Well, today our friend and neighbor, Jerry Yourczeck, drove his truck and trailer down to my son, Bill’s place with me, to pick up the Friesian filly I’ve been paying on all winter.  I was excited; it was the first time I’ve bought a horse in over 18 years.  And Ladyhawk was kind of "you’ve survived cancer" treat to myself.
 
Her breeder and her husband drove her up from Gays Mills, Wisconsin and we met at Bill and Kelly’s so neither of us had to drive overly far.
 
It was love at first sight.  Her pictures weren’t lying.  She’s gorgeous!  And on her lower legs were the start of the fine wavy feathering that is the trademark of the Friesian horse.
 
She was calm and cooperative, hauled well and we got her home in fine shape.  You should have seen our donkeys, Moose and Beauty!  They wondered what the heck I’d brought home.  They were afraid of her, even though she’s smaller than they are.  But in a few days they’ll all be buddies.
 
I even got to visit my newest grandson, Mason, while I was there.  He’s growing so fast and is oh too cute!  What a smile! I had a great day, even though it was over too fast.
 
Now I’ve got a new baby in our barn to play with.  Not as cute as Mason, but gorgeous nevertheless!!

Readers’ questions:

Finding  bush berries

You have mentioned in your writings about bush cherries. I am having a hard time finding a
source to buy them .Can you reccomend one?

Kendy Lucas
West Plains, Missouri

Several mail order nurseries carry Hansen’s bush cherries and Nanking cherries.  Jungs has the Hansen’s bush cherries.  These are very good for jams and jellies and not too bad to eat out of hand, but they are stretching it when they say "good for pies".  I’m sure not going to pit all those small cherries!!!!  The bushes are very beautiful in full bloom in the spring, so they also make a great edible landscaping shrub. — Jackie

Starting with food storage

I have been digging through the Emergency Preparedness and Survival Guide, and it is the
best, realistic book on this topic that I have found. The sections on food preparation are excellent, and it is apparent that as you are preparing for an emergency, you are also eating better, healthier food! Where is the best place to start with food storage? Should I try canning first, or food dehydrating? Any thoughts on the best place to start? I hope that within the next year I can do some of both!

Taylor Mack
Ruston, Louisiana

The best place to start is anywhere, anything.  The best time?  NOW!  Pick up foods that are good storage candidates, when they come on sale every time you grocery shop.  Just a few extras every time, and you’ll soon be on your way to a fat pantry.  Then, as you get the time, begin canning and dehydrating the "easy" foods, fruits, green beans, etc.  Once you find out how easy and fun it is….not to mention how good the foods are….you’ll get hooked.  It happens to most everyone who tries it!  I often can AND dehydrate the same foods I’m processing.  I’ll do up a big batch of green beans, for instance, canning what will fit into my canner, then dehydrate the rest.  That way I have lots of each.  I promise you’ll love it and the secure feeling it gives you! — Jackie

Dill pickles

I’ve spent several days looking through your blog and Canning 101. I love the articles you write for BHM! I’m excited about canning some of the dry beans I have from this past issue. The question I have is dill pickles. I love them, but mine are terrible! Mushy and yucky. All the canning books say that you have to boiling water bath them, that seems ridiculous since they sit in vinegar. Are yours processed this way? Any suggestions?

Harvard Rexburg
Idaho

Yes, I water bath my dill pickles.  BUT I do it for only 10 minutes, usually, and DO NOT boil them before I pack them into the jars.  The more you boil a cucumber, the softer it gets.  DUH!  With my sliced pickles, I only bring them TO a boil, then quickly pack them and water bath them for 10 minutes, working very quickly so they don’t sit in hot juice or a hot water bath for overly long.
 
And when you do your pickles, always use very fresh cucumbers and soak them in a very cold salt brine to crisp them up before you pickle them.
 
If you don’t water bath process pickles, you’ll end up with part of the pickle sticking up above the brine, which will then spoil and mold.  Yucky stuff! — Jackie

Canning spaghetti

My wife wants to pressure can spagetti meat sauce and pasta (together) for the kids to use on camping trips. Can this be done safely?One of your recent articles cautions against this. However store processed products exist so there must be a way. I am cautious about home canning as the potential for botulism is terrifying to me. Especially to think I could be lax or ignorant in food preparation and harm my children. Any info would be appreciated as my wife and I are divided over this issue.

