Tag: food

The first raspberries, the last strawberries, and other updates

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Mary Jane made it to the raspberries for another year! I hoped she would this spring when I was thinning the branches. She sat with me for hours, looking hopeful for raspberries. I think raspberries might be her favorite–maybe even more than watermelon. This morning, when I picked raspberries for breakfast, I kept out a handful just for her. She gobbled them up with satisfaction. I can tell she surely knows how much I love her.

I am hopeful for the raspberries. They look really good this year, and we need a good year after our strawberries did not do so well. I don’t know if it was just a weird year or if our plants are about done. I think it’s the latter. We have had five great seasons with those plants. I read they should be replaced after three to five years, so I guess it’s time. I think we will try to replace them in the fall, so we can hopefully have berries again next summer. That’s a big task though. Hopefully, I will be up to it. And it wasn’t a terrible year for them. I still made two batches of jam and got five quarts frozen for the winter.

Things have been busy here on the farm this summer but not nearly as busy as usual. Ron has been slow and steady planting the garden and just finished planting the last of things this week. It’s the latest he’s ever finished planting, but COVID has take a toll on all of us for sure. And, with long COVID in mind, we have no music camps this summer for our son. He just rests a lot, sleeps a lot, and I can see that he tries to stay positive. It was hopeful that he started playing his cello again this week, though he has to pace himself and can’t play more than 15 minutes per day. Still, slow and steady, right?

I am less busy than usual with the chickens because we had no babies this year. It’s been hard. The babies always bring so much joy, so long COVID plus no baby chicks has equalled a bit of a tough summer. On the bright side, I have been working on a Swedish death cleanse (though I hope I am not dying anytime soon), and I have made amazing progress. My struggle is books though. How can I get rid of books? I have more work to do, but our home is feeling much better, much less cluttered.It’s very helpful to my mental state.

We have still have our son’s pet mouse, who requires a lot of attention because mice are social animals and need company. I have also learned that mice will eat pretty much as much as you give them, so our little mouse has grown a little chubby eating so many treats from the garden along with homemade bread. I knew we were in trouble the first time I gave him some homemade bread and a fresh strawberry on the same day. He was half asleep with the bread in his hand and the strawberry right next to him. I watched as he would wake up, take a few bites of each item, get a joyful look on his face, and go back to sleep. I also had no idea mice were SO expressive, but he is!

He has a wheel, but we are going to have to build a bigger space for him–and in the last two days, he’s just had his mouse food and lettuce. Poor baby!

I have also been writing, just not as much as I would like here in the blog. I am actually working on a book. It’s a collection of essays, some of which I am revising from old blog posts and some of which are new. I plan to call it Chicken Stories, and I hope it will be worthy of a read. We’ll see. I hope to have it finished by the end of December. I will take any and all advice as well as words of encouragement.

Tell me how you’re doing if you get a chance. How is your garden growing? How are your chickens? What are you learning this year? And do you know anything about raising a mouse?

The Tough Days

~ Crystal Sands ~ 4 Comments

I have never buried a chicken before. Ron has always saved me that sadness. I have delivered to the woods a chicken who passed in order to feed the wildlife, but when we have a hen who passes in the summers when we have little chickens running around, to be safe, we bury her on the property. 

Last week, I dug my first hole and buried our sweet Silver. It was heartbreaking. 

On the same day Silver passed away, we found out our son has long COVID, and I am pretty sure Ron and I are having own own struggles with something along those lines. Ron has been so busy working in slow motion (at least slow motion for him, he’s still faster than I am) planting the garden that I realized it was going to be up to me to bury Silver. 

The last time I wrote, I mentioned that Silver was very sick. She had a terribly sour crop and a terrible water belly, and it had come on pretty fast. It had been a long time since we had water belly troubles, so I decided, if Silver made it through the first night, I would try to drain her water belly to buy her more time. 

This level of veterinary care is not my strong suit, which is why I had never done it before, but I felt I had to try to learn in order to get Silver more time. She was such a great hen. I spent the day watching video after video and asking for help from more experienced farmer friends. That afternoon, I went and bought the materials, and that evening, my son and I completed the procedure on Silver. 

It was a success, but I did not have much hope. Silver was in pretty bad shape. I think I waited too long. I think, if I had known what to do and done it earlier in that day, she might have had a chance. My anxiety and over-thinking delayed me, and I hate myself for that. 

It was hard day burying that poor baby. Ron had to come help me after I started hitting rocks and root, but I dug for a long time, so slowly because, right now, I am in a “down” time from COVID and do pretty much everything in slow motion. When I was putting the dirt back over her, I just broke down. 

