Author: Crystal Sands

A Bird Flu Update

~ Crystal Sands ~ 4 Comments

On Friday, I was hanging out with my daughter, and we ran into Target to see if I could find a package of organic bagels. I have found that, more and more, I have a hard time hunting down organic foods at the grocery store. I guess it’s okay because it forces me to make more of my own, but sometimes, I just wish to buy a package of organic bagels. Alas, there were no bagels, but I also noticed something else–there were no eggs. Not a single egg at my local Target.

Our hens have been laying well enough that I have not had to buy eggs since right before Christmas, and the last time I was at Target getting eggs, the cooler was full of all the eggs. It looked a little surreal seeing the empty shelves in the cooler. It triggered some anxiety for sure, but I was very thankful for our chickens. My mind went to how important it is to take care of those birds.

There was a sign in the egg section that said something about the shortage due to bird flu and that they didn’t know when more eggs would be in.

I wish I could update you more than I am able to on the state of things related to the bird flu, but last week, the Trump administration ordered the CDC to stop all public communications. The CDC was set to release a big report on bird flu this coming week. I worry about not having a national organization to connect the dots for us, but I can see that we will have to do our best based on local and state news stories. I think NPR does a pretty good job of providing national coverage.

The trouble with bird flu is layered. First, there is the worry about it jumping to different species. We know it has jumped to a variety of mammals, including cows and is everywhere in our milk supply. While I read that no humans have gotten sick from cow’s milk, the fact that this is jumping to mammals just doesn’t make you feel good about it, to say the least. There have been 67 reported cases of bird flu in humans in the United States and just one death. I read the biggest concern about bird flu getting us sick is that the virus was noted to be mutating within the human hosts, but overall, the risk to most people is low right now. Still, the person who died got it from his backyard flock, so there’s that.

Another worry is what happens to commercial flocks and our food supply chains in the U.S. Bird flu cases are popping up more and more, with some large scale outbreaks in Georgia, Ohio, New York, and more. The New York duck farm that had to euthanize 100,000 ducks this week was such a worry to me because it’s so far north. As far as I know, there have not been any cases in Maine this year, but there was one in Vermont about two weeks ago. It worries me for there not to be a break from the virus in the winter.

I am also worried because our homestead is not as prepared as I would like it to be. We have been downsizing our flock in anticipation of bird flue, but it’s a slow process. We still have 33 birds. Right now, our flock is mostly on a self-imposed lock down in the coop, but our run is not covered. On top of this, our flock has lived their lives in the chicken pasture just living it up as chickens. And this is my third concern about the bird flu: What happens to backyard flocks?

I use Maine poultry Facebook groups to monitor the state of things in our area. Again, no cases yet, but I am saddened to report that there are a significant number of chicken keepers who are laughing about the bird flu and acting like it is made up. These people will certainly not take any precautions. And maybe they are right. Maybe they will get lucky. Maybe we will get lucky.

But, of course, it is a mistake to mistake luck for evidence, and while some people do not know this, I know this. As soon as the snow melts, if there are cases in Maine, we have to build a new run and cover it. This is going to be so expensive because we want a big run for those birds. They are used to so much space. We cannot lock them down without respect to that and their happiness, but we may have to lock them down. Can you imagine how this is going to sit with Ruby? She wanted out in the driveway today, but I didn’t let her. I’m trying to train her for the worst, and she was just heartbroken. My little girl. My heart aches for her. Yeah, our run is going to cost us all the money.

The headlines in the national news say to expect eggs prices to go higher and for shortages to continue. I am sure it won’t take long for any food item that uses eggs, such as mayonnaise, to also jump in price. I can see that the spring is very likely to bring a lot more cases. I am reading and reading right now about things small flock owners can do without panicking, and I will write more about that later this week. In addition to working on a cover for our run, we are having to tell neighbors they cannot visit our chickens for now, and we are being very careful with our shoes. But I can see that we will need to take much more stringent precautions if bird flu heads our direction, and I will share what I learn, of course.

In the meantime, if you do not keep chickens, find a local farmer or homesteader and make a connection right now to buy eggs. If you do keep chickens, keep a close eye on your local news and try to join poultry forums in your area if you are on Facebook. I will also work to keep updates going here.

If you have questions or just have updates to share, please post them in the comments. Numbers on my blog are growing, so I am hoping this can be a good space to communicate about such things. I also have this idea to start a chicken podcast in the coming week or two, but we will see. We’ll see if I can be organized enough to make it happen.

10 Below

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

When we woke up this morning, it was 10 below, and I was thankful Ron had decided to put the ceramic heater in the chicken coop last night. In general, chickens do not need a heat in the winter, but we have a “negative 7” rule that we just made up ourselves. If it’s below -7, we bring out some heat for the flock.

