Category: Latest From High Reaches

Separating Wants From Needs

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date August 6, 2022

I’ve lived a simple, what most people call a simple, life for close to fifty years now. I have become an anachronism. Separating wants from needs has become so ingrained, I cringe looking at shopping carts in the stores.

This is the second post on this topic. The first is on Telling Wants From Needs from last week.

Food

I am addicted to eating as are all the people I know. The smart homesteader will plan a garden to supply food all year. This isn’t as simple as it sounds for lots of reasons.

There are some foods easy to grow that I just don’t like. Green beans come to mind. The only reason for me to grow green beans is to sell them. What do I do with the ones that don’t sell?

I grow crops we will and do eat. Yard long beans can be used like green beans and I like the flavor. And I put up the extra peppers, squash (Frozen summer squash is a great soup base.) and tomatoes to use next winter.

These Zephyr summer squash are useful to the homesteader several ways. One is food. Second is a product to sell. Third is soup or stew stock for next winter. Successful squash plants need frequent squash bug checks and a shovelful of compost under the hill.

One of the things not done here is eating out. I cook. That doesn’t mean I never use frozen meals, but they are rare. Take out buffet can have vegetables added and make meals for more than one day.

Skipping most snack foods and sodas has side benefits. One is saving money. The other is better health.

For me caffeine, most white flour and sugar are not options. Weaning away from these food drugs, and they are drugs, does have withdrawal challenges. For around two weeks not even you will want to know you. You will feel terrible and grouch at everything. If you stick it out, things do get better.

I used to read book about pioneers and wonder how they could get by on five pounds of sugar for a year. I opened a bag last November. Half of it is still in the canister. Cakes, cookies and other desserts are not on the menu except for special occasions.

Side benefits of this are having less tarter on the teeth, fewer calories to burn off and finding food actually tastes good. Mentioning those fewer calories matters as a person gets older. Your metabolism slows down meaning you need less food. And those extra pounds get a lot harder to shed.

I grow three varieties of okra, Burgundy, Jing and a green variety (Burmese is preferred). Each one has a different flavor and degree of slime. Many people don’t like okra as it tends to be slimy. That slime thickens soups. It can sell well as it is an unusual crop at Farmers Market.

Clothes

When I was teaching, students were so concerned with their clothes. Sometimes they seemed more concerned with their clothes than with their education. They were more focused on rating what other people were wearing than on what they were putting into their minds.

And ten years down the road, those clothes mean nothing. The education is what opens doors to your life.

My goats are not worried about my clothes. They don’t care if I show up in jeans or shorts or fancy slacks as long as they get to eat. My chickens are the same.

Jeans last me about three months before I’ve worn holes in the knees. Those holes may be the fashion in some places, not here. Thrift store, here I come. Out come the scissors and cut the legs to length.

These won’t do for town, so I do have a town wardrobe. But this is simple. Most of the clothes have lasted for years. Forget the latest fashions. They are only a way to get you to spend more money.

I guess it’s time to close for this week. Separating wants from needs seems to cover more territory than I anticipated. Which is strange as it is so normal for me. Continued next week.

Tags homestead living, homesteading problems

Latest From High Reaches

Telling Wants From Needs

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date July 29, 2022

I seem to be an old school homesteader, what was called a back-to-the-land person. These people had a few things in common: live a simple, basic life; and little to no money. That last made telling wants from needs essential.

Needs

Needs are things a person must have to survive. Shelter, food, water are the ones most people think of. In our society clothes should be added.

One most people don’t think of is trash. Much of our trash now consists of plastics and other things that don’t rot away. Dumped into a back corner, they can contaminate the water table or hurt wildlife or domestic stock.

Another need not often considered is recreation. Working all day, seven days a week wears a person down. Everyone needs a break of some kind, even if it’s only sitting quietly in the woods or reading a book.

Water

Surface water (creeks, ponds and shallow wells) isn’t a safe source. Even springs need special filters as I found when researching a story for “The City Water Project”.

Hauling water in bottles from town gets cumbersome fast. Roof gutter drain pipe showers aren’t popular in the winter. Drilled wells are expensive. City water isn’t always available.

Shelter

Tents are great shelter in the summertime. They get cold and are difficult to heat in the winter. Many people opt for mobile homes which aren’t safe in tornado and strong wind areas. Building a small, simple house isn’t that much more expensive, if you do a lot of the work yourself.

Electricity

Is electricity a need?

I’ve lived without electricity. Propane lights were adequate. This was far enough north refrigeration wasn’t a big problem.