Allen Brown
Ponce de Leon, Florida

You CAN add pasta to your spaghetti/meat sauce.  Just don’t over-do it so that the end product is very thick.  This can cause the very center of the food in the jar to remain too cool to process safely.  What I do is to make up my sauce, then add the spaghetti, and just barely get it limp enough to fit into the jars easily.  Remember that spaghetti, like all pasta, swells quite a bit during canning, so allow for that, not packing too much into the jar.  Simply process for the time required for the spaghetti with meat sauce.
 
Don’t worry so much about the botulism thing; it’s really quite rare, more of a "possibility", rather than a common occurrence. — Jackie

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The last few days have been busy ones.  I’ve been transplanting dozens and dozens of tiny tomato plants into styrofoam cups and deep six packs.  I fill the container, mark the variety on the side to be SURE I know what the plants are, make a small hole in the center with a teaspoon, use the teaspoon to work the plant loose from the flat, taking care to hold it by the leaf, not the stem, then lowering it into the hole and pushing the soil down on both sides of the plantlet.
 
Then David has been busy too.  So far, he’s made 6 trips home with firewood from the clearcut up north, plus 6 loads that he’s stockpiled at our carpenter friend, Tom’s land near the woods.  And some of that ash is HUGE!  David can’t reach around some of the trunks.  When he loaded it on the truck, the 3/4 ton truck squatted so bad that the springs straightened out!
 
We’re weird about wood here; we already have almost enough for next winter, plus some saw logs.  And David will keep hauling until breakup.  In the north, breakup is the end of all wood cutting in low areas because when the frost goes out, you can’t access the wood, even with a four wheel drive or ATV.  So right now, it’s a horse race to get as much hauled before spring springs.  Much of our lives is ruled by Nature around here in the backwoods.  And that’s not such a bad thing at all.

The computer problem still isn’t fixed, but I did manage to attach this photo, after a while meditating in front of a blank monitor.

Readers’ questions:

Raising chicken food

Due to the rising cost of "everything"..what kind of chicken food can I raise in my garden for the chickens to eat during our Maine winters. During the summer they are free-range and doing quite
well. What’s the best kind of corn to grow for chickens and what other crop will be best for them. I currently have 11 hens and will get a rooster (at least for a few months)in the spring.

Anita Chandler
Monmouth, Maine

Luckily chickens are not picky eaters!  You can just let several rows of your sweet corn mature.  You can later pick it when the leaves are dry and store it in a dry spot away from rodents.  But chickens can eat a lot of other extra garden produce.  Mine love all the extra squash I can grow.  I just bring it into the basement and give them a squash a day or every other day.  It’s fun to feed, too.  I just whop it down on the ground and the squash pops like a pinata.  The chickens come running.  They love it.  They especially love the seeds, which are high in protein, too.
 
Of course they’ll also eat your kitchen scraps; potato peels, crushed egg shells, carrot peels, leftover vegetables and fruit, bread that has gone stale (they don’t even mind a little mold!), leftover salads, withered rutabagas and turnips from the cellar; chickens love them all….and they help with the feed bill a whole lot.  You can even sprout some seeds for them; like wheat or oats.  Of course, the price of wheat is climbing so badly…but you don’t need much to make a whole big pan of four inch high wheatgrass.
 
Love my chickens and luckily, they’re easy to feed! — Jackie

Raised beds, “making” soil

We are planning to move to Grand Marais, MN, an area of the state with which you are undoubtedly familiar. I want to plant a garden there and as you probably know, there cannot be more than 8-10 inches of topsoil in any area on the Laurentian Shield–any deeper and you hit bedrock. I know my garden will have to be a raised bed because even compost and manure don’t do much for improving solid basalt and granite. Do you have any recommendations for tomatoes, peppers, and squashes (both summer and winter) for zone 4 (maybe 3 if we’re over the hill from the big lake) and what does well in a raised bed.

Laurie Hill
Hudson, Wisconsin

Nice area!  We looked seriously at some raw land about 17 miles southwest of Grand Marais, but it was really, really isolated and we figured we’d end up taking care of my elderly parents….which we did 2 years later, and didn’t think we should get land with only ATV access over 7 miles, then 12 miles on an unplowed forest service road.  Actually, there’s more soil than you think, in some areas, depending on where you locate.  Up on the hill, it’s shallower; over the hill, deeper.
 