There is always a risk of fire when you add heat to your coop, but we do not use a heat lamp and use an oil-based ceramic heater. On top of this, Ron places a cage he built over the heater, and it adds some security.

I have to say the chickens were quite happy with a little extra heat, and Saint-Saens and Betty Jr., both of whom will be 7 years old this spring, happily slept on the heater’s cage last night. I imagine our old chickens have aching joints like I have. All the old girls and boys–from Rooster, who will be 9, to Saint-Saens, Vivaldi, Betty Jr., Mary Jane, and Pumpkin, who will all be 7 or 8 this spring, had a little more spring in their step this morning when I delivered food and water to the coop.

It was miserable out there in that cold, so I did not open the coop to the outdoors until much later in the day today. Poor Tuesday was out of there when I opened that door. She doesn’t mind the cold, but she surely seems to mind being stuck with people.

I was talking to a dear friend from the south last night, and she is so worried about the terrible cold that has hit the entire south this week. She was telling me all of the extra things she is having to do to get prepared and keep her chickens and rabbits warm, and it made me realize just how much we have to do all the time, every single day of our lives, during the winter months here in Maine.

It is a lot of really hard work. Busting ice is so therapeutic mentally, but it can be pretty hard on my body. And I have been fighting with a frozen poop-sickle near the back door of the chicken coop for a week. I finally had to take a hammer to it. I have hauled frozen chunks of poop out of both the chicken coop and duck house all winter, and I can’t get the wheelbarrow through when there’s deep snow, so I have all kinds of cheats for keeping things clean for the birds, most of which are pretty gross for me. And the water! We use buckets to haul water to the chickens and ducks, and the ducks have to have their tubs refilled several times a day on the super cold days–or the windy days. And, of course, how many times this winter have I shoveled the chicken coop and swept the ramps. I want them to be as comfortable as possible.

It was so interesting to me that I am just in the habit of doing all of it and didn’t think about how much extra work the animals are in the winter until I got my friend’s perspective. We concluded our conversation on winter preparedness with her asking me how cold it was here. When I told her, she asked how in the world we lived here, and that made me think more as well. I love here, and I actually like the winter. But why?

Honestly, I have no idea other than I really like having all four seasons (though, okay, spring in Maine can be pretty short and messy), and I have some Scandinavian ancestry. Maybe that makes me like winter. Or maybe it’s this–and I just thought of this–there is something about being tough enough to survive it that makes you feel alive.

If you love Maine or the north and the long cold winters, I would love your perspective. Why are you here? What makes you love it?

And, if you are in the south, please take good care. I know you are not used to this, and I hope warmer temps return very soon!

PS Today, I had to take my son to his first day of early college and was away from the house all morning. I barely saw Boudica before I left. It was just morning chores, breakfast, get the boy out the door. When I got home, I went outside to let the chickens outside for a bit (well, mainly just Tuesday), and Boudica saw me. She came running across the property, and friends, she looked so magnificent in the snow. I wish I had captured it on video. The snow was dusting up around her as she ran across the chicken yard, breaking a new trail in the cold sunlight. Her face looked so happy to see me. When she got to me, I reached down and hugged her with all my might, and she leaned right into it, extra hard. She missed me and let me know. What an honor it is to be loved by such a beautiful creature!

I know you’re tired, but…

~ Crystal Sands ~ 12 Comments

I have forever been an idealist. I think it’s what kept me going, made me resilient, in my childhood. After every beating, I would sit in a corner or in my closet and tell myself how much better things would be when I grew up. How I would be a better parent to my children. How I would be kinder, better, smarter. My idealism gave me hope, and my hope worked.

But my hope and idealism led to disillusionment later in my life. I had always thought that, since people are inherently good (and I still believe most people are), given the right circumstances–equality, education, hope–cultures, societies, and governments could be good.

I remember when I started to realize we were on our own, that there wasn’t a society or government that was going to be concerned about everyone’s well being. It was when we had Paul LePage as governor here in Maine. He had made heavy cuts to social services. And there was a little girl who was being abused by her parents. And her teachers reported it to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services over and over. But social services was backlogged. The little girl died. She was 10 years old, and I couldn’t stop crying for her or for the state of the world.

We are on our own. And we have to take care of each other.

One of my biggest realizations of this truth came from my understanding of the food system. The American food system is literally poisoning us. So we started growing our own food. Initially, I think we did it for our two children. We wanted them to eat better, but I realized recently, that it was for us as well. My little brother is dying, and I have learned that our health care system is failing in a way I could not have imagined. I have to take care of my body with exercise and good food because I have to do everything I can keep myself out of the health care system that exists for people in my income bracket. The doctors are burned out. The nurses are exhausted. It’s very difficult to get help if you need it.

Ron and I resist these systems as much as we can by growing food, canning food, freezing food, raising chickens, staying up late to process the beans because I had to work that day but the beans will go bad, Ron getting up early to water by hand so as to not waste water but keep the plants going. It’s all our act of resistance. It’s us realizing we are so much on our own that we cannot even trust the food at the grocery store.

