Tweet Share Pin Share Hedemora Chickens These are a landrace breed that was developed in and around Hedemora, Sweden over the last 500 years. Apparently, Hedemora needed cold hardy chickens that were vigorous foragers- even in the snow (I picture chicken butts in the air and they dive down through the snow looking for the dirt).  Hedemora chickens are a medium size bird. They are practical- no human bred oversize breast. Their combs are small to avoid frost bite. Full grown birds are about 4-5 pounds and lay medium light brown eggs. Hedemoras were imported to the United States in 2010 ..read more

My mother made the same vegetable soup recipe probably since before I was born. My Mom NEVER made anything without a recipe. And she followed the recipe EXACTLY. All needed ingredients were placed on the weekly store list, and ALL ingredients were present when she made that recipe. In my family I was known as the kid with no ability to cook. It was actually a joke that I had no ability. The truth was, I was a busy outdoors person and I was content to live on peanut butter and jelly, pork roll sandwiches, and Philly cheesesteaks. Who needed to cook beyond that? Fast forward many years later wh ..read more

At first the prospect of moving into a small home seemed exciting. Or it could have been that we were so enamored with the land the house was sitting on that I was not thinking straight when I walked through the house. Anyway, we were excited to move into a house with some character that sat among mature trees on a large piece of land. The rooms seemed a size we could work with or could adjust to given the view out of the windows. Structurally it was good. Every hole from everything that had been hung on the walls since the house was built in the 1970’s was still there. Some with the two-inch ..read more

What do honey bees do in the winter?    I am often asked if honey bees hibernate. The answer is no, they do not. Honey bees that live in cold climates do not hibernate. They form a well-organized ball, called a cluster, when air temps are below approximately 58 degrees. As the air temps rise or fall above 58, bees leave and rejoin the cluster as needed. Bees in the cluster go about their lives eating, raising brood, and more. They generate heat by shivering using their wing muscles. In the fall and early winter there is not much brood in the hive, so high temperatures are not needed ..read more

  The best laid plans often go awry. We found an awesome 10 acre parcel with a small house we could fix up and make work for us. We were going to work on it all summer, move in, and then sell our current home. An unexpected offer on our home had us scrambling to get pre-possession and clean out our fixer upper and move into in in 30 days. Somehow we got in. Anyone who has purchased a fixer upper knows there is a fine line between squalor and habitable. Out of a 1850 sq foot house with a 2.5 car garage and into our 950 sq ft mini house fixer upper. Did I mention the mini house is on 10 awe ..read more

It’s getting to be the time of the year when I can’t help starting to think about and visualize our upcoming garden. I make lists of what I would like to plan if the sky were the limit. Then comes the fun part- looking at seed catalogs and reading (I mean looking at the pictures) about the many choices for each veggie. Then starts the thoughts about the garden layout and then the diagrams in my mind end up on paper. This year as I start to think in this direction, I find that I have to re-think everything. Our new homestead does not have what our previous did- a cleared, flat, full sun garden ..read more

We have been out of touch for a short while. Where did we go? What did we do? Well, life happened. A new position at work. Working at a new place. Working at a new place farther away that necessitated a move. But positive things happened, and we find ourselves on 10 acres in a small fixer-upper with no out buildings and with new possibilities. Did I mention it is a really small house?  Stay in touch- I will be posting pictures and updates of the work in work in progress that we find ourself in. A new adventure has begun! The post A New Homestead Adventure Begins appeared first on Lake Eff ..read more

Those who are keeping bees in the colder climates may appreciate these pictures. In this hive is a swarm I caught in May or June. Due to a number of commercial hives in our area, as well as this being a bad year for wasps, we always have on some sort of entrance reducers. This particular hive has a wooden entrance reducer for a nuc and a piece of hardware cloth. Hey, it was what I had in my tool kit at the moment I needed it and had my veil on. Anyway, the weather has cooled down- we have had 2 frosts already. The bees decided they would propolize the hardware cloth. I guess the amount of air ..read more

A nice bucket of beans from the homestead garden. Our  garden was not well planned this year, as I have already mentioned.  It was planned in my mind as I stood on the edge of the garden with seed packets in my hands. I do not recommend this method. I ended up with pole beans and bush beans mixed together. It worked out okay as they both used the white plastic climbing bean fence thing I ordered along with some of the heirloom seeds. They all grew well. I am still unsure if I see a huge value in trying to keep all the bean varieties separate unless you plan on saving seeds, which I ..read more

This post may contain affiliate links and we may earn compensation when you click on the links at no additional cost to you. Tweet Share Pin Share      Like it or not part of self-sufficiency is providing for your sustenance. Whether you grow it, barter for it, or choose to buy it, it is likely that at some point you will want to preserve some of it for later. Throwing out spoiled food is wasteful and feels really bad when you pay money for the food. To me, it seems to feel worse when I “paid” for the food with my own labor and efforts. So when the kitchen frid ..read more