A whole lot of crops do well in raised beds; most actually.  We’ve had good luck with Oregon Spring and Bush Goliath tomatoes, as both of these are relatively well behaved determinate plants that don’t sprawl too much.  All peppers do well, as the plants are relatively small and erect.  As for squash, you can grow bush squash or make smaller raised "hills" and put vining squash just about anywhere.
 
You can also "make" soil, over the years by mounding compost up on your garden area, tilling it in, adding more, tilling that in, and so on.  It takes awhile, but you can actually build up a productive, large garden "mound" in this way.  Mix leaves, sawdust, rotted manure, pine needles, peat moss and straw well together with some soil, and pretty darned soon, you’ll have a big raised area to plant in.  And even on the shallow soil, you’ll find that a lot does well up there, due to the moisture from the lake effect.  There are a lot of good gardens up north on the Arrowhead!  Good luck and welcome to Minnesota! — Jackie

Hopi Pale Grey seeds

I am “still” trying to get some Hopi Pale Grey seeds. Any more suggestions? Would you happen to have 3-4 seeds you are willing to part with?

Connie Hatley
Winthrop, Washington

Good news!!! Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (www.rareseeds.com) or 2278 Baker Creek Road, Mansfield, MO  65704 has lots of Hopi Pale Grey seeds this year!!!  I’m so relieved that someone is once again carrying this great squash.  If you, for some reason, can’t get them there, let me know and I’ll send you some.  And Yes, I will be saving my kind-of-wild Montana petunia seeds.  I’ll let everyone know, and will have a limited amount (God willing!) to share this fall.  Remind me then, okay? — Jackie

Thanks for the inspiration

Not a question, but a thanks: Jackie, you’ve been an inspiration. This week I put a new Briggs &
Stratton engine on the Troy-Bilt tiller my grandfather bought when I was a baby (35 or 36 years ago)
and got the ground tilled for my 1200-sqft garden – the first garden I’ve done since my parents last had one when I was a teenager, 20+ years ago.

Aaron Neal
Fort Worth, Texas

Wow!  I’m so happy you’re up and running.  My old, old TroyBilt, bought in 1976 finally bit the dust a few years ago, after several rebuilds.  (We used it a LOT, including a 3 acre market garden.)  I loved it so much, we bought another one, and have tilled a lot of ground with it.
 
I hope your garden is very bountiful, this year and in the years to come.  The best of luck! — Jackie

Dealing with milk stone

Recently I was given a beautiful stainless steel milk bucket (to replace a plastic one getting rather worn out.) I was told that milk , after a while, makes something called milk stone, and needs to be cleaned with a special sort of soap. In your experience, is there another way to clean buckets adequately with household ingredients (like soda or something)? I have stainless steel pots that I just wash with regular dish soap. I threw out the dishwasher as I can do a better job than it can so I just use regular soap on all the dishes and am wondering why the bucket wouldn’t fair just as well.

Gail Erman
Palisade, Colorado

Milk stone is a deposit that adheres to milking equipment that is used very heavily.  I have never found it a problem in homestead milking conditions. Yes, you can treat your milk pail like your other stainless steel equipment.  Just make sure you rinse your pail well and drain it to dry.  Wiping it dry could possibly put bacteria on the clean pail from your dish towel. — Jackie

Jackie on the Oprah show?

I just sent some of your info to the Oprah Show. Please get busy writing your autobiography and be sure to include all your knowledge of some many things that I have read about. I think they should send some Oprah producers (or Oprah and Gayle) to come and spend some time with you. How do you get your snail mail? How long does it take you to get to the nearest town? I’m totally fascinated
with your lifestyle.

Joanna Wilcox
Boone, North Carolina

I doubt that Oprah would be interested in our "boring" lifestyle, but hey, we love it!  We get our snail mail through our old mailbox, way out on the road, a mile away.  It comes through the Angora post office, twelve miles away.  But Angora isn’t really a town, town; it has but a few buildings and is a dot on the highway.  Our nearest town is Cook (population 600) and it is 16 miles northeast of us.  If I drive into town, it usually takes me about 25 minutes; five of those on our driveway, which the top speed is 15 mph because of the humps and bumps.  Of course sometimes it takes longer if I see something interesting.  So far on our drive we’ve seen wolves, bears, fishers, a lynx, a cougar, lots of deer and smaller woodland creatures.  One morning I had to stop and watch a huge bald eagle sitting low in a pine, eating a piece of meat.
 