We are on our own. And we have to take care of each other.

Why is our health care system broken? Why is our food system broken? I work in education. Let me tell you that our education system is definitely broken. Why is this?

I believe–no, I know–it comes down to the fact that there is an oligarchy in our country, and they are squeezing every last bit from us because we are nothing to them. They will poison us with fake food and then deny our health insurance claims when we are sick. And they know climate change is going to make things so much worse. And they know, there are so many of us and that, when resources get scarce, we might, might, might, start looking at the people hoarding the resources.

So they make us fight each other. They make sure we do not see our common ground. They want to make sure we hate each other. They want to take away love for each other. Our kindness. They do this by keeping us outraged and scared. It works so well.

I know you are tired. I am so, so tired.

We are in for challenging times, I think, especially if you do not agree with the party in power. Especially if you are able to see the truth, can see past the circus to what is really going on.

Look away if you need to. Look if you need to. Rest if you need to. Resistance comes in many forms.

It comes in the form of love, of taking care of each other, of remembering that we all have more in common that we do not. It comes in the form of growing food, raising chickens, supporting a small farm, buying gifts from local makers, reading books instead of social media posts, coming together for a concert in a barn, repairing that sweater instead of buying a new one, keeping your old phone, writing a poem, or buying jam from a local farm stand. If we can build a strong local economy, we won’t need theirs so much.

I know you are tired, but find your strength to love, to be open, to reach out to your neighbors, to give them some eggs, to celebrate together with music, to find community, even if it’s small. Some of these things are hard for the introverted, like myself, but I can see that we are on our own and that all we have are each other.

But, really, that’s a lot.

I know you are tired. Keep growing and making and loving those around you. We just have to pay enough attention to keep ourselves aware. I mean, keep that bird flu on your radar. Or don’t. I’ll keep it on mine and keep you posted.

History is full of hard times and resilient people. There are more of us than there are of them. Don’t let them divide us. Forgive those with good hearts who were led by lies because they were struggling. When we struggle, it’s easy to be taken advantage of.

I know you are tired. Please know I love you, all of you, and if I can help with advice on a sick chicken or the best ways to eat seasonally, let me know.

Sending light on this tough day. Let it not be as tough as I think it might be. That’s my prayer.

photo credit: Dyu-Ha, Unsplash

On Boudica

~ Crystal Sands ~ 6 Comments

I think there is something outside, and by “something,” I think it might be a skunk. Boudica wants to go back outside, but Ron just made her come in the house because she was barking like a wild dog. The way she’s barking, we know something is out there, but she has a track record with skunks of late. She was stinky for weeks this fall. Another time, she didn’t really get sprayed, but it was a close call–and she was a little bit stinky then too.

She’s usually so level headed, but there is something about small mammals that makes her go wild.

I don’t know what I would do without her taking care of me. She is the first guardian dog I ever owned (and I hate that word for her), and I have been in awe of just how much she works, how much she knows, and how much she takes care of all of us. Sometimes, I think she thinks I can’t care for myself, and I am pretty sure she knows I would be lost without her. I hope that makes her determined to stay.

There is something not right with her, and she has an appointment with the vet in a couple of weeks. It’s the earliest appointment they had. I hope it’s just arthritis, but it’s been a year since her last check up. I know a lot can go wrong in a year.

She’s also been extra close to me for the last couple of months. I have been extra close to her. At night, when she is finished working on the farm, she will sit with me on the sofa while I grade essays. I pet her often and try to massage her legs where they might hurt. She has been slower to get up, and we decided we should probably not take her on long walks anymore until we figure out what is going on.

As I type these words, I am so scared, and I both want her vet appointment to hurry and get here and also to never get here. I want to know it’s just arthritis, and hopefully, the natural meds I bought for her will be all she needs. But, of course, I am so worried there is something bigger wrong. I won’t think about it right now though. My heart can’t handle it.

Still, Boudica’s slowness reminds me that she won’t live forever. She will be 9 years old this year, and I know she’s getting up there. But since she was about 2 years old, we have been cooking for her, so she has eaten really well most of her life. I learned some years ago that the Great Pyrenees, who still live in the region where the breed originates, live several years longer than the Great Pyrenees in the U.S. Some of it could be genetics, but breeders speculate that it’s commercial dog food shortening their lives. In the Pyrenees Mountains between Spain and France, the dogs are fed the same food the people eat, and they live longer.

