company executive turned Nebraska dairyman has stumbled onto an amazingly low-cost way to grow high-quality grass – and probably even crops – on depleted soil.
Can raw milk make grass grow? More specifically, can one application of three gallons of raw milk on an acre of land produce a large amount of grass?
The answer to both questions is yes.
Call it the Nebraska Plan or call it the raw milk strategy or call it downright amazing, but the fact is Nebraska dairyman David Wetzel is producing high-quality grass by applying raw milk to his fields and a Nebraska Extension agent has confirmed the dairyman’s accomplishments.
David Wetzel is not your ordinary dairyman, nor is Terry Gompert your ordinary Extension agent. Ten years ago Wetzel was winding up a five-year stint as the vice president of an Illinois steel company and felt the need to get out of the corporate rat race. At first he and his wife thought they would purchase a resort, but he then decided on a farm because he liked to work with his hands. The Wetzels bought a 320 acre farm in Page, Neb., in the northeast part of the state, and moved to the farm on New Year’s Day in 2000.
“We had to figure out what to do with the farm,” Wetzel said, “so we took a class from Terry Gompert.” They were advised to start a grass-based dairy and that’s what they did. “There’s no money in farming unless you’re huge,” Wetzel said, or unless the farmer develops specialty products, which is what they did.
In their business, the Wetzels used the fats in the milk and the skim milk was a waste product. “We had a lot of extra skim milk and we started dumping it on our fields,” Wetzel said. “At first we had a tank and drove it up and down the fields with the spout open. Later we borrowed a neighbor’s sprayer.”
Sometime in the winter of 2002 they had arranged to have some soil samples taken by a fertilizer company and on the day company employees arrived to do the sampling, it was 15 below zero. To their astonishment they discovered the probe went right into the soil in the fields where raw milk had been applied. In other fields the probe would not penetrate at all.
“I didn’t realize what we had,” Wetzel said. “I had an inkling something was going on and I thought it was probably the right thing to do.” For a number of years he continued to apply the milk the same way he had been doing, but in recent years he has had a local fertilizer company spray a mixture that includes liquid molasses and liquid fish, as well as raw milk. In addition he spreads 100 to 200 pounds of lime each year.
Gompert, the extension agent that suggested Wetzel start a grass-based dairy, had always been nearby – literally. The two are neighbors and talk frequently. It was in 2005 that Gompert, with the help of university soils specialist Charles Shapiro and weed specialist Stevan Kenzevic, conducted a test to determine the effectiveness of what Wetzel had been doing.
That the raw milk had a big impact on the pasture was never in doubt, according to Gompert. “You could see by both the color and the volume of the grass that there was a big increase in production.” In the test the raw milk was sprayed on at four different rates – 3, 5, 10 and 20 gallons per acre – on four separate tracts of land. At the 3-gallon rate 17 gallons of water were mixed with the milk, while the 20-gallon rate was straight milk. Surprisingly the test showed no difference between the 3-, 5-, 10- and 20-gallon rates.
The test began with the spraying of the milk in mid-May, with mid-April being a reasonable target date here in central Missouri. Forty-five days later the 16 plots were clipped and an extra 1200 pounds of grass on a dry matter basis were shown to have been grown on the treated versus non-treated land. That’s phenomenal, but possibly even more amazing is the fact the porosity of the soil – that is, the ability to absorb water and air – was found to have doubled.
So what’s going on? Gompert and Wetzel are both convinced what we have here is microbial action. “When raw milk is applied to land that has been abused, it feeds what is left of the microbes, plus it introduces microbes to the soil,” Wetzel explained, adding that “In my calculations it is much more profitable (to put milk on his pastures) than to sell to any co-op for the price they are paying.”
Wetzel’s Observations
Wetzel has been applying raw milk to his fields for 10 years, and during that time has made the following observations:
* Raw milk can be sprayed on the ground or the grass; either will work.
* Spraying milk on land causes grasshoppers to disappear.  The theory is that insects do not bother healthy plants, which are defined by how much sugar is in the plants.  Insects (including grasshoppers) do not have a pancreas so they cannot process sugar.  Milk is a wonderful source of sugar and the grasshoppers cannot handle the sugar. They die or leave as fast as their little hoppers can take them.