We’re actually quite civilized here; we get UPS and even FedEx!  Wow!  Of course they sure hate to come into our place.  I think they’re scared so far off the road. — Jackie

Safe canned Navy beans

I recently canned ten quarts of navy beans. They were dried. I soaked them for 18 hours, boiled them for one hour, and filled the jars. I processed them for 90 minutes at 10 pounds pressure.
When the processing was complete, I noticed that all of the jars lost quite a bit of liquid. All jars sealed. Will they be safe to eat, without much liquid?

Bruce Clark
Interlaken, New York

Yes, the beans will be safe to eat, provided they sealed well.  This loss of liquid happens when we fill the jars a bit too full with liquid or when the pressure fluctuates during processing.  You know; oops, it’s 14 pounds.  I’ll turn it down.  Eeek!  Now it’s 9 pounds.  Back up.  It happens.  Don’t worry. — Jackie

Making sure the kids get enough to eat

I have new baby goats, among them a set of quads and a set of triplets. They seem to be doing great. They are very active! Would you supplement with bottles or just let the nannys take care of them?

Kathryn Harris
Fresno, California

When you have more than twin baby goats, you’ll have to actively make sure they all get enough to eat.  You usually have a pig or two in the bunch, and they won’t let the weaker or less agressive kids eat.  If you know the doe has enough milk to feed all the kids (be sure of this) you can stand by and play switch the kids so they all have equal turns at the teats.  Or you can milk the doe and divide her milk, feeding by bottle twice a day.
 
If she doesn’t have enough milk, as they demand more while growing, you can supplement her milk with powdered milk replacer.  Use either goat milk replacer or lamb.  The calf replacer is much cheaper but will give them the scours (diarrhea) and they won’t do well on it. — Jackie

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Sonny, our local computer genius, was here for over 2 hours and we still don’t have a fix on my e-mails not being able to attach photos….or at least not on a regular basis.  Some still attach….then the next one takes 15 minutes or simply won’t attach.  It’s so frustrating!  I’m learning a lot, but I still don’t do technology.  Ugh! 

I’d rather be in the greenhouse planting and transplanting my future gardens!  Oh yes!  I’ve got over 27 different varieties of tomatoes this year.  Of course, my old favorites, Oregon Spring, Polish Linguisa, Early Goliath and Bush Beefsteak are there in force, but I’m trying a lot of new ones, then repeating many that did well last year.  The STAR last year was Tomcat, a very rampant indeterminate with medium/small tomatoes in huge abundance.  But I’m also giving Polefast and Ultimate Opener another shot at my permanent list because they did fairly well last year under not so good conditions (planted late, lots of rain, no rain, and heat, heat, heat).
 
Because I now have real flower beds, I’m starting a bunch of flowers too, including foxgloves, delphinium, pansies of three varieties, petunias, cup and saucers, datura, snail flower and more, later in the spring.  Some only need to be in the greenhouse 8 weeks before setting out; others take longer to get up and going.
 
At any rate, yesterday was 45 degrees ABOVE with a strong sun.  And it really, really got my gardening fever going!  I can hardly wait to get growing.  Of course it helps because my gardening sweetheart may be able to come out this spring to "play" with us in the garden, too.  Big smile.
 
Readers’ questions:

Old spices

My wife inherited a large amount of expensive spices from my great aunt. We don’t know how old they are, or when they were purchased, but some have been unopened. How long do spices stay good? It would take several hundred dollars to replace them, so we are loathe to throw them out.

Mike Jamison
Dickson, Tennessee

Even though many "experts" say to throw out all spices over a year old, I don’t.  I have many that are over a decade old and are just fine.  If they seem to have lost some punch, I simply use a little more.  If I had those spices, I’d hang onto them like gold.  You lucky dog! — Jackie

Water loss in canning

Today I canned some potatoes (Irish) and when I looked at them some of the jar had lost about one inch of water while the rest of them were ok. I screw the bands down the same. I have noticed this also on some other things I have canned before. Do you have any idea on why this is happening and should the product be ok to eat if it is not covered up by the juices (water)?