So I am going to be hopeful, and I felt like sharing with you some of my favorite things about this amazing girl…

  1. She wakes me up every morning with heavy breathing in my face. I always give her pets and then tell her I need five more minutes. I don’t know if she’s really gone five minutes, but she goes away and comes back a short time later. If I start talking to her, I get the Pyr Paw, which kind of hurts, so I get out of bed.
  2. The Pyr Paw is famous amongst Pyrs. When you pet them, they pet you back, but they don’t have as much control, which means sometimes you just get bonked. Boudica has bonked me so many times, but only one time did she make me cry. She felt terrible, and when you cry, Boudica has to get right in your face to check on you.
  3. Boudica is a magnificent livestock guardian dog. She understands aerial predators, and not all livestock guardian dogs can do this. Big birds are on her list, and she will chase them away. The only bad thing is the dove who visit our feeders are a little borderline for her, and she sometimes chases them away for good measure.
  4. Boudica does a lot of things for good measure. She is so much like me and is a “better safe than sorry” kind of person. She worries about things and is cautious. We are sisters. We are soulmates.
  5. Boudica loves organic shredded wheat cereal, like loves it. When I have cereal for breakfast, Boudica gets a bowl, and somehow, no matter where she is or what she’s doing, she knows when I am getting cereal.
  6. And speaking of knowing, Boudica knows things. For years, I wasn’t sure if she just had an amazing vocabulary or if she was reading my mind. I now know she’s reading my mind. Temple Grandin says animals communicate telepathically in pictures, and I have come to understand what this means. Boudica also knows when things are about to happen–and that’s something I can’t figure out. But when my son used to be in the local orchestra, Ron would take him to rehearsals every Thursday night. I would stay home with the dogs. I started to notice that Boudica would start barking several minutes before they would pull into the driveway. I finally started timing her. When the barking would start, I would note the time, and I learned she was barking 3 to 4 minutes before they pulled into the driveway. I decided to time myself driving home and realized it takes about 3.5 minutes to get to our driveway once you turn onto our road. Our road is long, and it’s about a mile and half from the turn to our house. Boudica knew when they turned onto our road. How? I have no idea. But, one time, I was watching a nature documentary about wolves, and I saw a female pack leader, who was leading the pack on a hunt, suddenly stop in her tracks. She stopped the whole pack right in the middle of a hunt. Two miles away, there was a bison dying of old age, and she changed directions and led the pack to the bison. Two miles! Those are some superpowers. Boudica has some of those.
  7. Boudica is a great teacher. She trained Gus how to be with the chickens and ducks, and she trained Bairre. We help her, of course, but she did most of the work.
  8. She is getting a little grumpy in her old age, and since I am in menopause, I understand this deeply. We are grumpy about the world together. Both of us are frustrated by people doing things that just do not make sense.
  9. She has been like a third parent to our son. Truly, she helped raise him. When he was little and would go outside to play on his own, Ron would tell her to “watch the boy,” and she would never leave his side. Now, when our son leaves to go on walks down the road, she barks at him when he heads out, griping at him for leaving her jurisdiction. She watches the road until he returns.
  10. She’s so soft and fluffy that I could snuggle her forever. I have tried many times to get her to sleep with us at night, but she just won’t do it. Ron says it’s probably too hot for her. She does sleep in the coolest spots in the house. Of course, she doesn’t sleep, sleep. She works. I have heard her sleep, sleeping during the day though, and she has the cutest snore you have ever heard!

I wish I could think of more. I wish I could think of some way to convey how magnificent she is, how special she is. But you probably know. You probably have a friend like her who is also magnificent and special.

Boudica has been one of the best things to happen to me in my life. I have to remember how lucky I am to have the time I have with her. I don’t deserve her, but I swear, I try to, every day.

The light and the eggs return

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

I just collected the eggs and spent a little time this evening spiffying up the chicken coop. We got just 5 eggs today, which is a treat to me after several weeks of sometimes getting no eggs, but yesterday it was 9 eggs! And on Wednesday, we got a whopping 11 eggs! That’s really good for January, no light in the coop, and no new hens last year.

I am grateful to those hens, and I try to work hard to show them. Today, I delivered a week’s worth of scraps from the kitchen, did some spot cleaning in terms of poop in the coop, opened up the windows for a bit because it was warm, cleaned all the windows, and then made a small dent in the spiderwebs on the ceiling and in the corners. How are there that many spiders in winter? I also cleaned the nest boxes and added fresh straw.

Most everyone seemed pleased, and most everyone is doing well. Rooster is rattling a little bit but hanging in there quite well for a rooster who is going to be 9 years old this summer. Mary Jane is doing remarkably well. She is the queen of that coop and asserts herself when it comes to eating, as well as her personal space.

Ruby is hanging in there. I am actually happy to report that she is adjusting a little bit to life in the winter in the coop. This is the most consistent winter we have had since she has been alive. It’s been an adjustment for her. She’s not hiding in the corner anymore. Of course, I keep the run and some paths in the yard shoveled for all of them, and she seems to be happy using them. It’s too snowy for her to run around everywhere like she likes, but she’s making do with what she has. It’s great to see. I worried she was just going to stress herself of death.