I read a long time ago that the backyard chicken movement in the United States wasn’t exactly great for the welfare of chickens because a lot of people who don’t know what they’re doing keep chickens. I wondered about my own inability to help Silver, and my mind went back to that article I read. 

As I sat crying over Silver, I had the urge to just stop, to quit keeping chickens. Maybe I am too sensitive for this. Maybe I need more veterinary skill, as there are not many vets who will see a chicken, and vet bills are so outrageous now that corporations have bought up vet offices that most people can’t afford to take a chicken to the vet anyway. 

I remembered the last time I truly felt like giving up on chicken keeping. It was the day of our first hawk attack, and we lost Lucy’s twin to the hawk. Pumpkin had been raising babies at the time, and I could find neither Pumpkin or her babies. After searching for at least half an hour, I remember dropping to my knees and swearing I was done with keeping chickens, that my heart was too soft for this job, but then, by some miracle, we found Pumpkin’s babies frozen and hiding in a pile of leaves. It was an extra miracle that we had not stepped on them as we had been back and forth through the area many times. And then Pumpkin returned as well. 

I kept going. I decided to keep going after Silver too. I had new knowledge, another skill, and I would do better for the next one, I thought. 

After I finished burying her, I found a flat stone, wrote her name and dates with a paint pen, and drew little chicken feet on the stone, so, if we sell our property, the next people will know who Silver was. Silver is buried in the same area that Schubert is buried. Schubert was Silver’s mother. 

There have been many tough days of late for our family, it seems. I didn’t fully understand how serious long COVID is, but finding out that our son has it and reading more about what this means for him has been a blow. I have written about my son before. He’s a cellist, and he’s good. Right now, he can hardly play more than half an hour without being in pain and/or then collapsing in exhaustion afterwards. The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is real, but that’s only part of it. His lungs are still struggling, and brain damage is almost always likely with long COVID. The COVID literally shrinks the brain. I can seem some cognitive struggles. I feel some of them in myself, and they are scary. What a mean, mean thing to do to such a young boy. 

It has been nearly three months since our son had COVID, and the struggle is still so serious. After he “went down,” as I call it, from exhaustion again this weekend, we made the difficult decision to pull him out of all his music activities for the whole summer.

I think we all feel a little bit lost in the world right now. We had been downsizing our farm in anticipation of travel to Boston for his music in the upcoming year. Now, we don’t know what to do but be shocked and worried. On top of this, our son was just getting to the point where he was a help to us on our homestead. He could mow and turn over soil, and he was the best wood chopper. Now, we’ve lost him for some time. What a devastating thing all the way around.

But, today, as I write this, it is a beautiful day. My son is resting, and Ron decided to rest today since it is Father’s Day. The sun is warm, but the breeze is cool. The shadows are long from the trees, and the chickens are enjoying a few more gorgeous days before the heat dome comes. I am going to close my eyes and hope the universe will tell me what to do, help me heal our son because wester medicine really doesn’t know a lot about this. I am going to try to rest too. 

And, tomorrow, I will go to the store and get watermelon for the chickens and ducks because some serious heat is coming. I hope Mary Jane and Rooster can make it. I don’t want any more tough days right now.

Homesteading Progress: Preserving Food and Saving on Grocery Costs

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

Yesterday, we ate the second to the last jar of pears that I put up last fall. Last fall was my first time to can pears, and I was so nervous about doing it. But our two little trees made a bumper crop, and I had always wanted to can my own pears. I love canned pears. I like fresh pears, but I love canned pears.

I love them extra now because I now understand that the canned pears at the grocery store are a little too soggy and definitely too sweet for my taste. And that’s the best part about canning your own pears–you can make them as soft or crunchy as you like and as sweet or as not sweet as you like!

Of course, there are other best parts about canning your own pears. It’s just awesome to be able to preserve food yourself, and I love that there is almost no waste. I no longer have to throw away cans. These glass jars will be reused year after year, and only the lids will have to be replaced. And, once I make the switch the Weck jars for all of my canning, I won’t even throw away the lids because Weck jar use glass lids.

I certainly realize that I am not going to make a big difference in the grand scheme of things because I am not throwing away cans (there is no longer recycling in my area and in many areas throughout the U.S.), but it does make me feel better–and that definitely counts for something, right?

But I do feel there is a bigger picture that these pears represent. These cans of pears represent a growing self sufficiency we have, and it has saved us financially as groceries have become so expensive. I follow food news quite a bit, and I read a lot of what farmers write. I think there are a couple of things causing the high costs of groceries–climate change and monopolies–and I don’t see either one of these issues being addressed at all. I expect groceries are, in general, going to stay very expensive, though I hope there will be some relief if families continue to struggle.

It was over 20 years ago that I watched a documentary on climate change that really stuck with me. The film showed what grocery costs would be like “in the future.” The future was 2025. I remember studying the program so carefully as the narrator spoke about how difficult it would be for people to afford fresh fruits and vegetables in the future, how everything would be more expensive due to crop failures and the rise in costs of fuel. I can’t remember the name of the program, but I guess the content really stuck with me. I watched that documentary in 2002, and 10 years later, I was trying to homestead and learning how to grow and put up food, much like my great grandparents did–only I have much to learn.

I’m working on it though. These pears represent my progress, and this year, I can see we need more pears. We planted two more pear trees this year, bu , of course, it will be a few years before those little trees bear fruit. In the meantime, my plan for this fall is find a u-pick orchard with pears and get some pears for cheap and add those to what we grow.

This is the time of year when we start to run out of food from last year’s harvest. We ran out of pears, so we need to make a plan for more this coming year. We also ran out of frozen blueberries like a month ago, so we have a pretty big gap there. We also ran out of broccoli, so that’s something we want to address this year. We are also just about out of pizza sauce, so I will have to be sure to process more tomatoes, peppers, and onions into pizza sauce this coming August and September. I want to take extra steps and do as much as I can because I know food costs are likely to just get worse.

What we do not or cannot grow ourselves, I have learned to track down in local farms. I have found that the best cost savings can be found on farms that specialize in what you need, let you pick the food yourself, and do not offer “experience” events or ice cream stands. I love those experience farms too, but when I need to save money, I know to look for something a bit different. If you are looking to save money on food, this is a plan that works.

First, grow as much as you can based on what you and your family will really eat. If you are working full time and can only grow a little, pick two or three crops that you know will serve you well and produce a lot of food–like green beans or potatoes.

Second, find the farmers, the ones that offer good prices if you get out there and pick the food yourself. Not only will this save you money, it’s quite fun to visit farms and pick food with your family. You will get sweaty and dirty, but it’s such good work. Plus, I have seen such beautiful parts of Maine doing this.

Third, start learning how to can foods. It’s easier than you think, and you can do a lot with simple water baths. I am able to put up fruits and sauces using water baths only, but I did finally get a pressure canner. When I first started learning to can, I didn’t have anyone to teach me. If you have someone willing to teach you in person, take the time to make that happen. I feel like hands on learning is so much easier, but if you are like me and do not have someone to teach you in person, I highly recommend The Ball Book of Canning and Preserving, and I learned the most from the following fantastic videos from Magnolia Workshops.

Water Bath Canning

Pressure Canning

I hope this post inspires you to take some steps toward self sufficiency this summer if you can. I think knowing how to preserve food is important, and I think it’s going to be one of those skills we will all be thankful for both right now and in the long run. Putting up your own food saves you money and gives you and your family easy access to real, good food. And I am convinced there is not much else more important than this. I hope to continue to write about our food and what we do. We have many gaps to fill, but I am proud of our progress. I think the key is to just take things one step at a time.

Start small and keep growing!

Food Is Medicine: Part I

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

I was in my 30s before I began to realize just how important the quality of food you eat is to your overall health. I grew up on boxed dinners, and when my children were very young, I bought frozen dinners and processed foods at the grocery store. I worked full time and thought I just didn’t have the time to cook. I trusted the American food system to ensure the food they were selling and I was feeding my family was safe. I was very wrong to trust in this system.

Our system is so broken, like in a devastating way. It’s so broken that I use it as a measure in my life. There are times when I question myself for being too far out of the “norm” for our society. “Am I crazy?” I ask Ron, but before he can answer, I remind myself that I cannot measure myself against a society that allows its food system to poison its citizens. “There’s arsenic and lead in our baby food and glyphosate in our Cheerios–that’s crazy,” I say.

I still work full time, so we do not always eat the way I am aiming for; however, we do really well. This has never been more evident to me than in the last couple of weeks as we have been sick with COVID. There is nothing that makes me feel better than our homemade food. In fact, I think part of the reason I got so, so sick and ended up at the hospital the second time was that my immune system was attacking my nervous system and impacting my ability to move my limbs and my mouth. I couldn’t eat very well. I struggled to eat and drink without choking during the worst of it all, so though I was hungry, I just couldn’t eat. This meant no whole grain breads, no fresh eggs, no frozen organic vegetables from our garden, and I think it made the toll of everything even worse.