* Theory why milk works.  The air is 78% nitrogen.  God did not put this in the air for us but rather the plants.  Raw milk feeds microbes/bugs in the soil.  What do microbes need for growth?  Protein, sugar, water, heat.  Raw milk has one of the most complete amino acid (protein) structures known in a food.  Raw milk has one of the best sugar complexes known in a food, including the natural enzyme structure to utilize these sugars.  For explosive microbe growth the microbes utilize vitamin B and enzymes.  What do you give a cow when the cow’s rumen is not functioning on all cylinders (the microbes are not working)?  Many will give a vitamin B shot (natural farmers will give a mouthful of raw milk yogurt).  Vitamin B is a super duper microbe stimulant.  There is not a food that is more potent in the complete vitamin B complex than raw milk (this complex is destroyed with pasteurization).  Raw milk is one of the best sources for enzymes, which break down food into more usable forms for both plants and microbes. (Again, pasteurization destroys enzyme systems.)
* Sodium in the soil is reduced by half.  I assume this reflects damage from chemicals is broken down/cleaned up by the microbes and or enzymes.
* If you choose to buy raw milk from a neighbor to spread on your land, consider offering the farmer double or triple what he is paid to sell to the local dairy plant.  Reward the dairy farmer as this will start a conversation and stir the pot.  The cost for the milk, even at double or triple the price of conventional marketing, is still a very cheap soil enhancer.
* Encourage all to use their imagination to grow the potential applications of raw milk in agriculture, horticulture and the like – even industrial uses – possibly waste water treatment. 
Microbes
The purpose of this story is to convince farmers and livestock producers in this area to look into the possibility of using raw milk, compost tea, earthworm castings tea, liquid fish or sea minerals or some combination thereof to boost production at an affordable cost. It’s my experience that people in the Midwest are to a great extent unaware of the benefits of microbes. If the first part of this story has caught your attention and you intend to consider the use of raw milk or any of the other methods, you need to learn about microbes and the best way I have discovered is a book co-authored by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis, Teaming with Microbes.
In this story I cannot go into detail about microbes, the miniscule little critters that exist in abundance in good soil. There are four principal types of microbes – bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes. To get an example of their size, consider that there are a billion bacteria in one teaspoon of good soil. The role of microbes is to consume carbon, along with other minerals and nutrients, and these are stored in their cells until their ultimate release for use by plants. Microbes also store water, which make them drought-fighters as well.
I realize this is an inadequate description, but you need to read the book.
Brix
Brix is another concept that is not widely understood in the middle of the country. Brix is the measure of the sugar content of a plant (that’s an oversimplification but good enough for this article) and is measured by a device called a refractometer. If your grass has a brix of 1, that’s cause for nightmares. Our grass is routinely a 1. Clover and johnsongrass might on occasion measure 4 or 5 in the middle of the afternoon on a bright, sunny day. That’s deplorable for plants that should be double or triple that figure.
It’s not just our farm that has grass that’s not fit to feed livestock. I communicate frequently with three young cattlemen from this area – Jeremia Markway, Bruce Shanks and Chris Boeckmann – and they have the same problem. Last summer we were singing the blues over lunch and decided our refractometers must be broken. Someone came up with the idea of measuring sugar water. We tried it. Boom. The refractometer measured 26. Our equipment wasn’t broken, only our grass.
About three months ago Markway discovered a short article on what Wetzel and Gompert had been doing in Nebraska with raw milk. He emailed the article to me and that’s what got me to do this story. An interesting thing is what Markway discovered about the impact of raw milk on brix levels. He has a milk cow and took some of her milk, mixed with water and sprayed on his pastures with a small hand sprayer. Where he sprayed, the brix level of the grass was raised to a level of 10. That’s a great start and was good news to Wetzel and Gompert, who had not been measuring the brix levels of Wetzel’s grass.