Of course, when I give treats, she is one of a handful of lower-level hens I always make sure get a treat. When I feed scraps, there is usually enough for everyone. I save up all week–everything from crusts that don’t get eaten to the little bits of leftovers sometimes left on the plate–so there is a feast at least one day per week. But even with a good amount of scraps, the hens at the bottom of the pecking order will not get much. So I always keep a secret bowl and then go around to each of them and hand feed them. Kate is the only one who will not take something from me. I have to throw it on the ground in front of her. I don’t know why she doesn’t trust me, but I respect her ways, of course.

Right now, the hens I save up for are Ruby, Kate, Bianca, Juliet, and I always have a special bowl for Mary Jane. She just moves too slow these days and quit trying. She just waits at the door of the coop once she sees me coming with treats and knows she gets her own bowl. It is not often than anyone dares to sneak in a bite from her bowl. She won’t stand for it, though I have to say that I saw her allow Joan and Betty Jr. (two very old hens) to grab a bite or two from time to time.

I am so grateful for the time I get to spend getting to know these birds. I get so busy sometimes with work of all kinds that I don’t get to hang out with them as much as I would like. At the very least though, I get to hang out with them for morning chores, but when I have more time to just hang out with those chickens, I am better for it. I was thankful for today in so many ways.

I read that, in our part of Maine, we have 6 hours and 48 minutes more daylight on the Summer Solstice than we do on the Winter Solstice. The light comes fast. I feel it’s energy. I hope I’m ready for what is ahead.

photo credit: Nicole Wilcox, Unsplash

My Good Friends

~ Crystal Sands ~ 4 Comments

I am sitting in the floor right now, finishing up last-minute work with my students before the new week begins. I am sitting in the floor instead of on our sofa because Bairre wanted my spot. I didn’t have the hear to tell him no, so I got up and went to the floor and took this picture of him. Isn’t he beautiful? Isn’t he spoiled?

It’s okay though because I am now closer to the wood stove. Though the dry heat seems to wreak havoc on my skin, I adore the fire. So does our kitty, Betty. She is right next to me, and she is doing the cutest thing ever.

She is on her back with her paws kind of in the air. Every now and then, she literally kneads the air. I love her little pink feet. Betty loves the wood stove more than I can express. I love her and love the fact that she gets to spend her winter days by the wood stove more than I can express.

We had a tough week here. Mostly just parenting stuff, and then there’s the big stuff that looms. Reading about the fires in LA, well, you know how it is. It’s just hard to see it all happening exactly the way scientists said it was going to happen. It’s like the knowing and not doing anything about it is just salt in the wound. I can’t imagine how devastated the poor people and animals are who live there.

And parenting is such hard work, but I swear, parenting a teen is the most work. It’s like, you can start to see where the holes are, and you are trying desperately to patch them before your teen is grown and on their own–and it’s too late. .

But progress on the parenting front was made, and I have good friends for support. Boudica just came up to give me kisses. Then, she gave me the Pyr Paw and very appropriately typed a B on the keyboard. I’m so thankful for these animals. It’s okay if there are holes in their raising. It’s okay that Bairre is a little too spoiled.

In fact, it’s magnificent that he’s a little too spoiled.

Five Things to Make from Scratch to Save Money and Eat Better

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

I recently read an article about things we can make from scratch to help us save money at the grocery store in light of the high prices. I realize not everyone has the time or space to grow food, but I thought whoever wrote the list could surely do better. It made me think about the things we make from scratch that save us money that you don’t need a garden to make. I thought I might share my list because, not only does making these things save us money, it also gives us food that tastes so much better than what you get from the grocery store. It also helps us cut down on our plastic consumption. And, truly, the more we learn about the plastics, the more we can see that they are bad for both the planet and our bodies.

I hope you find my list helpful and delicious. If you do, please share it with others.

1. Vanilla

Vanilla was one of the first ingredients I use a lot to get really expensive due to climate change. The areas where vanilla beans are grown began to be impacted by climate change years ago, and I remember watching the price of vanilla just rise and rise. I bake a lot and love vanilla, so I was so thankful to learn how to make my own vanilla. The price of vanilla right now is $7-$10 for 2 ounces, and I am able to make it for $2-$3 for 2 ounces.

And that’s just on the original bottle. You can re-use vanilla beans several times. I keep two bottles going because the one down side of making vanilla is that it does take some time. But once you get some vanilla going, you will have vanilla for a long time. Plus, you can get really pretty bottles, which are a treasure.

To make homemade vanilla, purchase 5 good quality vanilla beans per bottle of vanilla. Slice the beans and scrape out the insides. The insides can be used to make vanilla sugar or other treats, but that’s another post. Anyway, just put in the scraped beans and fill your bottle with alcohol (I used vodka). From there, it will have to sit about six months at least before it is ready to use. Just keep it in a cool, dark space and give it a shake a couple of times a week while it is “making.” Don’t forget to give it those shakes!

