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.

Friday, November 1, 2013

Merry November!

It's 6:00am on the first day of November. I'm sitting here with a steaming cup coffee and a mind swirling with great expectations.

I've been very laxed on so many things since last summer. I'm not sure what happened but I feel more myself these days.

I had intended to have a cord of wood cut, split and ready by September but that didn't happen. We do have a little wood and I make use of anything that falls. Plus we've had no need for the wood stove for heat yet. We don;t like it too hot and would rather be a bit cool
and just put on jackets or sweaters. So fire wood is high on The List.

Also on The List is finally learning to properly card, dye, spin, knit and all that goes with using wool from beginning to end. This is a skill that I've been wanting to learn for some years now. I actually tried experimenting with Kuzco's wool (the rescued Llama) but never used it for much more than insulation, for which it was excellent.

I met some spinners when I vended at Baker's and even got the chance to card and spin a little. One of the woman used dog hair and showed me a doghair scarf she had made from her dog's sheddings.

I also recently discovered that a local friend is big into spinning, very knowledgeable and willing to share. She introduced me to Nalbinding or Nadelbinden, an ancient and possibly Viking form on
knitting. Here's a wonderful site I found on it http://home.arcor.de/nadelbinden/index-eng.htm            Wonderful stuff!

I've made two trades in last 2 years for sheep but both fell through so I'm keeping this one to myself but Hopefully I'll be pulling wool come spring  :)

Around 2 months ago we got a lovely Saanen Doe (Paneer) from a friend. Paneer had some severe udder problems and our friend thought she might have to be turned into meat. She's such a great goat tho that our friend gave her to me in hopes there might be something else. At first
i had my doubts, it looked pretty bad. But I've been working on her almost every day for the 2 months and she only continues to improve. I plan to start keeping her milk starting this month  :)

We also have MayApple & Hickory. Hickory is for sale but Apple is destined to become our main milk goat. Hickory and Apple are half LaMancha half Saanen, they both have elf ears but while Hickory looks like a Faun or a very cool goat, Apple looks like an Alien  *o*  She's the funniest looking creature. I'm hoping she looks more goatlike whenshe matures because, while I Love the way she looks now, I'm not sure I could drink alien milk!

The vegetable garden is kind of empty but when I look at it I don't see the loss of summers bounty. I see the hope and great possibilities of next year. I don;t know if I'll get to it all but my fall garden plans are to get some herbs moved to a newly designated part of the big garden, then till the veg area and plant wheat for the winter. So many plans, so few hands.

I ended up moving several herbs and herbals to the big garden. How is it that I have more than triple the space here than we had at the Burrow and I still have it all filled up! One thing that will help is finishing the forested acres for use. There are some dead trees to be
downed and fencing to be put up but eventually that are will house a couple of different things. A main animal area .... for Anya (the horse) and the smallstock (goats, sheep etc.). An area for a small cabin. A camp site. And we're still working on enclosing the heirloom junk pile until (if ever) we can get it completely cleaned up.  It will all get done eventually  :)

We may also start work on the long house this year. Probably not until next year at the earliest but since we moved here I've felt drawn to get it done. By the end of 2011 I felt almost obsessed with it. With having a place to house people in an emergency, a place to come together ... but things happen as they will. Who knows what will happen.

We still have a horse shelter to build, she just stayed in the barn during really bad weather last year. This year she's in much better health and putting on fat, thank the Mother.

It probably won't get done this year but I desperately want to get the bathtub in soon. It's so hard and dangerous hauling boiling water outside to the tub and it would just be soooo nice to bathe inside in winter.

And, altho the solar bath is nice, we want to go back to the solar shower, it's easier and quicker in the hot summers.

For our Samhain Feast last evening we had a bounty of food including the last of the soft foods from the garden. We had Last O'the Garden mini submarine sandwiches ... homemade
wheat sub loaves, ham, two cheeses, purchased organic greenhouse lettuce, our own celery, purple bell peppers, purple onion, sliced cherry tomatoes and spinach, store bought black olives, store bought parmesan grated cheese, my own recipe ranch dressing and a fresh homemade horseradish mustard. The sub rolls get cut in quarters and we make them by the quarter however we want.

On the side it lightly fried sliced sweet potato, fried in a very small amount of olive oil with a little sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

And a cold pasta & vegetable salad with penne pasta, corn, black beans and onion tossed with one of my herby vinaigrettes.

To drink one of us is having pepsi and the other walnut leaf & honey tea

Everything was wonderful but my favorite was the cold pasta and veg salad, it was an experiment and turned out excellently.

For evening tea we had pumpkin pancakes and vanilla spice tea.

It was a delicious end to an introspective day. By bedtime I had come to the conclusion that ……   We Are Blessed.


1 comment:

Sarah said...

What a beautiful post! I'm new to your blog and really enjoyed reading your plans and accomplishments for the season.