Chris Walters
Ellisville, Mississippi

This usually happens because we slightly overfill some jars or the pressure in the canner has varied a little, up and down, causing some liquid to boil out.  It doesn’t affect the food other than sometimes it looks a little dry.  Taste and safety is fine. — Jackie

Microwave problem

I live year round at almost 10,000 ft altitude in the mountains of southern Wyoming. I cannot use my microwave oven and others have said the same thing. What’s going on?? I first thought it was my
oven, but visiting with summer cabin owners, they said they also had problems. It will not heat a cup of water for tea…it gets warm, but takes a long time.

Martha Nestorick
Laramie, Wyoming

Sorry, I’ve never been a microwave person.  I do mostly low tech stuff.  Maybe another reader will have an answer for you.  I just keep a kettle of water on my stove in the winter and use the gas stove during the summer. — Jackie

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Needless to say, I’ve been having computer issues.  You see my Vista won’t let me attach photos to articles or e-mails, including my blog.  We’ve tried everything humanly possible, but finally Dave said to call in the computer repair guys to see if they can fix it.  Sometimes I really hate technology!
 
I do better with low technology.  The photo below was taken two days ago when David and I were splitting up a big pile of firewood.  He, his friend Zack and our carpenter friend, Tom had gone to a piece of woods and hauled several loads of firewood, so we are already gathering wood for NEXT winter.  There is something peaceful in preparing well in advance.  I’ve cut and split wood in a blizzard, at night, because I had to.  But doing it ahead of time, when the weather’s nice is SO much better!
 
Now if I can just get this computer to work.
 
P.S.  Yeah!  Tonight it let me attach a photo in ten minutes.  Well, it’s SOMETHING!

Readers’ questions:
 
Tire wood holder

Suggestion for splitting wood- you may already know about this- not as much fun as with two people, but if you gotta do it yourself– use an old tire to hold the wood upright while you split it- keeps
the wood from falling over, and together for you to pick it up and toss into the wheel barrow.

Bob Taylor
Poulsbo, Washington

Yep, I know about the tire wood holder.  But, of course, it’s faster and more fun with two people working, as you said.  One guy wields the axe; the other sets the blocks and picks up the split pieces.  But you’re right; the tire does hold the wood upright nicely.

Storing potatoes for seed

I have seeds stored for future use, but how do you save potatoes to plant two years later.

Dan Wicker
Howell, Michigan

Sorry Dan; you can’t store potatoes for two years.  Potatoes are a renewable seed source.  That is you need to plant at least some every year if you are going to save your own seed potatoes.  By the spring following the fall you’ve picked your potatoes, they are starting to sprout.  When the weather warms up, it’s time to get them planted so you’ll have more for next spring.

Montana homestead

I haven’t been reading Backwoods Home very long and ordered a subscription for my husband’s birthday this month, along with the 11th and 12th year anthologies. I just read from the 11th year
(2000) that you homestead about 20 miles out of Cascade!!! I lived in Cascade (for about 2 months,) in the spring 1998 and now live in Fairfield (since October 1998).

Resa Wagner-Pittman
Fairfield, Montana

Sorry to disappoint you.  We moved from our Montana homestead four years ago and now live on a much larger wooded piece of ground, complete with a creek and two beaver ponds.  This is where we were living when Bob died and later we went on to build our log home.  Of course it’s not finished yet; we’re paying as we go.  But we really love it.  I’m sure Bob would be proud of our progress.  Losing him was more than hard, but we’re keeping going forward.
 
I am extremely lucky, in that a sweet single homesteader guy started writing to me about a year ago.  And since then we’ve written hundreds of letters, burned up lots of phone satellites and had a great visit where he lives in Washington a month ago.  Hopefully, he’ll be coming out here, come spring, to join our little endeavor. — Jackie

Canning cakes, soaked in liquor?

Do you have any recipes for canning cakes, soaked in liquor?