2. Chocolate Syrup

Both my children were always big chocolate milk drinkers, and my teen son now makes peanut butter and banana smoothies quite often. He likes to add some chocolate to the mix, but bottles of low-ingredient chocolate syrup was costing us $5 for a small bottle–and it wasn’t even organic. Plus, the plastic bottles going into the trash were heartbreaking to me. When I learned that the plastic used for most chocolate syrup bottles was one of the worst for releasing chemicals, I knew I had to figure out how to make my own. I can’t believe it took me so long to make it because it’s so easy and so inexpensive–and I use organic cocoa powder, which does cost a bit more.

To make homemade chocolate syrup, just add 1 to 1 and 1/4 cups organic sugar to a saucepan, along with 3/4 cup of organic cocoa. Sift it together and add 1 cup of water. Mix it together well and bring to a low boil. Let it boil for three minutes and remove from heat. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and let it sit to cool. Then, just add it to a lovely bottle, and you are all set–delicious chocolate syrup, which is great for milk, ice cream, or, apparently, a peanut butter and banana smoothie.

3. Tortillas

When I learned about the amount of glyphosate in American breads, I set out to make all of our bread goods from scratch. Organic wheat can still contain some glyphosate from contaminated water, but I’ll take less of that stuff for sure. I knew it would take me a bit to start making all of it from scratch, but I started with tortillas because we eat a lot of tortillas with snacks and meals. Plus, making our own tortillas meant we could use some whole wheat flour that Ron grinds. It’s so fresh and so good–and so much cheaper.

Making tortillas ourselves has been such a good deal, especially since we only want to eat organic breads. And, I have to tell you that there is almost nothing better than a fresh tortilla hot out of the pan.

Because we use olive oil, there is not as much of a cost savings, but there is still some. And you don’t have to use olive oil, though I highly recommend it for overall health.

To make homemade tortillas, combine 4 cups of organic flour (could be a little more or less depending upon the type of wheat flour you use or if you just use all-purpose flour), 6 to 8 Tablespoons of olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 and 1/2 cups of warm water in a large bowl. Combine with a spoon and then your hands until you have a solid dough that is not sticky. If it’s sticky, add a little more flour.

Roll into a bowl, and let the dough rest for about 15 minutes. Then, cut your dough into 8 to 10 equal pieces, depending upon how big you want your tortillas to be. We make burrito size, so we get 8 tortillas from this recipe.

Now comes the tricky part that will get easier with time and practice. Roll the dough out into thin, tortilla sized pieces. This means a lot of rolling, but it’s great exercise. You will need a good rolling pin! I am never able to make my tortillas perfectly round, but my husband, the Virgo, makes them just about perfect. Still, they taste great, even if they are sometimes shaped like the state of Texas.

My favorite little treat with our homemade tortillas is to fill one with about 1/3 cup of homemade applesauce and then top with some freshly-grated cheddar cheese. Melt in the microwave, wrap the tortilla, and enjoy a delicious and healthy snack!

4. All the Breads

I started with tortillas, but I kept going. We now make every single bread or bun we eat in our home, and it saves us so much money–even without the sourdough starter. We still use yeast. One of our staples is a French bread recipe I modified years ago that we can use for everything from a soup side to sub sandwiches (I just shape the dough into tiny loaves).

Easy French Bread Recipe

2 and 1/4 teaspoons yeast
1 cup warm water
2 Tablespoons olive oil (or other oil)
2 Tablespoons honey
1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
about 3 cups of organic flour (again, depends on type of flour you use)
egg white for brushing

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and form into a dough. Knead for five minutes. Clean, dry, and oil your bowl and cover with a damp towel. Place it by a wood stove if you can, but let it rise for between an hour and an hour and a half.

Roll the dough out thin to about 1/3 of an inch and then roll it up, tuck in the ends, and shape it into a French bread shape. I a not the greatest at this, as the dough sometimes bosses me around, but I am getting better with practice. I am learning how to be a little more forceful with the dough.

Cover with your damp towel and let rise another half an hour. Meanwhile preheat your oven to 375 and prepare your egg white. When your dough is ready, slice little cuts into the top to make it look like a French loaf, brush with the egg white, and bake 18 to 22 minutes, depending upon your oven. Basically, you want to be able to thump the loaf and have it sound hollow when it is done.

Here are some links to some recipes from the web that we use as well:

Martha Stewart’s Classic White Bread (only Ron makes this with wheat flour)

40 Minute Hamburger Buns

Cranberry Raisin Bread

5. Pizza Crust for Homemade Pizza

I just checked and a single, thin organic pizza crust is $10 at the grocery store. You can make two thick organic pizza crusts yourself for about half the cost of one at the store. We use our homemade sauce and top with whatever is in season in the garden, but you can top how you please, of course.

