Canned Turnips from our garden:

Well once again I have left way too much time between posts, Graphic Design School has proven to be all too consuming,considering that I have to live 4 days a week at my folks house to be closer to school. I have decided to give that dream up for now, all I really want is to be able to stay home and work here growing food and putting it up, spinning, knitting and any other adventure I can find to do. All of this to say that I should be able to post on a regular basis now since I will be doing most of my schooling online or close to home.

It has been a pretty busy summer this fall at our place. I have planted some of our fall/winter seeds and have been harvesting the produce that is ready. Yesterday I picked a few bunches of herbs for drying and canned turnips. So far this morning I have made bread and am waiting to pop it in the oven. Then I will be out in the garden continuing my planting, weeding, harvesting, etc;

Everything looks good in the garden except our beans, I think part of the problem is that it has been unseasonably cool here in Oregon this summer, this is the second summer that has been pretty cloudy/foggy and cool. I wish some of you folks in the mid-west and east could have some of our cool weather and we could get a few days of warm summer weather, granted I don't want anything over 90 degrees and even that is pushing the envelope for me since we really only get 1 or 2 days of 90 degree weather here a year and then it is unbearably humid as well.


The ducks are doing pretty good, however we are down from 5 to 3. One got taken in the middle of the day and one got sick and died. We are putting them in a pet carrier at night for now but the plan is to build fencing around our garden for them to live in. We tried keeping them in the garden (which is what we got them for to eat slugs) but they ate all of our lettuce and a-lot of our potato plants. A friend of mine had recommended the Indian Runner Ducks to keep in the garden for slugs but she forgot to mention that they would eat most of our garden. I should have known but I trust her on garden advice, this is the only time her advice hasn't worked so well for us.

On my to do list for this summer is to master the making of Kombucha and naturally fermented pickles. Kombucha is a fizzy drink that is a pro-biotic, it is made with tea and fruit juice as well as the starter. It is great for detoxing your body and maintaining a balanced gut for proper digestion, besides I love the taste! Especially the ginger tea blend. I am thinking that this will help my hubby with his cancer. Naturally pickled vegetables have some of the same healthful benefits. No vinegar is used in this process, you let the vegetables naturally ferment. I will be starting this soon and will post pictures and update you on the process and outcome.
Herbs drying:
I don't have much in the way of herbs yet, the garden is only 2 years old, I need a-lot more than this!

Once I get the garden planted I will take pictures of that!

I know it has been a few weeks since my last post but life just got to hectic for a while. I had to finish finals which is now done and also we took off for a week of rest and relaxation and to celebrate the completion of my first year of school.

During all of this chaos and before our week away we had an unwanted visitor in the middle of the night that came in and killed all but one of our ducks, it was so devastating, what ever killed them did it for sport as they were lying dead on the pen floor, all but two, one was stuck in between their house and a board which saved it's life and another one was only partially left in the pen. We have kept our one lone duck indoors until we get her buddies,which we are picking up today. My daughter babysat her while we were gone and said that she followed the kids around the yard.

The garden is growing like crazy, it is amazing how fast things grow when you are away for a week. The grass has grown too, it looks like a jungle out there!

I also have been commissioned to spin enough fingering weight Bluefaced Leicester natural colored wool to hand knit a vest for a lady in Australia, this is very exciting for me and I have been busily at work spinning. I have most of the yarn spun now and have the two contrast colors chosen for the stripes on the neckline.

Here is a picture of the vintage vest I am knitting for her as well as the yarn:





The big ball of yarn is my handspun that will be the main color or shade, the other two are the contrast colors for the stripes, they are Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift in Emerald and White.

Well, we are off to get our new ducks this afternoon and then we will be working on fortifying their pen so we don't loose anyone again.

The Battle is On!

I have noticed the last few days that the Blue Jays are eating my Sluggo Slug bait. It is an all natural slug bait and not toxic to anything but slugs. The Blue Jays are having a feast, and this stuff is expensive so I am ready to do battle. Trying to keep the critters out of the garden is a frustrating challenge. I put bird netting over most everything that I have recently planted to keep the birds from either eating the seed or the slug bait or the seedlings. The Blue Jays also like to cut off my bean starts at the root when they first come up so bird netting has to be on that as well. For the slugs I have the slug bait which I have to apply often because of the rain. Soon however our cute little Indian Runner Ducks will be on guard eating the slugs for us. I can't wait, they are just now beginning to get their feathers. We ran out of duck food for them over the holiday weekend so hubby went out and picked up slugs for them. There is quite an abundance here on the Oregon Coast, even when it doesn't rain there is a-lot of dew so things are usually dripping wet this time of year unless the sun shines and dries it up. Slugs love a wet environment as we all know. I am still a slave to the computer doing math, however I am almost done, I will have taken my final by the end of next week. I am already making plans for my free week and a half, debating on whether to go to Central Oregon camping for a week or play with my spinning wheel, fiber and make soap. I am trying to get my Etsy shop to be a little more productive here. Trying to save up for the Spinning wheel of my dreams, the Schacht Matchless, what a nice wheel! I know it will help improve my finer yarn spinning. You can check out my Etsy Shop at: Well I am off to work on math and get this behind me once and for all.