Compost Tea
Raw milk is not the only thing that will improve soil. Compost tea is a liquid made by running compost through a “brewer,” a device somewhat akin to a fish tank, in that oxygen is added to the water containing the compost and this action flushes the microbes out of the compost into the water. The resulting liquid is a “tea” that can be sprayed on pastures and crops, to their great benefit.
Two men that make extensive use of compost tea are Mark Sturges and David Herringshaw. These two have never met and until recently had not even heard of each other.
Sturges lives in western Oregon near the coast and for 10 years has had a business spraying compost tea on vineyards, cranberry bogs, fruit and nut trees and pastures. Sturges adds malt extract, kelp and seas minerals to his tea, and if he is spraying pastures, he adds molasses to build the bacteria content.
Herringshaw lives in the near-desert southeast part of Oregon at an elevation of 4,100 feet. He uses compost tea on his own land and has the brix level of his pasture and hay ground up to 22. That’s tantamount to feeding corn. Herringshaw attributes the high brix to the compost tea and also sea minerals, which he applies at the same time. He uses nothing else.
I have seen the compost Sturges produces. It is so alive it literally moves. I have not seen the compost Herringshaw makes at the other end of the state. I can only imagine how good it might be. He fortifies it with raw milk.
Think for a second what Wetzel said about using your imagination to grow the applications for raw milk. Herringshaw has already used his imagination.
Earthworm Castings Tea
This tea is identical to compost tea except that worm poop is substituted for compost. Almost everyone thinks tea from earthworm castings is great stuff, and some even think this tea is superior to compost tea. Earthworm castings are known to suppress certain diseases of grass and some people think the use of castings might suppress harmful bacteria such as staph and E. coli.
There is a story going around that a university was having problems with athletes getting staph infections from burns sustained on grass practice fields and the university stopped applying chemicals to the grass and instead turned to worm castings and solved the problem. I spent two weeks trying to track down this story and at this point I don’t believe it is true. Maybe someone will prove me wrong.
I did, however, come across an interesting situation in St. Louis County, Mo., where the Parkway school district turned to earthworm castings in lieu of commercial fertilizer. The groundskeeper there is Matt Jenne, who prior to coming to St. Louis was a golf course superintendent in Florida. While working in Florida he noticed earthworms had built up their castings on the greens. They picked up the castings as part of cutting the grass, and then piled the grass-castings mixture and let it compost, after which they used it with great success on new grass and bare spots. To feed the life they had in the soil, they applied molasses once a month with their irrigation system.
When he got to St. Louis Jenne decided to go with worm castings on two football fields, applying between half a ton and a ton per field. The castings are applied dry and work best when the field has been aerated.
Jenne may have an explanation for the staph infection story. He says that artificial turf causes staph and the only way this can be controlled is to disinfect the artificial turf.
Here in Osage County earthworm castings are available at Eisterhold Brothers on U.S. 63 between Westphalia and Freeburg. Unfortunately they have decided to close their business when their current supply runs out.
Fish
Liquid fish or fish fertilizer is another product that has been successfully applied to pastures. Teddy Gentry, the founder of South Poll cattle, has been using a fish product for years and is pleased with the results. It seems especially beneficial in fighting the effects of a drought. Gentry mixes the fish with liquid calcium and is thinking about adding sea minerals to his mixture.
Sea Minerals
Sea minerals might be the best way to improve poor or depleted soils. We all know that a large deer in Iowa will weigh 100 pounds more than a large deer from that part of Missouri south of the Missouri River. Many people ascribe the difference to the mineral level of the soils. It’s difficult – if not impossible – to produce high-quality grass on soil that is no properly mineralized. It took Herringshaw years to get his grass to the 22 brix level and he is convinced he would not have gotten there without the seal minerals. Herringshaw prefers Redmond salt, while Sturges uses Sea-90. Sturges applies his sea minerals as a spray, along with compost tea. Herringshaw makes both dry and spray applications. He estimates he has broadcast approximately 85 pounds of Redmond salt per acre since he started using that product. This is in addition to what he has sprayed on. For both Sturges and Herringshaw a foliar application is one pound or less per acre.
