Real quick! Look around you...........

9:45pm and I just finished washing the milk pail and filling the last Mason jar with milk for the fridge. Changed the water in the baby banty crate, sat down to google "snake tongs" since I rehomed a black snake with my neighbor's help and there is still one running loose. After this I plan to head to the cheesemaking site and get some stuff to get my cheese going. Tomorrow I'll be planting lots of tomato plants and getting my dill seeds in the ground (a little late this year).

And SO is sort of griping about all the jars of milk in the fridge. Perfect opportunity to bring up our need for a 2nd fridge.

Ok, seriously my view with you, I'm in the kitchen sitting at the table overwhelmed in clutter! What is on top of all this clutter is most important to me right now. Someday, after the garden this bottom layer(s) of clutter (I know) will still be waiting for me to put up

Seed packs spread out on the table to my left, and my tablet full of notes about when and where I planted what in garden, behind my lap top my camera for pictures as progress happens in the garden. Across the table to the left is setting the wood cook stove, soon to be moved into the new add on. To the right far end of the table sits more potted plants on the floor by the patio window, and behind me on the counter flats of plants I will be planting on my next day off. I only have a narrow pathway in the kitchen. On the floor to my immediate right sits some hand me down canning jars stacked and waiting Hopefully as I fill the jars I will be placing them in my new pantry in my new add on (soon) Btw new add on will replace patio door and wall in living room. I am facing patio door right now, visualizing that dream to come true.
At my left on top of my (elec.) cook stove my favorite cast iron skillet that I use daily. Next to stove coffee maker is always on and going when I'm home (coffee-holic here) Beside the coffee maker is a large coffee can half full of kitchen scraps and another can for used coffee grounds, all for my compost pile.
To my far right, beside the front door in the living room, is sitting (handy of course) opened bag of potting soil, bag of blood meal, my pump sprayer, and 50lb bag of floating fish pellets for the catfish in the pond, and my work gloves. (well there it is! I see my vacuum cleaner now sitting on far side of all thatlol)

Have I mentioned the clutter??? lol. Oh well, it's gardening time (almost an acre) and after my job, out there I am, and NOT here and mercy me does it ever show!

To my right is the love of my life who is zonked out in bed after a long day of putting up lines for grape vines, distributing compost, and relocating the funky compost that collected for 8 months in one of those black bins that are a joke. To my left and directly behind me are my 2 "chest of shelves" and a tall corner cabinet. The 6 foot utility table, 5.8 cu. Ft. Sundanzer freezer and a 5 foot tall bookshelf of food and supplies are on the left. The box stove, our portable "cold weather" bath tub (30 gallon stock tank), Ann's Bureau and the other food/bookshelf are on the right.
On the outside of that wall live our propane cookstove with oven, our outdor sink, two stainless steel countertops and 2 wonderful canines. The felines are probably roaming.......I checked...the female hunter cat is resting on a blanket, and the male heater cat is not needed so sleeping elsewhere. Ah the plight of being male!

Sleep is all around me.........

It's nighttime and I can't see outdoors from where I'm sitting, but on the table in front of me are some knitting needles and handspun yarn made with wool that I handsheared from the sheep out back. Over on the other side of the room, I'm blocking a shawl that I just finished knitting for my mother-in-law. Just inches from my hand is a glass of homebrewed beer. I'm done for the day!!

tell us about the "every day things" you see that define you, and make you a homesteader, in your eyes

Well first that I'm sitting infront of my woodstove burning gleaned firewood well actually that's not entirely true some was just gifted. I have new neighbors across the street and they have been leaving some good sized branches on my front walk. Now if I could get them to dump the ash bucket. Ironed laundry this evening with sad irons because the stove was lit. Cooked dinner on woodstove.
Soon to breed my Giant Chinchillas as we've been out of rabbit meat for a few months now.
If it would stop raining long enough for me to harvest perennials from both my yard, neighbors yards with permission & abandoned homes I'd have one aspect completed in regards to my upcomming plant sale.
My backyard looks like sheet plastic is taking over. I've got 4 jury grigged cold frames full of potted perennials, one homemade frame with seedlings, & a store bought umbrella style with Rhubarb ready to burst out.
Still have a few scars left from pruning back wild black raspberry canes behind the garage earlier this month.
Tripped on a box of canning jars in the cellar felt like I broke my toe.
While drinking my coffee this morning I admired the buds on my Apple & Peach trees not so much the Walnut on the property line of my city lot.
Anyone wanna jack a tree ?