Here is the recipe for making your own laundry soap that is not a detergent: 1(4lb. 12oz.) Box Borax 1(3lb.) container OxyClean 2(14.1oz.) Zote Soap or Fels Naptha (I used a food processor to shred it) 2(2.lb.) boxes of Baking Soda 1 Purex Crystals Fabric Softener (optional) Mix it up and use it in place of your regular laundry detergent. I am using about Okay, so now here are the supplements I am using to prevent migraines or headaches: 350 mg Fever Few 100 mg vitamin B2 500 mg magnesium I am taking this twice a day. If you notice a headache starting take your next dose right away. Allow some time for the Fever Few to build up in your system. This isn't a pain killer it is a preventative. I hope these recipes help someone out there! I appreciate having them :)

Today was a lovely day! I spent most of it in the garden. I planted the leeks,lettuce, spinach, swiss chard,re-planted beans that the slugs and birds ate. Now I have netting over them and Sluggo down for the slugs so that shouldn't happent again fertilized everything with blood-meal and fish fertilizer.Everything is going to grow like crazy now and the only planting left for now are tomatoes and bell peppers. They don't really grow here that well because it doesn't get hot enough but Dan is going to build me a cold frame out of some old windows we have stashed, I can't wait! The garden needs to be about 3 times this size if we are going to grow year round. We also have our Indian Runner Ducklings, 2 black and 2 blue, I believe.

Here are a few more pictures of the garden. :)

Not much happening on the homestead today as far as gardening goes. It is very wet and rainy today. We did get the herb bed finished, it is the 3 tiered structure at the bottom center.(which I notice you cannot really see in the photo). I am in the process of filling it up, I have 3 more basil plants and a Lemon Verbena to plant yet, maybe tomorrow.(Note to self: get better pictures up on the blog.) Today we are making a trip up the coast to Seaside Oregon, that will be a fun 2 hour drive so I will get some lovely pictures to post of the beach. Three more weeks of school and then I will be free for a week of camping in Central Oregon. It is such a beautiful place, I just love Oregon! Usually on vacation I plan a new project to work on while camping, it will have to be a knitting project because my wheel doesn't travel well. Well off on our journey! I will post pictures along the way.

Living the Homestead Dream

My husband and I live off grid in the Oregon Coast Range Mountains. We are building our dream of being self-sufficient and learning to live a more simple life. We have been homesteaders for about 18 years now yet we still have so much to learn. I do know a bit about living this life though and I would love to share my knowledge with others and also find like minded friends to network and share ideas with. I also am a knitter, spinner, dyer of natural fibers and also an aspiring artist, I am currently going back to school to earn a degree in Graphic Design. My husband is just retired due to a fight with cancer, but we are taking advantage of the time to get our homestead in order. He is doing great and I believe it is a gift from the Lord that he is. We have been so very blessed through this trial, he has been living with cancer for 2 years now and still going strong. However, I don't want to focus on the cancer, not on this blog or in my life, we are living and enjoying life probably more than ever now, nothing like the threat of death to help get one's priorities in order. I have one etsy shop for now, it is danceswithyarns.etsy.com. Please check it out! And go back again and again, it really helps with the site ranking! Plus I will be adding new things up there frequently. Of course this is all yarn, fiber and knitting related, as well as crochet. You may possibly have known me as Cheryl Dawson owner of Nestucca Bay Yarns. ON THE HOMESTEAD Well, so onto what is up on the homestead. The garden is almost in, we just have tomatoes, peppers, leeks, carrots and beets left to plant.. I am replanting carrots due to the veracious slugs here in the Pacific Northwest,however, I have purchased Sluggo, natural no chemical slug bait and some new sweet little Indian Runner Ducks, which are not old enough to do much yet,but watch out slugs they will be out there soon! Unfortunately I don't have much in the way of fiber news, other than I am making an 'altered book' using knitting and fiber for an art project for school. I will post a picture when it is completed. School seems t

o be taking almost every waking moment right now all because of math. This is my last math class and I cannot wait to put it behind me! That is all for now but I have a lot more to tell about how we live and I will also get pictures up soon of the homestead and of course the garden.