Another individual that makes extensive use of sea minerals is Doug Gunnink of Gaylord, Minn. Gunnink produces high-brix grass for his grass-fed beef operation by the foliar application of liquid fish and sea minerals. He also tests his grass and adds those minerals that are in short supply in his pastures, whether boron, sulfur, copper or some other mineral.
Fish hydrolysate, Gunnink explained, is the entire fish ground up and then preserved with phosphoric or sulfuric acid. If the preservative is phosphoric acid, the phosphorus “bumps up the Brix,” he said, adding that “phosphorus gives grass power.” High-brix grass produces more organic matter, which in turn holds more water, Gunnink explained, stating that a 1% increase in organic matter will hold an additional 53,000 gallons of water per acre. “Organic matter is the sponge that holds water for dry spells.”
The organic matter also holds the nutrients that plants need.
Conventional Fertilizers
This story is not meant to be a war on conventional fertilizers. The late Dr. Maynard Murray, the pioneer that first advocated use of sea minerals, said there is a place for conventional N, P and K. We do, however, need to come up with better ways to use them. Bill Totemeier, a friend in southeast Iowa that is a commercial hay producer, uses ammonium sulfate rather than ammonium nitrate because the former is much more earthworm-friendly. He applies fertilizer two or three times per year in smaller amounts rather one large application in the spring. This reduces the shock to the microbes.
Houston-area rancher Tom McGrady spread ammonium sulfate on his ryegrass pasture in early March. In his area ammonium nitrate is no longer available. That may be a good thing.
For Row Crop Farmers
Row crop farmers can also benefit greatly from some of these practices. Lowenfels, who co-authored the book on microbes, urges anyone who uses herbicides or insecticides to soon thereafter apply compost tea to increase the microbe population that was probably greatly reduced by the chemical spray. Fish would also work in this situation.
For the busy grain guy, there are companies that make products ready to go into the sprayer. One such firm is AgriEnergy Resources. Mike Wyatt, an independent consultant that works with AgriEnergy, has helped me gain some insight into world of microbes.
Hunters
If you want bigger deer like you read about in Iowa and Illinois, the methods set out in this article should be used on your hunting land, especially the food plots. Animals are clearly attracted to plants that have been treated with sea salt. And they also choose high-brix plants over those with low brix levels.
My Experience
I know Terry Gompert personally. He’s the real deal. In 2007 he organized a high-stock-density grazing seminar in as remote an area of northeast Nebraska as you can find and attracted over 200 people. Included among that crew were Jeremia Markway and me. Based on my knowledge of and respect for Gompert and the results Markway experiences just down the road from us, why wouldn’t I be willing to try this? To me it’s a no-brainer. I’ve made arrangements to buy milk from Alfred Brandt, who lives just south of Linn, and Chamois MFA has agreed to spray 50 or 100 acres in mid-April. A 1,000 gallon tank containing 150 gallons of raw milk and 850 gallons of water will provide the perfect ratio of three gallons of milk and 17 gallons of water, which applied at the rate of 20 gallons per acre will cover 50 acres. I hope to get over at least 100 acres. Whether we include something with the milk – such as fish, molasses or earthworm casting tea – is a decision we haven’t made at this time.
We are also going to broadcast one ton of sea salt at a rate of 20 pounds per acre.
Conclusion
For years I’ve been a dung beetle fanatic, thinking that I needed dung beetles to build my soil. I’ve probably been wrong in this regard. I now think I need to build my soil and the dung beetles will come. Dr. James Nardi, in his classic work Life in the Soil, describes dung beetles as picky eaters. That may seem strange, but my experience convinces me his assessment is totally accurate. I hope – and I do believe this will happen – dung beetles will choose to come to our farm because we have upgraded the food supply.