In the first two days after I was out of the hospital, neither Ron nor I could cook, so we resorted to take out. We got the best take out we could find, but I noticed I didn’t start to really feel better until Ron rallied himself and cooked homemade fettuccini from scratch. He made egg noodles from our eggs and organic flour, homemade organic sauce, and he steamed frozen broccoli he grew last summer. When he sat a giant plate of noodles and broccoli in front of me, it was the most beautiful thing I think I had ever seen. I ate every single bite of that good food, and I immediately felt better. It was after that meal that I turned a corner for the better.

I am still struggling a bit and am very weak by the end of the day every day, but I am making really good progress. Tonight, I made minestrone using our homemade spaghetti sauce as a base. This sauce is made with tomatoes, onions, and peppers, all from our garden. We can it in the early fall each year, and tonight, it nourished me.

I thought I might write a little this week about how we eat and what we eat–and on the importance of eating organic and minimally-processed foods. It can’t save us from lead, but it can save us from glyphosate and dozens of other chemicals that are not good for us. Many common foods in our food system lower our IQs and may even (though I suspect most likely) lead to cancers.

Of course, it’s all a process. We didn’t just decide to change our eating habits and lifestyle and then, overnight, eat farm to table every night, but it’s a process that has helped me so much and may be able to help others. I’ll tell my story, and if I feel ambitious, I might tell other stories as well. We’ll see how I hold up.

Thankfully, there’s more minestrone for dinner tomorrow night.

photo credit: Ellie Ellien, Unsplash

A Little Bit About Tuesday

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

This afternoon, I went outside to get my son who was walking our long driveway. He gets antsy during homeschool, so he takes mini walks between each subject. When I went to find him, I saw little Tuesday busying herself in the driveway while the rest of the flock looked out the screen door of the coop in envy. Everybody loves driveway time, but when I give the chickens too much driveway time, Ron complains about the driveway getting overwhelmed by chicken poop and asks me why he spent months building a 3/4 acre fence by hand. I just make a face that says, “well, we all appreciate it, but if you could fence the driveway, that would be great.”

So everyone gets just about two hours of driveway time per day. It’s pretty good, I think.

Of course, we have our exceptions to the rules. Ruby, Kate, and Juliet can have driveway time whenever they want because they have a hard time being with the flock. This also annoys Ron sometimes because it is a pain to get them somewhere safe if we have to leave in the evening, but we do the extra work because we understand Ruby, Kate, and Juliet. They need their space. Truly, on the really cold days, I cannot let them out of the coop until it reaches about 15 degrees, and it just breaks Juliet’s heart. She gets panicky and upset. Sometimes, I just want to bring that chicken into the house, but she might not like it here either. I think she just needs alone time, and Ruby and Kate are not far behind her in this department.

It makes sense then that Tuesday was out in the driveway alone this afternoon because she is Ruby’s baby. I don’t know how she is getting out, but this is the third or fourth time. She might be flying. Ruby can fly over the gate to get out, but she seems to prefer not to. It’s like she wants me to wait on her–and I do.

When I saw Tuesday, I started talking to her. My son overheard and said, in his teenager voice (he has different voices, and “teenager” is one of them), “That chicken is named Tuesday?”

“She is,” I said. “And another black chicken who was her hatch-mate is Wednesday.”

“Where’s Monday?” he asked.

“Nobody wants to be named Monday,” I answered.

He thought his seemed right.

Tuesday is starting to be more and more like her mama. I’m seeing her pull away from her hatch mates and go it alone more. Interestingly, Wednesday does this too. In fact, a few weeks ago, Wednesday spent the night outside by herself–all night long! Ron had put up the chickens that night, so I was a little grumpy. Thankfully, she was okay.

Anyway, Tuesday is very curious about me. She has that way of looking at me that is different–that I see in the super smart chickens. Thankfully, she seems to be more chill than her mama, so I am hopeful. She reminds me a little bit of Poe. That also makes me hopeful.

Last week, when Ron was complaining about the chickens who insist on hanging out in the driveway all day, I reminded him how he would feel if he were forced to spend his whole life with people, and he had to admit it was only right to let them have their way.

“Well, don’t breed any more chickens from that line,” he said.

“Yeah, I really shouldn’t,” I said, but then I added, “But I already did though. Tuesday is Ruby’s baby.”

He gave me a look of despair. I knew he must have wondered why I would do that when Ruby is so darn difficult. The truth is just that I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s because Ruby is also so darn charming. I think Tuesday might be extra charming.

I can’t wait to find out–to see who she becomes. Oh, and I can’t wait to find out what color of egg she lays! Ruby lays an lovely olive egg.