Pam Pliska
Portland, Oregon

Sorry, Pam, but I just don’t do liquor in any form; don’t like the taste. — Jackie

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My daughter-in-law, Kelly (Bill’s wife) had a tiny, very healthy baby boy. Right in the middle of a good old Minnesota blizzard! Bill kept me posted by cell phone from the hospital. He knew I’d be biting my nails, wishing I could be there. But unfortunately, the roads were nearly impassible and with my 91 year old mother I knew better than to try it. Yes, I knew we could drive, although it’d be a slow drive, as visibility was nearly zero, but if we had some unknown car problem, such as a fuel pump going, we’d be sitting by the side of the road with Mom in better than a foot of blowing snow.

By nightfall, we’d had about 18 inches here at home and it was still snowing. But by bed time, it had stopped and the wind wasn’t blowing. When I woke up this morning, there wasn’t any more new snow and the storm seemed over. So I checked the weather radio, which I do every morning and evening, especially when contemplating a trip. They said we’d have from one to two more inches of snow but the winter storm warning had expired.

Hooray! I quickly got up, dressed, got Mom up and dressed, gave her her pills and breakfast, woke up David and got ready to drive the 80 miles to Duluth. I knew the roads would still be slick, but felt confident that I could make the drive alone with no trouble. Grumbling David stayed home to be with Mom (although he would have much rather have gone with me!).

In two and a half hours, after passing several SUVs in the ditch, I arrived at the hospital and got to hold my newest grandchild, Mason Donald Spaulding. (Were my children EVER that small????) Sigh. They grow up so fast.

Readers’ questions:

Making a milking machine?

I have been milking a holstein-jersey cow for quite a while and am interested in making my own milking machine. I need help. I don’t know what size vacuum pump I need. I know about the other equipment but nothing about the pump. I don’t want to injure my cows, and have you seen the prices of milking machines online? Any help you could offer will be greatly appreciated.

Kevin Windham
Louin, Mississippi

You’ve got me, as my milking machine is on the end of my arms! Long ago I had a dairy herd and used milking machines. But I picked up good used equipment at a farm auction. The pump cost $50 and the two milkers and belts went for $25 each set. I did need to buy new inflations as the old ones were cracked and nasty. I think rather than trying to build your own, I’d go this route. You can open a whole can of worms by having a vacuum machine that delivers the wrong vacuum. (Can you say MASTITIS?)

I would put an add in a local shopper or even an online site for farmers, asking for a good used vacuum pump and milker. I’ve done this a lot and had great results. And made some friends in the bargain. Good milking! — Jackie

Outside wood boilers

Hi Jackie, I am licenced home inspector and trainer in CT. I just want to start by saying you are an inspiration to the off grid folks,I hope to be there someday myself. The recent blog on wood-stoves and outdoor heaters is a good thing for more folks to understand. I heat with a BIG Moe wood stove, it works great. The issue with some of the outside boilers is a new one to most folks. www.woodheat.org is a good starting point to learn about the problems folks have with these boilers, and where the companies which build them need to get to. Hope this helps you and others to know more about these new dinosaurs, and maybe the companies who build these will take notice if we all know more about what we should expect out of our wood fired boilers. Maybe an in depth article from someone at BWH. Keep warm.

Brian Dunbar
Harwinton, Connecticut

Thank you for your information. I’m lucky in that my oldest son, Bill and his wife heat with an outside wood boiler and I also have several friends who do, as well. The trick for us is to figure a GOOD way to make them work when you live off grid! There are a pump and blower that run nearly constantly and we have that to contend with. So right now, it’s in the thinking stage. This might last for a year or five. Who knows? But one thing for sure is that next winter we’ll have at least one other wood burning stove in the house. My kitchen range just doesn’t hold a fire long enough to heat the new greenhouse when it’s way below zero. — Jackie

Bavarian style kraut

Jackie, we make kraut every year. We are looking for a recipe to make the bavarian style with caraway seed. We have not been able to find one. Thank you for your time.

Ruth Gross
Roscommon, Michigan

A German friend gave me her recipe so I could pass it on to you. I hope you like it.