Soothing poison oak naturally

Last week I had, unfortunately, a raging case of poison oak.  It was bad.  Head to toe and no fun at all.  I've still got the rash - that is now healing - all over me, but luckily the unending itching did end and all that's left is a bit of healing.  But I took the opportunity to take some pictures of one of the things I did to get some relief so I could share it here with you all.

I made a soothing oil/poultice from the leaves of the plantain plant.  You can make a poultice of sorts with the leaves of the plantain plant to sooth poison oak, ivy, or sumac.

There are a couple of different kinds of plantain that grow locally around here.  The broad leaf and the thinner leaf which is sometimes referred to as "snakeweed."

This is the broadleaf, which is what I have growing in my yard.

The ones I have don't really grow very large so I wanted to get some of the bigger think leaf variety.  There happens to be a large field right next to my church, so I took off with a couple of friends and we went plantain picking.  I was able to not only get a large amount of leaves to make my oil, I also got one very large and mature thin leaf variety pulled up out of the ground and it is now living happily in my yard.


That's it sticking out of the bag there.  :-)  The neighbors probably wonder why I have a huge "weed" (to them) growing in my yard that we won't mow over, but I want this plant to stay big and healthy should I need to harvest from it again.

Now, on to the how-to.  You want to take the leaves of the plant and tear them off.  Wash them and then pat them dry.   Now warm up some olive oil on the stove.  *Do not get it too hot or it will break down the healing properties of the plant!*  We're going for baby bottle warm here.  (Yes, my counter is cluttered, but I've got approximately 4 feet of counter space to my name.  So there ya go.)  Now you want to put your leaves and some oil in the blender.   I don't have a blender - it died at the hands of my son - so I use my processor.  Works just fine.



You don't want to use too much oil.  You want it clumpy, not runny.  I also added the stalks of the leaves as you can see here.  They have healing properties too and I was so miserable I wanted all that was coming to me.  The stalks will make your finished product more fiberous - so if you're planning on eating it, just know that.  Yes, you can put this mixture on pasta and eat it to get even more of it in your system.



This is what the finished product looks like.  Store it in a lidded container at room temperature.  When it's on, don't plan on moving around much.  It's messy and you need to keep it on you until it dries and then reapply as many times as you feel it's needed.  I sat down and covered myself and the chair in towels and put a thick layer over my arms, then covered that with flour sack towels.  I also had it in my scalp really bad so I worked it into my scalp and then put my hair up in a towel to keep it here.



Now, what this is does help soothe.  It gives some comfort.  It is not a cure.  The amount of help you get from it will depend on how bad you have the rash.  I had it quite badly so this did help, but there was still discomfort.  However, for 24-36 hours after I used this, I could tell a difference between the areas I treated it with and the areas I didn't.  My arms and scalp were about to drive me crazy and after I used this, even though those places did still itch, they felt much better than my legs that I didn't treat and didn't have the rash as badly on for the next day and a half.

So, even though this is not a cure it is a comfort measure.  And if you ever find yourself in a situation of having one of these rashes and you're not able to get drug store style help or you want something natural instead, this is good to know.  When you're that miserable even a little bit of comfort sounds like a very good thing!

How does your garden grow?

I've got almost all of the garden put in.  Just a few more seedlings left that I will have to figure out how to squeeze in there.  Right now we have planted: several different heirloom varieties of tomatoes, potatoes, basil, leeks, strawberries, chives, lots of zucchini, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, pie pumkins, two different types of watermelon, blueberries, blackberries, a self pollinating apple tree, and a banana tree.

I'm quite pleased with how the garden is going thus far this year.  I'm using some new (to me) organic soil amendments this year and I'm quite pleased with them.  Of course, I have the rabbit hay and chicken poop but I'm also using "Mega Fish" and "Mega Sea."  The Sea gets used on everything once a week and the Fish gets used every other week.  I had heard that it makes things grow bigger and stronger and I have to say that, thus far, that is exactly what is happening!  I'm a convert of these products most definitely!  It's funny, when you're mixing up the Mega Sea into your water (I use rain water) it actually smells like the sea when you're at the beach!  And the Mega Fish smells a bit like...well...fish, lol.  But I don't care because I really like what I see it doing for my garden.  I get these products from a Bulk Herb Store vendor.

I'm also fixing to start putting together my next order of chicks for meat.  I'm trying to time it such that the week that the ones I have outside need to be slaughtered, the ones I will have in the brooder will need to be moved outside.  I'm a bit nervous over the endevour as I already have 40 chickens outside and I'm fixing to order about 25 more, lol.  But if things go like they should, the last 25 will be in the brooder and won't come out until the first set of 25 meat chickens are no longer in the yard.  This is proving to be a very interesting summer, lol.

Doin's at our place

It seems that Mother Nature has enjoyed fretting me at every turn the past few weeks.  I have only managed to get about one half of the gardens in because if we have not been having storms we have been having tornadoes and if we haven't been having tornadoes we've been having hail and...you get the picture.  All has not been lost as in spite of having weather I have managed to get new berry bushes in, lettuce, spinach, leeks, basil, strawberries, and tomatoes in the ground.  Still a good bit to go, but tis nice to at least have that much done.  I also managed to get my 30 chicks out of the brooder and in a temporary enclosure outside.  Temporary because 23 of them are meat birds and I'm not building an entire coop for critters that will only be with a us a short time.  I built a lean-to against our out building.  I must say, it has worked quite well even through the storms and tornadic weather.

Simple and basic, yes.  But that is generally the way I do things and more often than not things work out to my favor.  It's not shown in the picture but the whole thing is covered in bird netting.  The lean to is covered in 4 layers of tarps.  The dog house, which was sitting around not being used, is a second choice for shelter and where we put their food when it rains. 