However, I like having electricity. It runs the water pump so the house has running water. It runs the computer, the lights, appliances, so many things.

Electricity is easy to abuse. How many freezers, refrigerators, TVs and other things does a person need to have? More than one is probably in the want category.

When telling wants from needs in this, be ruthless. Exactly why and how are you using this? Can you achieve the same end in a simpler way? That smaller electric bill or generation need will repay you.

Homestead Financial Battles

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date July 15, 2022

In these times of high inflation (I remember the 1970s and 17% interest.), homestead financial battles start taking shape. Money and time are the two sides.

Everything about homesteading takes time. When I stopped teaching, I put my wristwatch aside and thought I was free of its tyranny. Naivety.

My goats are milked twice a day. Ideally this is at the same times twelve hours apart.

Plants take a certain amount of time to grow to become productive. They must be planted at the right times or your work has no results. The same is true for mulching and watering.

These may not require a wristwatch, but they do lock you into time budgeting.

Goats like to eat. Dairy goats need good feed and hay to give lots of milk. Both are expensive. Obviously my High Reaches Nubian herd is well fed and spoiled.

On the other side is money. Money for taxes, feed, vet bills, supplies, groceries and personal items.

The homestead financial battles pit the need for time against the need for money. If you get a job, you lose the time. If you stay home to work, you need an income from something.

A budget has two sides to it as well. One is income. One is expenses. To stay solvent, the two sides must balance.

Stop and take a look at expenses. Which ones are for needs? Which are for wants? In homesteading, knowing the difference is vital.

On my homestead the needs are gardening supplies, chickens and goat feed. Some groceries such as flour are needs as well.

There are wants such as internet, haircuts, clothes (These straddle the two. Used clothing and repairing lost buttons, torn seams reduce clothing costs.), the latest book or movie. Many of these have alternate, much more inexpensive alternatives like the library for books, magazines and movies. (I except haircuts as I am a lousy barber.)

A homestead can bring in money. Selling eggs is one way. Milk and cheese are iffy as health regulations can get you into trouble. Produce requires a bigger harvest with more time and expense and a desire to eat or preserve the extra. Selling livestock.

The one sure thing is that the homestead financial battles must be considered and won by anyone wanting to homestead.

Why am I thinking about these now? One is inflation and the increase in expenses it has brought. The other is my novel still untitled and unfinished.

Tags homesteading problems

Latest From High Reaches

Growing Potatoes

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date July 8, 2022

I know potatoes are cheap in the market. I just enjoy growing potatoes.

With all the weather pattern changes, potatoes have become a difficult crop. Spring is often too cool and wet with late frosts. Potatoes are very frost tender. Late spring is often an early summer with hot, dry weather.

This year I debated, but succumbed to temptation and planted a bed of Yukon Gold potatoes. The goats were supplying plenty of mulch.

People laugh when I say I am lazy. It’s not that really. I just don’t want to do unnecessary work and hilling potatoes comes under that category. I lay out my rows of seed potatoes and pile on six inches and more of mulch leaving it thinner, or with a channel, over the seed potatoes for easy emergence of sprouts.

Only a couple of weeks ago these dry vines were robust green plants with flowers on them. Their potatoes are formed, hiding under the mulch, waiting for rain so they can again grow into potato plants. I would rather put the potatoes in the pantry to cook up for dinner.

With potatoes mulch serves several purposes. The usual ones of weed control and moisture retention are two. Cold, wet springs make that last a problem some years.

Another purpose for potatoes is frost control. The surface of the mulch may have frost on it, but the potatoes are safe. Any sprouts above the mulch will be nipped.

The last purpose of the mulch is easy harvest. No digging. Move the mulch aside and pick up the potatoes.

This year there is a complication. Last year I lost my potatoes to a raccoon. The raccoon wasn’t interested in the potatoes. Instead, she dug up the mulch along with the potatoes in search of worms and grubs.

The raccoon was back this spring. I’m assuming only one raccoon, but that may be wrong, probably is, and I’m not fond of shooting them for hunting for food to feed their babies.

I wasn’t going to grow potatoes this year after the last two disaterous years. So I manured this bed. I enjoy growing potatoes. Potatoes do not like freshly manured soil and form the little spots or scabs. They are cut off when the potatoes are eaten.

I laid a piece of chicken wire down over my potato bed. The potatoes didn’t mind and grew up through the holes. The raccoon did mind and left them alone.

It’s now harvest time. I will pull up the wire along with the potatoes, separate them, check under the mulch for the rest of the potatoes. And plant my butternut squash.

Tags gardening under mulch

Latest From High Reaches

Lots of Water News

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date July 1, 2022

Gardens need water, lots of water. Did you know tomatoes are 95% water? That’s more than a watermelon’s 92%.

I have a big, thirsty garden and no hose. I do have rain barrels, but they empty fast. It takes a whole barrel to water my garden now and much of it is still in the seedling stage.

cover for "The City Water Project" by Karen GoatKeeper with lots of water facts — Find trivia, puzzles, stories, investigations and activities about water in this science activity book.

Rain is not a reliable option. Ozark summer weather does have rain, if you are under the right cloud at the right time.

My solution is to use creek water. Presently I run a pump once a week, soak everything down and fill the barrels. I use watering cans in between. Seedlings get everyday service. Bigger plants get water every other day.

When the plants get bigger, if the raccoon doesn’t get them first, I’ll run the pump a couple of times a week. Lots of produce takes lots of water.

Most people have hoses. I did growing up. There is just no way to hook one up presently.

Rural Missouri is different about water. Towns have water departments, water meters and bills. Rural people have wells, water tanks or springs. I found out lots about this as I wrote “The City Water Project”.

Young people in this country don’t concern themselves with water. Turn on a tap and water flows out.

Where dies the water come from? Where does the extra go? Do you know? Perhaps you should.

Right now this Ozark creek looks shallow and tame. It has deeper pools here and there. Numerous creatures like fish, crayfish, snails and insect larvae call it home. During and after a six-inch rain, this lazy creek is a muddy torrent filling this space to several feet deep. At one time people used creeks like this for water in the house. This is no longer considered safe to do. The water is appreciated in my garden.

Storms here in the Ozarks are different now. They dump lots of water fast, cause the creeks to flood, wash out their banks.

Other places get unimaginable amounts of rain as the monsoons in Southeast Asia. Others have droughts as the Southwest and Australia.

Lots of people need lots of water. It isn’t distributed equally. Too often water is wasted or polluted. And my garden isn’t the only place that needs lots of water.

Tags science activity book about water, watering the garden

Latest From High Reaches

Going to Farmers Market

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date June 24, 2022

Going to Farmers Market is interesting. I’m always late and never seem to have much to sell, but I like meeting with the other vendors and watching the people.

This week my garlic is ready to pull.

Every fall I shove garlic cloves into the ground, add mulch and wait. The leaves push their way out through the straw and stay green all winter.

Spring brings fast growth. Then the scapes or flower heads appear. Gardening books say to clip these off. They are good sliced and added to stir fry.

One of the vendors clued me in on the next step. I used to wait until the tops died down to pull the bulbs and had many of them split into cloves. He told me to pull the bulbs when the bottom couple of leaf sets turned yellow. This works great.

One of my difficulties taking produce like garlic and going to Farmers Market is pricing it. That is even more complicated now as prices soar in the store.

Another complication is dealing with people who believe vendors should charge much less than the store for their produce. Raising produce as a small gardener or farmer takes more work than large commercial operations.

Many people plant tomato transplants early. As long as the weather stays cold, even without frost, the plants sit there. Warm weather arrives. The plants thrive and the first tomatoes start forming. They seem to stay green forever. Once they start ripening, the tomato glut begins.

There is one exception: tomatoes. Nothing tastes like a vine ripened tomato.

Store tomatoes are picked green so they will ship with minimum damage. Ethylene gas is a natural ripening agent, but it only makes a tomato appear red. The tomato is still green with little real flavor.

Our cool, wet April has made tomatoes late for Farmers Market. I am watching my green tomatoes get bigger with no touch of red on any of them.

Will my tomatoes join me going to Farmers Market? Probably not many will.

Tomatoes are one crop we will eat lots of. Extras will be frozen. The day before frost, the green ones will go into the pantry where many will turn red.

The same routine as the store uses? On the surface. My tomatoes will still taste a lot better.

The store doesn’t carry Speckled Roman, Pineapple, Bonnie’s Best or Boxcar Willie. These are tomatoes bred for flavor, not marketability.

In “Mistaken Promises” Hazel Whitmore raises pullets to show at the county fair. Her mother and grandfather compete with their tomatoes.

Tags growing garlic, growing tomatoes

Latest From High Reaches

Muskrat Watching

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date June 17, 2022

I enjoy hiking the trails at ShawneeMac Lakes Conservation Area, but have rarely made time for the last few years. This year I go Saturday afternoon and spotted a muskrat.

The main objective is to take plant pictures. There are many species growing around and in the lakes, I never see around home. I even spotted an orchid I’d never seen before.

Many of the plants are what the Conservation Department calls invasive aliens. I see them as new immigrants as they are well established now regardless of whether they are wanted here or not.

There are two lakes. I usually start by going around the upper Lake Turner. This trail has more moisture, several wet weather creeks and marshy areas.

Instead of cutting across the earth dam as these are manmade lakes, I continue down the trail around the lower Lake Ziske. There is a newer trail loop off this trail, but I rarely take it. The plants are more interesting to me along the main trail.

With air temperatures near ninety, this muskrat may be working hard, but coolly as it swims in one of the lakes at ShawneeMac Lakes Conservation Area.

Along the way numerous creatures show up. Most are the usual insects like dragonflies and damselflies. Ticks are few and far between, probably because there are so many possible hosts going by.

The birds are the most common larger animals. Canada geese and other ducks love the water. Lots of fish fill the lakes attracting a few fishermen.

This last week I was on the final leg of the trail along the lake and wondering if the common milkweeds were in bloom as the purple milkweed were last week when something swam in through the water willow to disappear into the lake bank.

It reminded me of a beaver, but there were no beaver-cut trees. What was it? I waited and watched, camera in hand.

The first pictures were a mess, in fact, good lake views with no creature. I did get a good look at it. Head like a small beaver. Single tail. Muskrat.

The muskrat was out gathering plant clippings to take into its home tunnel. It dived down, popped up, dived down.

I’ve read “Wind In the Willows” with its muskrat character, but I’d never seen a live wild muskrat before. I’m glad to know one is living at ShawneeMac Lakes.

Tags Nature Hiking, Ozark wildlife

Latest From High Reaches

Farm Babies Grow Up Fast

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date June 10, 2022

April was a month for babies here. Goat kids and chicks found they were in a strange new world. But farm babies grow up fast.

It is now June. Those cute balls of fluff are now lovely white with black necks pullets. They complain their little house is just that: little. Their yard is bare dirt as they ate most of the greenery. And it is too small.

It doesn’t take long for young chicks to eat and scratch up the greenery in their yard. These Columbian Wyandotte pullets have learned I let them out into a temporary yard on grass for a few hours most days. In the meantime they patrol their yard hoping some luckless bug will drop by.

I do have a 50-foot roll of three-foot chicken wire. This is staked up from the little chicken gate with electric wire posts to enclose an area of grass.

Don’t stand in the gateway when it is opened. For that matter, don’t stand in the doorway in the morning. Those pullets come flying and racing out.

There is a roost. According to this Columbian Wyandotte pullet, the feed container is more comfortable for roosting. And there are no grouchy neighbors.

Most of these pullets will move to a new home later this month. The remaining eight will continue to grow up into pullets big enough to move into the hen house.

The pullets will start laying in the fall. Then they will be hens at only six-months old. Farm babies grow up fast.

Goat kids are so cute when they are little. They depend on their mothers for milk. In a few days they are out exploring, playing, jumping on the goat gym.

Nubian doe High Reaches Agate’s spotted doe kid loves attention. She insists on attention. The best attention is scratching over her shoulders.

At almost three months old these kids are ready to move to new homes. The polled buck has already left for one up near Columbia.

The three doe kids will be advertised toward the end of the month. Hopefully someone good will take them to a new home the beginning of July.

Just last April this Nubian doe kid was easy to pick up and hold. High Reaches Spring has lots of milk. This doe kid is now a big armload to pick up. So far her spots are staying brown and look really nice against her black coat.

The buck kids are rarely so lucky. They too have to start leaving in July.

And then the barn will seem empty with only my thirteen adults in it. Augustus will be left alone all day again.

Farm babies grow up fast.

Hazel Whitmore raises Buff Orpington chicks in “Mistaken Promises“.

Tags raising chicks, raising goat kids

Latest From High Reaches

Racing the Brushcutter

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date June 3, 2022

Roadsides are great places to find wildflowers to photograph. Many of these flowers are only found there. My problem is racing the brushcutter.

My county, and I’m sure it’s not alone in this, firmly believes roadsides should be like well-kept lawns. Wildflowers are not welcome.

Back in the 1960s there was an attempt to change this mindset by Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of President Lyndon Johnson. She promoted planting native wildflowers along the roads and had some success at the time.

Roadsides are the new prairies. Native wildflowers are killed off for grazing land, farm land and lawns everywhere else. Roadsides offer perfect conditions for many of these plants.

Sunny yellow flowers of coreopsis dance along the roads until the brushcutter comes along. These are annuals and must set seed to grace the roadsides next year. Many wildflowers are annuals. After a few years, they disappear as they never get a chance to set seed.

Most plants do tend to get scraggly by the end of the growing season leaving behind clusters of brown stems. Cutting these down would be fine. The plants have bloomed and seeded by then.

Spring and summer are terrible times to mow these plants down. Many never recover. Many of those that do are ones most unwelcome such as poison ivy and sericea lespedeza.

I do a lot of walking along the roads near my house and check others on the drives to and from town. The other day one of these roads had the edge cut down to lawn height.

Panic.

I do know the brushcutter in passing. He and the road crew think I’m a bit crazy. Still, I stopped and marked a unique plant so he wouldn’t cut it down.

How do I mark all the plants I’m interested in? He would have to skip the whole road and won’t do that.

So, I am racing the brushcutter. Everyday I can I will be out walking the roads, stopping at all the areas with interesting plants, trying to get pictures before they are gone.

Dogbane is a perennial. It will regrow next year. But this year’s flowers will be gone a will any seeds. Many perennials like milkweeds put up a single stalk each year. If it is cut, that year’s bloom is gone. And the pollinators like bees are left to starve as they can not live on grass.

Once he has gone by, all the lovely flowers will be gone. Oxeye daisies. Coreopsis. Sweet clovers (I photographed this the day before mowing.). Deptford pinks. The milkweeds, elderberry, daylilies, rose gentians getting ready to bloom. So many more.

After my wildflowers are gone, I will go back to walking the hills. Walking the roads is too sad.

Yellow sunflower type wildflowers are among the casualties. Read more about them in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“.

Tags Ozark wildflowers

Latest From High Reaches

Building PVC Gates

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date May 27, 2022

Seven years ago, I finally got fed up with building wood garden gates every year as they rotted away in the wet weather. Instead, I decided building PVC gates would be a better option.

The size determines the design. My gates were three feet wide by four feet tall, so I decided to put in a cross brace. I’ve since found this is wise for every two feet in height.

The Materials Needed for Building PVC Gates

This is for each gate the size I built. You can modify this for your size gate.

Four elbows to form the four corners

Two T’s for the cross brace

There are reasons for laying out the parts for the PVC gates ahead of time. First, you can be sure you have all of the parts. Second, they are arranged so you know what attaches to what. This is really important when you are building several gates. I was doing three. My working area out under a black walnut tree wasn’t quite flat so my gates are a bit bowed.

Four two-foot lengths of PVC pipe (I used two-inch pipe. It must be thick enough to be sturdy.)

Three three-foot lengths of PVC pipe

Glue

Welded wire to fit the gate (I used one by two inch.)

Thin wire like electric fence wire to attach the welded wire to the gate.

Building PVC Gates

A flat working area bigger than the gate is necessary or the gate will bow.

Lay out the pieces in the places where they will go. The four corners with a three-foot length across, a two-foot length up to a T and a three-foot between the two T’s.

Follow the directions on the can of glue to spread glue inside one corner and on the ends of the pipes to attach to it. Put them together.

With the PVC parts laid out, you can see how to glue two pieces together in more than one place. The glue takes a short time to set, so only two pieces can be done at a time. The important thing to watch is that the pieces are flat so the PVC gate will be flat. Once the glue is set, you can’t make any changes.

Do the same for the diagonal corner and let these set.

Put the cross brace between the two T’s. Make sure the T’s lie flat at each end.

Do the last two corners. Make sure these pieces lie flat. Once the glue sets, that’s the way the pipes are.

Once the upper and lower pieces are done, attach them to the T’s. Let the gate dry several hours or overnight.

Adding Hinges and Wire

Drill holes and use bolts to attach whatever hinges you plan to use with the gate.

The PVC framework has big holes in it and defeats the purpose of the gate. I had the 1″ x 2″ welded wire, but chicken wire will work (not as long lasting). It does take time to ‘sew’ the wire to the gate. I used old electric fence wire. That way the wire doesn’t sag open anywhere.

Place the wire over the gate. Tie it on at each corner to keep it in place.

I wrapped old electric wire around the PVC pipe going through the wire every two inches. It does take time, but the wire stays in place. Do the same on the cross brace, but stand the gate up to make putting the wire around easier.

I drilled holes for regular gate hinges and used bolts to attach the hinge to the gate. Other hinge types might work. I chose these as they swing freely and make it easy to remove the gate, if necessary. It is possible to bolt a latch on the gate as well. My garden set up lends itself to using bungie cords.

Results

Building PVC gates was a great idea. The gates are light weight, easy to open. I use bungie cords to hook them. They are maintenance free. I wish I’d built them years earlier.

Tags garden gates