2 quarts sauerkraut, drained\
1tsp caraway seed
1 medium onion, chopped
1 C medium ale (if you like)
1 Tbsp vegetable oil

Add chopped onion and caraway seeds to oil in large frying pan. Cook onion until tender and toast caraway seeds, stirring well to prevent scorching. Add drained sauerkraut and ale if you wish. Heat well until flavors are well blended. Serve warm with a good dark rye bread and some fried German sausages! Good eating! — Jackie

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Dear Jackie

Monica Blaney
Ottawa, Ontario

I’m so excited for you!  Wow are you in for adventure.  I love it.  I really prefer a root cellar in the basement for cold climates.  First of all, it’s really hard to keep a separate root cellar from freezing when the temperature gets below zero for a week or more.  And secondly, it’s sometimes brutal running back and forth to one when it’s snowing and blowing.  In the basement, you can pick the coldest corner, usually a north corner, partition it off from the rest of the basement, which is heated at least to some extent.  If it is a warm basement, you can just insulate the walls of the root cellar to keep it cooler.  Then if it gets really cold, you can simply open the door to circulate some warm air into you storage area.

Right now we heat our house with a combination of propane wall heaters and our wood burning kitchen range.  Next spring, we’re continuing our new greenhouse around the southeast corner of the house and running it along the east end.  Then in the southeast corner, I’m putting in a wood burning stove.

Eventually, we want to put in a masonary chimney from the basement up to the peak of the roof and we’ll install a wood stove down there.  Or maybe we’ll opt for the outside boiler.

I do like these; they are totally safe, no wood mess in the house and you can burn some big stumps, etc.  You get free hot water and can also heat a workshop, garage or whatever.  My son, Bill, has one down at his place and likes it a lot.  We need to figure out a way to operate it via battery bank, as they do need a pump to circulate the water.  Now you’ve got ME excited!

As for make/model of wood kitchen range, I really don’t have a favorite, although Monarch is a tried and true brand.  I have one now and like it just fine.  There are sure some nice ones on the market, new now, but I don’t have that kind of money.  Only in my dreams!  Try to find one with warming ovens and a large fire box so you can keep a fire longer on a fill.  And if you buy a used one, make sure the grates aren’t burned out.  This sometimes happens when folks either burn coal in a wood grate or burn a lot of hardwood.

Have fun!  And keep us posted on your new homestead. — Jackie

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Howdy!
Just wondering why you decided on Minnesota to homestead in? Thanks! Appreciate your wisdom & learn MUCH from your writings… Thanks!

Jul Amidon
Brimson, Minnesota

There were lots of reasons we decided on Minnesota when we were looking for a new homestead. First of all, two of my adult children live here, one down by Sturgeon Lake, and another by Hager City, Wisconsin, just across the border. My sister, Sue, also lives in Hermantown, near Duluth. Then I had lived here before and both my late husband, Bob, and I liked the state. We also loved Montana, but land there had gotten WAY beyond our prices! WAY BEYOND, for any amount of good homesteading land.

When we looked here, land was much cheaper, a lot of it with water on it.

In addition, we love the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Area, just northeast of us, as well as the thousands of other lakes and rivers that are canoe-friendly.

We wanted wild land with remoteness and critters. Here we have deer, bear, wolves, fishers, otter, beaver and even an occasional moose or cougar.

So we found 80 acres with a creek and two beaver ponds, big woods and 25 acres that had been clear cut about 15 years ago, growing up to popple and pines.  It had a gravel ridge to build on, and also some benches that made gardens and horse pastures.  All in all, it’s working out very nicely.  Glad we’re here.

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There was so much frost on the vehicles this morning when David left for school that he came in and grabbed the digital camera to take a picture. It was in the teens and felt very frosty indeed. We’ve been keeping a fire in our wood kitchen range nearly every day for about a month now, but when we saw that thick frost, we knew it was time to get busy and split wood in earnest.

David had hauled about 5 cords of leftover slash from logging operations nearby this spring. And he brought about 3 more truckloads of firewood from his karate instructor’s house, where he helped saw up down and dead trees. In addition, all summer, we’ve been adding to the pile as we cleared pieces on our land, cut downed trees on the mile long trail to our place and found a tree on the fence. It all adds up and there’s a nice big pile of wood out there. Unfortunately, most of it needs splitting to be useable in the stove.

We are buying a tractor mount wood splitter from my oldest son, Bill, but both the tractor (needing repairs) and the splitter are three hours south of us.