A third choice for shelter is my old composter.  I heartily dislike this thing as a composter.  Will never use it as one again.  But it works great with some hay and chickens in it.  This chicken run is not as much of a fortress as I have for my laying flock but in our area we have been blessed with a minimal amount of predators that are interested in chickens.  To date, we have had no issues at all.  We will be building a chicken tractor shortly for the 6 easter eggers and 1 dominique in this group and will pull them out to live in it.  Then the only thing left is to let the meat birds age and fatten up at bit.  As far as meat birds go, they are happy.  I did, after all, promise them only one bad day in their life.  Sounds a pretty good deal to me - we certainly don't get only one bad day!

So now, if I can only manage to get Mother Nature to stop dumping bucket of water atop my head and blowing twisters my way - I'll get the rest of the garden in!

A chosen, solitary life

I honestly don't know if I chose this life or if it chose me.  It makes no difference I suppose as the things that matter deeply to me, aside from my family of course, is the clucking of chickens and the smell of fresh earth ready for planting.  My days have a rhythm to them that is old...a rhythm that also belonged to generations before me.  The sun comes up, there is feeding to do.  It sets and I make certain all are garnered in safely.  And in between - well, one never knows.  It could be an injured child or rabbit, teaching my kids algebra and the baby chicks where "home" is...and is not, lol.  It is gathering eggs, skimming cream off of fresh milk, and attending to seedlings as though they are babes. 

I say this is a solitary life because the largest percentage of folks I know simply do not understand.  Do not understand why I would want this when it is so different from the life that they so enjoy full of things that are supposed to make their life better.  But from where I'm standing it looks like a whole lot of smoke and mirrors.  Perhaps it's a beautiful house that somehow makes them feel important or like they have overcome something back in the recesses of their memory.  But to me it looks like a monthly mortgage payment that is so big I could pay all my monthly bills with and still have money left over.  I'm sure they would turn their nose up at my little clapboard house and say it's fine for someone else but they just couldn't live there.  But to me, it's such a beautiful thing because it is mine - 100% lock, stock, and barrel paid for in cash.  Truth be told, they don't own their mansion.  Much the other way around.  They are owned by it - and by the bank.  I guess I don't understand them any better than they understand me.  I would much rather be free.

So yes, whether I chose this life or if chose me...I don't really know.  What I do know is that I am grateful and at peace with the choice. 

Be it ever so humble...

I have had to make a trek away from home the past couple of days and while it was for a good and noble thing I find that I simply cannot wait to get back home. I have missed everything from the chickens to the dogs always about my feet to the seedlings.  As a matter of fact, as everyone else in our party is staying yet another night, I already have my pickup packed up and me and my clan will be heading home within the hour. 

I have spent my time since Thursday night with a crowd that gets aflutter at the thought of high heels and new handbags.  (Sigh.)  This afternoon my son and I escaped for a while and took off to a hunting/camping/wildlife supply store and when I walked through the door I had to laugh a bit, take a deep breath, and say, "Ahhh, now this is more like it."  And it was - but twas still not home.

So now I am at the ready and will soon be leaving to go home.  My tiny, humble, plain, and busy home. Tis where I belong.  

Hamburger helper, homemade style

I like to have a few quick fix meals up my sleeve for busy nights or nights when I'm extra tired. But I don't like paying for the boxed meals and quite honestly, it would take two or three of them to feed my family supper. Even buying the Save A Lot brands, that' s not really cheap. So I looked on the boxes to find what spices were used in the different flavors and now I can make them myself.

Last night we made lasagna flavored homemade hamburger helper. Here's all you have to do to make it at home, from scratch ~ however, most ingredients are "eyeballed." I can't give you exact measurements of the spices but if you're used to cooking from scratch you shouldn't have any problems.

I make enough to equal at least two boxes worth. I started out by browning my meat in my skillet. I only used about 1/2 pound of meat though.  I was able to stretch it by adding leftover rice from the night before - there was probably about 2 cups worth. Once that was cooked up I added about 2 3/4 cups of hot water and about 2 cups of egg noodles. Then come the spices and thickening agents. For lasagna hamburger helper, they are as follows:

* flour
* corn starch
* dried tomato (put through food processor)
* dried onion
* dried garlic
* cheese powder

Mix it all in, let it come to a boil and then simmer covered for about 15 minutes. Add in some shredded cheese, however much you like. That's all there is to it.  We like to top it at the table with parmesan cheese.

If you don't know where to purchase cheese powder, I think you can order it from Honeyville Grains. If not, check out some of the other online bulk grocery stores. I know I've seen it on them before. I can get my cheese powder from the local Mennonite market.

My huge skillet was completely full but by the time they all ate and went back for seconds, it was completely empty. That's the appetites for growing kids and a grown man for you.  But the end result was one well fed family and one backwoods momma who didn’t have to stand in the kitchen all evening.  Well worth it in my book.

This post is linked to: Barn Hop #9

Not just for the critters

These are a couple of products we simply could not be without.  You see that all purpose pet balm up there?  It's the very same stuff as Bag Balm (yes, the stuff they use on cows, among other things.)  There is another product marketed as a cracked heel cream that comes in a container much smaller than this one and it's more expensive.  Very same stuff.  And no, I didn't get it for our pets.  Although if needed I would certainly use it on them!  But for the most part, these products are for the humans in the house to use.  When they say all purpose, they really do mean it.  This stuff is great for minor cuts, burns, scrapes, rashes - you name it.  Granted, it doesn't smell all that great - but it's not nasty either. It simply smells like...medicine.  And if your cut up or burned, that's not so very bad a thing is it?

The other made-for-animals-but-used-by-people product I love is Mane'n'Tail shampoo.  I've been using this stuff since I was a little girl.  I guess you could say I grew up using it.  It seems to work on all hair types and it does a really good job.  I even know of one lady who I go to church with who has been having some issues with hair loss.  She got started on the Mane'n'Tail and her hair is actually starting to thicken up!

Honestly, if you haven't tried these products, you really should give them a go.  Don't be afraid to shop in the pet aisle or the feed store for products for yourself and your family!

*Linked to Farmgirl Friday at Verde Farm.

Day's End

It is day's end and I am ready to be abed.  At this time of year I feel like I'm a runner just taking the first paces of a race that is long but knowing that the reward at the end is so great.  So much to do - and yet a few months down the road the workload of this month will seem like child's play. 

I have a spot where I let all of the rabbit hay collect all winter long and now it is full of dark rich compost ready for the garden.  We started layering it in today.  I'm going tomorrow to fill the back end of my pickup truck with dirt that will be mixed in with aged chicken poop and rabbit hay and it will simply be lovely.  I also have the first sunburn of the season.  Today I have put raised beds together, garnered a new egg customer, taken care of chickens, chicks, rabbits, and teenagers. We finished the day off with homemade potato salad and bbq chicken.  Spring is here - tis a very good thing.

Volunteer seedlings

I split open pie pumkins a few times during the cold months and give them to my chickens.  They love them.  And keeping some variety in their diet during the dark and gray days helps keep pecking to a minimum.  I noticed today that I have a few volunteer pie pumkins coming up.  The chickens must have missed a few seeds.  I gently dug them up and placed them egg shells until I find them a garden spot to move into.

Random snipets of my day

Today has been a pretty good day.  No major hiccups over anything.  Just a slow, steady rhythm carrying us along.  I made a pork roast that turned out wonderful.  Cooked slow with oranges and orange juice, garlic, salt, and pepper.  I had the oranges laying on top of it during cooking.

 Here it is after I pulled it...

I wanted to take some pictures of the chicks now that they are growing and going through their awkward stage.  It was quite funny as the flash on the camera totally freaked them out.  The picture took at just the right instant to show this little guy in mid-startle.

How funny is that?  But with the next picture, they were wise to the ways of the camera.

My favorite lil easter egger...

Love those puffy cheeks!  But now tis tired of posing and decided to protest.

All are safely gathered in now for day's end.  Goodnight all ~~

*Linking to: Homestead Revival Blog Hop #8

Mission Accomplished

I am tired.  I have been running around since yesterday working on stocking up, getting supplies, and finding my son the clothing he needs for his speech later this month.  He and I went to the city yesterday and headed to the mall (ick) first to try (hope, pray) that I could find him a suit coat at a reasonable price.  He really doesn't have any need for such things here where we live.  Going to church requires neat and clean.  Dressing up for him usually consists of a pair of khakis and a polo.  But he has to have a sport coat to go with his khakis for participating in the speech convention.
And I would just like to say, the prices they charge for those things are absolutely obscene.  Obscene.  I knew it was a long shot, but I wanted to spend no more than $50 or $60.  And that's it.   So, we get to our first store.  I started at what I thought would be the most reasonably priced store in the mall.  Hah.  We found the suit/sport coats and they wanted $175!  Do you know what I could do with $175?  Certainly not buying one piece of clothing that will probably only be worn once by a boy who is growing fast and won't fit in it next year at convention time.  At this point, I wasn't sure what I was going to do.   I was wondering if perhaps we could just borrow one from someone we know.  But I told my son that we should keep looking and go to another store.  We went into store #2 and........BINGO!!  $150 sport coats on sale for $60!  Perfect.  Total score.

I then went to the bulk food store and did some stocking up.  I went back out today and did some more.  I added everything from shoelaces to canned goods to supplies for building chicken coops to my preps. Got 16 more heirloom tomato seedlings to add to the garden. And now I rest.  Tis time to stay home.  Much better.

A Necessary Evil

Tomorrow I have to take my boy child to the city.  Tis a two hour treck.  He is participating in an activity in a couple of weeks where he will be competing in speech, he will be judged, there are trophies to be had.  So he has to get some duds worthy of the occasion.

Now see, if it were just me, I would go up on my mountain and quite frankly just never come back down again.  I could be quite content in a one room shanty equipped with a wood stove and a clothes line.  But, I am a mother.  So I cannot fall into my backwoods tendencies 110% with wild abandon.  My children's needs are placed appropriately ahead of mine and thus...to the city I go in the morn. 

But I will be killing two birds with one stone.  After spending my morning in clothes shops surrounded by women of the fluffy sort I'm going to be ready to get back into my element.  So I will be stopping at one of the bulk stores on the way home and making some purchases to increase my larder.  It truly makes me happy to go on a stock up trip for the larder.  Pantry goods are to me what diamonds must be to ladies of a different sort. 

They can keep their bling.  I've got dry goods.

Filling the cold larder

Things are gearing up around my homestead for the busy season.  And once it starts, it just doesn't stop until the frost hits the ground again.  Some of my "busy" has already started, but I'm still in preparation mode for most of it.  Right now I've got 30 baby chicks in the brooder.  Six easter eggers, one dominique, and all the rest are white rocks.  All of them are straight run.  I'm fairly certain the dominique is a roo and I'm planning on keeping him ~ regardless of what it's sex turns out to truly be.  I've got my fingers crossed and double crossed that all six of the easter eggers are pullets. I really want to add all of them to my laying flock.  If they are not all female, I may consider keeping one more roo from them.  A few of the white rocks will also be added to my laying flock. 

My ten rir chickens are awesome layers.  They out did themselves this winter, never missing a beat no matter how cold and dark it was.  They definitely earned their keep.  But I need more egg layers.  I'm selling, on average, 86-98 eggs per week.  And with only ten egg layers...well, you do the math.  I'm starting to get a bit behind on eggs.  And that simply cannot be.  So I'm pleased to be adding new blood to my flock.  I can't wait until late July when I should start getting eggs from my new ladies.

As for the other white rocks ~ well, they are destined for the freezer.  Once they are all dispatched and safely tucked away into my cold larder, I will place one more order of chicks this summer.  I will raise another 25-30 chicks - most likely all roos - and they will all go into the cold larder as well and  we will be stocked up on chicken for the year.  Tis a fine thing.

Introductions

I am a common sense, down to earth, plain and simple person.  I am early mornings, full pantries, roosters crowing, and the smell of turned earth in spring.  I have no use for make up, high heels, painted nails, or shopping sprees.  Such things make me tilt my head in confusion while making me shake it in aggravation at the same time.  I don't have time for such things nor the inclination to put value on them.

I like to know where my food comes from.  For fresh vegetables & meats if I don't grow, raise & dispatch it myself I prefer to get it from local sources who I know grew it, raised it & dispatched it in a humane manner.  Around here, meat animals know what it's like to feel the sun on their faces.

I know that I am different from most but I make no apologies for that.  I am who I am through the experiences & trials of my life and the blood of generations of backwood folk running through my veins.

I am a backwoods woman.