The animals on our farm all need a purpose, some are breeding stock and will enjoy a long life on the homestead. Others are raised specifically for food. The faster they mature and reach the desired size, the better, to reduce the costs in raising those animals. Part of the process we are learning at…
It seems that most everyone loves bacon and eats it in excess, but when we made bacon the first time, I was amazed at how much bacon you actually get from a single pig, it’s not near as much as you think. Which is true for all cuts of meat. We live in a society…
Preserving summer’s bounty is an important part of a homesteading lifestyle. Canning is one of the ways we preserve our food. After toiling in the garden, the vision of jars lined on the pantry shelf are a sweet reward for the season’s work. Of course, we don’t grow everything we preserve, some of the bounty…
In the Spring of 2019 we began the frame work of the first permanent structure on Kowalski Mountain. Barn raising part 1 takes the homestead to the next level. Logs Cut and Peeled We cut down a total of 11 trees and began the process of peeling them. They peel kind of like a banana……
One of the predominate features of the Kentucky homestead is the red clay. When dry, it’s rock hard. Difficult to till, extremely hard to shovel. However, when it’s wet, it’s very different. The slightest grade, like the one in front of the RV is difficult to drive over, causing you to slide towards the creek….
We stay extremely busy when we travel to Kowalski Mountain… hence the term, Workcation. I rest when I go back to work! Not all the jobs are big task, some are small tasks that have a big impact on our quality of life on the homestead. Improvements to the Log Bridge The logs we’d been…
I may be a tad biased but I felt that our 2019 garden was the most successful one we’d tended yet. Flipping through the pictures gives a perspective that is missed in day to day observation. Take a trip with me to see the time warp garden view. Here’s a glimpse of how quickly the…
Philip and I decided that we would get more bang for our buck to raise turkeys as a replacement for chicken, so we purchased a trio of birds to get the ball rolling. An Incubator Full of Turkeys Our birds flourished and we soon had enough eggs to fill the incubator. The incubator is such…
Homeward bound…. this is the view from my last sit in the stand… I finally saw a deer… a pretty doe in perfect range… quiet, dainty steps… I had two really good shooting lanes… a third possibility… I needed her to take just a couple more steps and I could take a shot… She stayed…
While I bow hunt exclusively, Philip looks forward to opening day of rifle season. He’s an accomplished hunter using both bow and rifle, but on years where food is more plentiful and the deer less reliant on our feeders, rifle opens up greater chance of success. Philip got a deer. He and I hauled her…