So we’re doing it the old fashioned way for now. With an axe. We’ve got a splitting maul, which we do use. But the axe splits quicker with less backache. I can’t do marathon splitting anymore. I split a few rounds, gather them up and take them into the house, rest, then go do it again until the wood box is full. Or the trailer is full to take around the house to the porch. I’ve learned to pace myself. It takes longer, but it gets done just the same.

Of course things speed up when David can spend time home. That young man can split a truck load in the time it takes me to split a couple of trailer loads of wood. But being a young man, he’s got plenty that takes him away from the homestead; school, sports, youth group, fun with friends, etc.

So I just keep pecking away at that huge pile, which doesn’t seem to get any smaller. (Is it having babies????) Pretty soon, the tractor and wood splitter will be coming home and we’ll go at it warp speed. But for now, it’s just a middle aged woman whacking away at that firewood with an axe. Hey, it works!

Readers’ questions:

Canning ground meat

Hi, Jackie!
You may have mentioned it in the past (I’ve only been a subscriber for less than a year) but I wanted to know how to can Ground Meat. Particularly beef, but also venison, wild hog, goat, etc. I use it a lot with a large family, and don’t like it that I rely solely on the freezer for my supply. I’d like to have it canned and on my shelf for when the electricity goes off. (Happens here a good bit.)Also – does it taste any different from freshly browned ground meat? Should I go ahead and season it? That is, I could put Italian seasoning/onions/garlic on some and Taco seasoning/onions on some, etc. if it works better to be seasoned first. We’re basically at sea level here, so any pressure canning directions would need to be for that.
Many thanks,

Sarah Axsom
Natchitoches, LA

Ground meat is very easy to can and is very handy in a whole lot of recipes. I have a whole lot of ground meat and stewing meat on my pantry shelves to use in recipes throughout the year.  All you do is brown the meat and pack it hot into hot jars to within an inch of the top of the jars.  You can season it, but don’t use too much and don’t use sage as it gets bitter when canned.  You can always use more later on, to spice it up to your taste if it needs more when you use it.

Ground meat is processed at 10 pounds pressure for 75 minutes for pints and half pints, which is probably the amount you’d use in most recipes.  Be sure to wipe any grease off the rims of the jars before you put the lids in place; grease can prevent lids from sealing.

I use canned (and seasoned) ground meat as taco filling, sloppy joe mix, with mushrooms and also in mixed recipes, such as chili, spaghetti sauce etc.  The taste in recipes is about the same as when you use it fresh.  But when heated “plain” it has a texture more like meatloaf, so hamburger patties aren’t so hot.  I DO make a lot of different meatballs and these are really handy.  Just make the meatballs small enough to be handy in the jars, mix them the way you like and then gently fry them till they’re lightly browned.  I’ve canned them with my own Italian tomato sauce and with a mix of cream of mushroom soup and a little water in the pan juice.  Both are excellent.

You are wise to begin canning up some ground meat.  Not only is it good for just about eternity, but power outages and other emergencies don’t affect the quality or availability of the food.  This I like!  Besides, it’s just so handy. — Jackie

Making laundry soap

i want to make my own laundry detergent- all things i have found calls for fel’s nappa soap- i make my own bathing soap- would this be the same?- or is there a recipe that you would have for fel’s nappa soap that i could make?-if you could just tell me what fel’s nappa soap is and why it is need to be used- thank you so much- i love the magazine and your column- thank you

sharon woodmancy
marshall, il

To make laundry soap (NOT detergent, much better!!), just make a batch of good old lye soap.  Yes, I know lye is a little hard to get right now because some morons are using it in making meth.  Yish!!  But you can still find it if you look; try Lehman’s Hardware.

I just use an old cheese grater and grate a bar of soap into a bowl.  Then I pour boiling water over it and let it sit for about an hour.  It’s then good to go.  When I didn’t have running water and heated my wash water on the kitchen range, it was nearly boiling when I put it into the wringer washer.  Then you could skip the soaking in boiling water step; it would dissolve very nicely in the first load of nearly-boiling water, which made the whites very white without bleach.

When you make a regular batch of lye soap, you’ll get enough bars to do many, many loads of laundry; more if you use a wringer washer as you don’t throw away barely used laundry soap.  It has more life than doing just a load of undies and towels!!!  One small bar will wash the former, as well as your shirts, bedding and jeans.  And you’ll save water too! — Jackie

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