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, August 18, 2015

week of 8.11th to the 17th 2015



Aug 11, Tuesday

The day was gorgeous! High 80s, low humidity, wonderful breeze. A perfect day for working outside.

Painted some outdoor furniture - painted a big, old cast candle holder - weeded in the garden - gathered tomatoes - gathered polk berries and prepared and drying for year round use - cleaned rabbit hutches - raked and cleaned a little around the barn - wandered out around the pond with Anya and cats as escorts - then moseyed down to the orchard with Fox and cats as escorts.

This evening I’m reading and learning more about shearing, carding, and skirting wool fleece.

-Breakfast – egg sandwich with melted goat cheese and fresh tomato slices on toasted honey oat bread. water to drink.
-Lunch - small, leftover breaded, oven fried steak on bread with homemade olive oil mayo. Raspberry ice tea to drink.
-Supper – leftover chicken with the last jar of applesauce from last year (made from wonderful little barnyard apples with lots of cinnamon) and oven fried potatoes. More Raspberry ice tea to drink.
-Evening Tea – Berry Bake made with our raspberries and local blackberries from town. A cup of chamomile tea.


Berry Bake  (or Apple, Pear, Peach Bake etc)

Melt a little butter in a dutch oven and layer fruit at least an inch thick. Depending on natural sweetness, drizzle honey or sprinkle sugar (cane or brown) over the fruit and dot with a little unsalted butter. Add any spices you want in the fruit here too. Cinnamon and clove for apples and pumpkin etc.. I don’t add anything to the berries but a little honey or sugar.

Make a batch of biscuit dough to drop biscuit consistency and add a little extra sugar if you want a sweeter dough or save it for the top. Drop by spoonfuls on top of the fruit and smooth the globs together a little here and there. Be careful though, not to push the dough into the fruit to much.

If you want a sugared top, which is very good with apples, sprinkle a little sugar over your dough. For apples or pumpkin I usually sprinkle a little cinnamon too.

Bake covered, until wooden skewer comes out clean (careful not to poke it into the fruit) and top is lightly browned.

You can use pumpkin or sweet potato but I always cook both of these until they’re soft before adding. Combinations are wonderful. Apple and any berry, cherry berry, apple and pumpkin, apple raisin or cranberry ….   I also sometimes add walnuts or pecans to fruit.

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Aug. 12, Wednesday

Another absolutely beautiful day! Perfect weather for summer doings.

Only got a few things done today but they were big things and took much of the day. Mowed (easy but takes a lot of time. Thankfully it’s something I enjoy), got Sage the sheep partially sheared (took over an hour and didn’t get to the main fleece (back) yet), painted the indoor wood rack, burned trash, cleaned more around the property, bagged up dry herbs

-Breakfast – sausage gravy and potato potpie. Water
-Lunch – leftover pinto and navy beans turned into baked beans with bread and butter, Ice tea
-Supper –   Ice tea
-Evening Tea – animal crackers and chamomile

Aug 13, Thursday

Town day and beautiful weather for it. In the mid 80’s with low humidity.  Always plenty to do on town day. Bank, feed store, grocery sore, parking lot for an hour free wifi, walmart, stopped by some friend’s house and picked up my new (very old) treadle sewing machine I bartered for. It’s in a lot worse shape than I expected but it’s still very beautiful and (I think) fixable.

- Breakfast – water
- Lunch -  A big bacon burger in town with an unsweet  ice tea
- Supper – raw carrots, cauliflower, broccoli and cherry toms with commercial yogurt ranch dressing. Raspberry ice tea.
- Evening Tea -  Kisses and black pekoe. It’s been cool enough in the evenings to have hot tea.

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Aug. 14, Friday

Another beautiful day! How blessed we are  :) 

Aside from the usual…. I did 3 loads of laundry. Mowed the laundry yard, back and campsite. Still working toward painting in the kitchen. There are a lo of little things hat need tending… pulling off old board, filling holes, filling cracks large and small, a little sanding etc.. I could probably get it all done much faster, if I didn’t do anything else. But this is working well, doing a little at a time then going on to something else. I finished painting the indoor woodrack and the base of the portable fire pit.


- Breakfast -  homemade granola and water.
-Lunch- Jasmine rice with broccoli and cauliflower, with sharp cheddar and cracked pepper. Ice cold La Croix
- Supper –

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Aug. 15, Saturday

Gathered up all tarps and hung on lines to clean and see what we have for winter use.

-supper- homemade pasta in parmesan white sauce with onion, cracked peppercorns and peas.

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Aug. 16, Sunday

Beautiful day!

We visited a friend who had just gotten home from the hospital and took them a basket of things to make life a little easier for the next few days. From there to get a load of hay. And then home for Sunday Dinner.

-Breakfast – commercial apple fruit bars and water
-Lunch- commercial sweet roll and commercial raspberry ice tea
-Supper- grilled pork steaks, grilled carrots, celery, peas in pods and cherry tomatoes and cooked sweet corn with cow butter and black pepper. Iced vanilla tea.  Delicious!
-Evening Tea- grilled peaches with goat’s milk ice cream and a cup of black pekoe.

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Aug. 17, Monday

Looked like it might start raining at anytime but never did. A little more humid but still a lovely day.

Cleaned around the barn, checked on things for the storms coming, moved some things to safer areas, checked feed supplies and made lists of what’s needed,  worked more on the kitchen (having trouble removing some of the old tile board), prepared the wood area for more firewood, started clearing out for the next fencing to go up.

The day’s harvest –
5 chicken eggs
1 duck egg
Sage leaves
Echinacea leaves
1 tomato
4 carrots
Queen Ann’s dried seed heads

-Breakfast- water
-Lunch- leftover pizza, raw veggies and yogurt ranch dip. Ice black pekoe
-Supper- leftover chicken, leftover swt corn, leftover pasta, honey oat bread. Ice black pekoe
-Evening Tea- dry sweet cereal and a glass of cold raw cow’s milk

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