~~ pelenaka ~~
http://thirtyfivebyninety.blogspot.com/

Guineas are Not good mothers, so if you do see keets, take them away and brood them! She will have them out in cold wet grass and they'll die. BTDT.

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http://mmsmiracle.com/EnjoyBetterHealth

Wow, I've really enjoyed reading all this homesteady stuff! It's like taking a peek into your lives!

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I cried because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet.

Sorry I didn't give much info about our Homesteading pursuits. Most of that is outside for us as we are in a 12 by 20 cabin, putting finishing touches on a 24 by 24!

I am curious: did you do anything on the back porch last winter to stop sliding down the steps?

Your initial post said you were typing by lamp light. Do you have grid lighting? We don't.

Stay well.................

Well, right now I can see a patch of chicken poo on my knee and I'm too tired to go change my jeans. There's seedlings on the windowsill waiting to be planted out (hopefully tomorrow). If I had x-ray vision, I could see my first ever batch of beer fermenting away in the closet across the room. There's bits of hay on the floor and goat hair on my sweatshirt and I'm up way past my bedtime. Also, my husband's ammunition box is sitting in the middle of the floor, where I left it, hoping he'd notice and put it away. After 13 years, I should know better The basket on the counter has brown, green, white and speckled eggs in it. The loud Cow is not loud right now, if I stepped outside, I would only hear livestock chewing and frogs chirping in the distance, this is the best time of day besides dawn, and it's kinda fun to share others' versions of it.

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"I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else."
- G. K. Chesterton

Wish I had the visions y'all do. I still work a 9-5 job and homestead part time. Its 9:15 and I am at work in the 'burbs of Dallas having just driven in from further out - although my place was country when I bought it, the burbs have encroached the last decade and I can see a housing developement from my driveway.
The only signs that I am somewhat of a homesteader (right now while at work) is that I am reading this board while waiting for the phone to start ringing.

Right now I have some jalepeno seedlings coming up in the kitchen underneath the bench that is holding my garlic and tomato starts. One of our 8 huntin dogs is laying on the floor at my feet and my dehydrator hasn't been put away yet from drying some strawberries the other day. Checked on my 36 chickens earlier and the 2 ND goats and 1 bottle calf that we are weaning. I can see DH's camo turkey hunting gear in the bedroom and I'm going to hang some clothes out on the line in a bit.

And rubber boots litter my kitchen floor

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I don't even chase my whiskey, what makes you think I'm going to chase you?

Without getting up I can see all my seedlings in the window. Tomatoes, basil, mint, flowers, more flowers, peppers, and more flowers. lol! I can see the skull on my self that gave Skull Creek Ranch its name. I can just barely see the hitch to my livestock trailer peeking around the corner. I can also see my picnic table sitting in my front yard. Its going to be our main table this summer when we live on the land. And honestly, thats about it. I still live in town and my view out the front window is just the neighborhood.

I see a house that should have been bulldozed decades ago.

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I'm an environmentalist, left wing, Ron Paul loving Prius driver with a farm. If you have a problem with that, kindly go take a leap.

Not much in the way of homesteading "stuff" that I can see from the recliner in the living room, but I do see (through the French doors) on the back porch the outdoor propane cooker I use for canning. The bread machine, flour, and other baking goods is sitting on a shelf on the bar in the kitchen. On top of the fridge is a barn shaped cookie jar that plays "Green Acres" when you open it up (a gift from the nuts at work). There's also a "Speed Racer" cup up there too. There's a wash stand with a pitcher and wash basin over next to the steps leading to the loft. On top of a small chest are some family pics, a dragon fly candle holder, and a Maui salt/pepper shaker set. There are several books on the coffee table, but the one on top is a pictorial of Alaskan outhouses. Finally, to my left is the wood stove, with exposed flue pipes going up two stories through the tongue and groove pine ceiling into (and then out of) the attic.

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"Luck is the residue of design" - Branch Rickey

Oh my... from right here where I sit there isnt too much "homesteady" stuff. Unless you count the room itself. I just love these log walls that surround me, and the hardwood floors made of wood I cut off the farm. I dont have to go too far though and see the pantry filled with canned goods from our garden... or into the kitchen where I have seeds sorted and getting ready to be planted. A glance out the window across the pasture where the cows are munching is kinda homesteady too I spose. Of course if I walked out on the deck, I could see the cabbage, broccoli and other cool weather stuff growing in the terraced beds just below the house. That could be risky though, what with the kittens playing around under foot. I do wish mama had opted to have them somewhere besides right outside the front door.

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain