Wild Moon Cottage is a small working homestead in the pristine Ozark Mountains. We have dairy goats, poultry, organic herb and vegetable gardens, a start of a tiny fruit orchard, several black walnut trees, wild berries and fields of wildcrafting goodness. We raise our own milk, our own eggs, much of our own medicine and food. I do laundry by hand, make my own vinegar, candles, soap, bread, cheese ........ For a living I am an artist and herbalist. My goal for myself and our homestead is to be as self sufficient and self sustaining as possible.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

9.8.9

I have been so busy and the years seems to have gone by so quickly. It really seems like time has sped up in the last few years.
The weather has been amazing and altho I do fear what it portends, I'm still really enjoying it.

Everything has been a bit odd and a bit off this year. The gardens have done fine but the veggies took forever to ripen properly and we're still waiting on some. The melons and summer squash still aren't ready. It may have to do with the very cool temperatures this year.

........................................... A box we made up for a family who lost their job.


We did finally get tons of sweet banana peppers and quite a few giant heirloom Mountain Gold tomatoes. Because of the CAT-astrophe with the plant starts I wasn't sure whish ones they were until they matured. We got quite a few Romas as well and are still getting some of each every few days. I love the Romas and eat them every way tomatoes are eaten. luscious little things, they are.


Lately I've been do a lot of harvesting and drying. Stringing tons of cayenne and a few jalapeno. Stared some canning and saving seeds.

....................................... One of several cayenne strings. They're very festive :)

I dry the herbs on drying racks or hanging. I I have tons of Mugwort, Oregano, Hyssop, Lemon Balm, Sages, Mints, Chamomile, Mullein ... a little St Johns, Thyme, Bee Balm, Rosemary, Lavender, Horehound, Echinacea ...
................................................ The small inside rack I use mainly for seeds
I'm not sure why but I took a picture before I hung the herbs and forgot to take an after picture. *~*

I couldn't bring myself to nip the Jasmine buds this year so i won't have enough to sell and will probably run out in just a few more months. But they're so beautiful when they bloom out. I also left the honeysuckle which didn't bloom as proficiently as it usually does.

i also meant to dry more day lilies and put it off until it was to late.

I'm also gathering seeds and seed heads and so far have Hyssop, Echinacea, Oregano, Persimmon, 3 kinds of heirloom tomatoes, 4 kinds of peppers, Lemon Balm, Bee Balm, Peach, green beans, eggplant ...

I dug a bit of ginger and ginseng as well but it wasn't as ready as I had hoped. It is much to early anyway. I usually don't dig it until mid to late fall but I needed some so i carefully tool a little of each.

I made a batch of chamomile and lavender soap last week but sold out before the batch had even cured! i made a second batch with several sample bars to give away at the farmers market but it turned out odd. The larger bars seem fine but the smaller ones are sweating terribly. they never sweat this much and never for this many days after. These have been curing for 6 days and still sweating. I didn't do anything different so I'm not sure why. I may try putting them in the dehydrator and see what happens.

A few weekends ago we went to a tiny potluck and a woman gave me Persimmon seeds and some more Bee Balm and another dear woman gave me more cayenne and some japalenos :)

I can't remember if I mentioned it before but I've taught myself to knit ! I bought some knitted wash cloths at the farmers market a while back and loved them so much i decided to learn to make them. Besides knitting is a very useful skill to have. anyway, i went to the store and there was a book ... "teach yourself to knit" so I bought and did ! i've made two wash cloths and working on a third and have about 1/80 of a blanket knitted ! I do wish I could read and knit at the same time but I save the knitting for when I get a netflix and it works out fine.
My first dish cloth. It is a little wonky but not as bad as it looks. I forgot to take a picture of it dry. It did come out with a handy little hanging hole, i never figured out how that happend. The second one is even better :) I'll never wash dishes with a regular cloth again!

Wicket
Yes, the lad has issues

7 comments:

Marrissa said...

HAHA the picture of your cat made me literally laugh out loud!! What a cutie! I would love to grow so many different herbs as you. For now we have just the basics. Ah one day!

Peggy said...

Wicket is a very smart cat! Love the photos of all your drying. You have been very busy this season.

Granny Sue said...

love that cat! it sounds like you've been busy and productive.

oldcrow61 said...

Lol, great picture of Wicket. I too have been hanging herbs to dry. The extra small bedroom I have turns into a drying room this time of year. Heaven forbid that someone wants to come and stay overnight, lol.

Anonymous said...

Wicket looks just like my boy cat... who is a total sweetie pie. The gardening season here was very weird this year... mostly due to all the rain and cool weather. Ah well, that's part of gardening... each year is unique.
Love the knitting... I need to get back into that, maybe this winter.
Zinnia

Meredith said...

Wicket is so cute! You're doing better at knitting than I did. I think I can't learn it from a book. Congrats on making something so practical right off the bat!

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