This recipe is so easy, but it does take a while to rise. You will want to plan ahead, but it’s so worth it. It’s the best pizza crust I have ever tasted, and my family can’t eat even the best pizza from local restaurants now. This recipe was modified from The Homemade Pantry by Alana Chernila. If you want to save money on your grocery bill, buy this book! This recipe makes one pizza crust, but I always double it to make two because my son is 6’4″ and eats a whole pizza by himself.

Ingredients

1 and 1/4 cup warm water
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons olive oil
3 to 3 and 1/2 cups organic flour (some combination of white and wheat to your taste)

Directions

In a very large bowl, add the water, yeast, and sugar, and let it sit about five minutes. It should bubble a little. Add the rest of the ingredients until a ball forms and then knead the dough about five minutes. I have a very large bowl and just knead right in the bowl. Remove the dough, wash and dry the bowl, and then lightly oil it. Put the dough back in, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it rise about 10 hours. Don’t worry. The plastic will not touch your dough as long as you bowl is big enough.

After that 10 hours is up, pull out the dough and place it on a floured surface for rolling and shaping. It’s ready to go after you add your sauce and toppings. Cook at 425 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes or until your pizza looks done and bubbly to your liking. One trick I learned from Alana Chernila is that you don’t want to put your sauce on the dough until you have all the ingredients ready and can just throw everything on. If the sauce sits on the dough too long, it will make your dough soggy.

OK, I realize that’s a lot to take in. I hope this is a helpful post. We save so much money and eat so well thanks to making things from scratch. It does take a bit more time, but I work full time and have a farm and a son who is a cellist, so I try to keep things fairly quick. The key to the pizza is to just start it in the morning, so it can do the work on its own all day.

Good luck, and let me know if you try anything. Oh, and if you have a tip on a delicious money saver, please share it!


Is this the year I finally figure out sourdough?

~ Crystal Sands ~ 6 Comments

I have tried and failed with sourdough twice in recent years. I am hoping the third time will be a charm in 2025.

I have always admired the beauty of sourdough bread, and in recent years, I have come to greatly admire the self sufficiency of it. I bake with yeast a lot, and while I try to stay stocked up, the yeast shortage of 2020 lingers in my mind. The idea of having a source of infinite bread is appealing to me–and seems like magic for sure!

But, oh, how I struggle!

The first time, we named our sourdough, but it didn’t live very long at all. The second time, I told my son we had better not name it. It did live longer–several weeks, in fact–but I couldn’t even get it to the right state to cook with, and it eventually died.

As you may know, I try to make New Year’s resolutions related to my homesteading goals for the year because I am always trying to learn just a little bit more, and I made sourdough bread one of my goals for 2025. During the holidays, I bought myself two starters from King Arthur Baking, determined that I could surely make one of them live. The little jars of starter came with instructions, and after reading through the instructions, I am worried the issue I have might be temperature.

The instructions say to keep the starter at a certain temperature all the time, but the temperature in our house fluctuates a lot. It can get pretty chilly in here in the winter and pretty hot in here in the summer. Dear readers, if you know sourdough, do you think that might be why my sourdough starter can’t get going?

And, if you know sourdough, do you have any advice related to temperature? And, well, do you have any advice in general? I remember reading in Michael Pollan’s A Botany of Desire that he struggled at first with sourdough, and I feel I might be overthinking it in the same way. Please tell me it’s simple and that I can do this. I need some of that magic in my kitchen.

My other homesteading resolutions are to build a clothes line and plant apple trees in the places where we had to take down our giant pines. Our property is so changed without those big pine trees. I miss them so much, but that’s another story. We are planning to take advantage of the newly-found openness on our homestead to plant more fruit trees. Oh, and I think this is the year we may try to build a covered run for the chickens and ducks. The bird flu has us more than a little worried. But that’s another story too.

What are your homesteading resolutions for the year? Do you have any goals toward self-sufficiency for the upcoming year? I would love to hear about them.

photo credit: Jennifer Burk, Unsplash

A Farmer’s Calendar at the End of the Year

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Today, on this last day of 2024, I took down the wall calendar and put up the new one. The wall calendar always hangs in our kitchen and is the recorder of our lives as farmers and parents of a young cellist. It tells us when we planted what, when baby chicks are born, when music camps are, and so much more.

I have saved these wall calendars since we started hatching our own baby chicks in 2016 because I wanted to have records of the babies, and these calendars have grown to mean so much to me. They are like a short-hand of everything we do, what we grow, what we harvest, and how we live our lives.

The quote at the bottom of that top calendar page reads, ““The tailor bird builds her nest in deep woods, she uses no more than one branch.The mole drinks off the river, it can only fill one belly.” The quote is from Chuang Tzu, and doesn’t that really just sum up the problem humans are having right now?

This year, I bought a lovely wall calendar with artwork from our national parks. I love our national parks and everything they stand for. I have only been to four national parks, but I was in awe of all of them.

I decided to gather all of the old calendars I could quickly find, just to see what all I could remember about our homesteading journey and our lives from previous, and it was like a trip down memory lane. I would love to take this to the next level and actually keep a farmer’s journal. I did that one year for the blog, but I lacked discipline this year–and most years. But while we are pretty good at remembering most of our lessons from year to year, we do forget some. The forgetting was worse this year with the long COVID. Yeah, I might need to keep a farmer’s journal in 2025.

But I digress…

When I looked at the calendars, I could see the year Pumpkin and Nugget had babies back to back. I could see all of my cat’s Sophie’s vet appointments as we dealt with her health issues. I miss her so much. I could see a note about Gus’s birthday. I miss him so much too. I could see that Ron has been starting seedlings indoors for at least six or seven years. It doesn’t seem that long. I could see when the dogs’ heart worm meds were due. I could see that the ducks’ first eggs of the year have been getting later, and the last eggs of the year dropped off very early this year. Those ducks will be seven years old this spring.

I saw a note about remembering to give the second treatment Rooster and Mary Jane for mites. I saw that, in 2020, baby chicks were born on my birthday! I can’t remember which chicks those are, but I am going to have to track it down because I think it might be Juliet and Bianca. Oh, how I love those girls, and oh, how sad I am that they are nearly five years old. I hate to think that I don’t have too many more years with those fantastic hens.

I saw the cello camps and music lessons and recitals. I loved seeing the year we did the farm shares and my efforts at keeping up with who was getting eggs when. Oh, and I saw records keeping track of when we bought chicken feed and how much we spent. We found a better food this year, and it has saved us so much money. I’ll have to write about that soon because, if we can dodge the bird flu, I might try again at selling eggs and seeing if we can do better.

I saw that this year the planting was so much later. Thankfully, we had a long, long summer because we needed all the time. We were so slow and tired this year. I also saw that this year was full of doctor appointments, ultrasounds, lab work. We used to barely go to the doctor. For a few years, it was just check ups and dentist appointments. I hope to get back to that point.

And, hopefully, 2025 will be a good year! I have learned so much this last year. I feel wiser. I feel like I am a better human, and that really just has to be the main goal, doesn’t it?

Friends, I hope you have a lovely New Year’s Eve and New Year tomorrow! I hope 2025 is good for you!

Here’s to kindness, love, good food, great books, beautiful music, self sufficiency, and maybe some baby chicks in the coming year. There will be challenges. There always are. But I hope we face them well and with love in our hearts.

PS If you keep a farmer’s journal, I would love to hear about it. And, if you just keep a calendar like we do, I would love to hear about that as well!

Today was the day we left the coop!

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

I guess my writing last night about the chickens not wanting to leave the coop did some good because we left the coop this morning! I was so grateful. Some of them were outside off and on for several hours today, so maybe, just maybe, we’ll get an egg tomorrow. None for today–but there’s hope for tomorrow.

The humans also had to leave the coop today for a little bit to get a flu shot. There is some risk for people with long COVID getting a flu shot, as well as other vaccines, but we decided that, even though we mask everywhere we go, our son’s girlfriend might accidentally bring the flu to us. And while there is some risk getting the flu shot, there would definitely be trouble for our long COVID symptoms if we got the flu–so flu shot it was. My fingers are crossed. I have made really good progress with my long COVID symptoms of late, so I am hopeful it is all going to be okay.

I didn’t like leaving the coop though, and I am glad to be back home. In my younger days, I used to get a little stir crazy if I didn’t leave the house every few days. Now, I try to see how long I can go without going anywhere. I can’t get a good streak very often because my son has many activities as a cellist, but one time, I did make it nine glorious days!

This time, I made it six days, and I feel like that was pretty good. I would love to know if I have other homebodies following this blog. What is your longest streak of not leaving the house?

Anyway, I have beautiful pictures to share of my sweet flock finally leaving the coop! I’m so proud of them. They were rewarded with treats for sure.

This is Tuesday, Ruby’s biological daughter and only friend. Tuesday is one of the smartest hens I have ever met. I adore her. And isn’t she beautiful?

This is one of our boys, Dvorak. Rooster finally came out of the coop as well, but Dvorak was one of the first ones out. I can tell he’s tired of being cooped up, probably especially since Rooster is and will always be the boss of him.

This is Yoshi. She is a pardoned meat bird from 2023. She’s very sweet, and while I can tell she doesn’t have the genetics to go for the long haul like Mary Jane who will be 8 this summer, she’s a great addition to the flock. She’s so chill and is a great layer.

This is the covered area we call “chicken camp” because it’s where they can camp out and dust bathe away from the coop. We need to add more dirt, but these chickens made do today.