The House of Riona: Micro Homesteading 2025

Nancy the reason I haven't pursued online sales is because its pretty visual with picture taking and a lot of other logistics.  But for most people it would really be a good idea.

Mushroom kits and jars:  Well the mushroom kit is going, and I've got the wide mouthed jars with rings I'd wanted to expand my microgreen growing.  I still need to order the screenlids, but first we had to order a cot, because the futon we bought for the second bedroom isn't big enough for 2 people and we have friends coming in from out of town next week to stay over.  Its fun to have friends stay over for a couple of nights.  So we bought that to shove next to the futon.  I will admit that my husband has pulled me into the world of buying things online, because its convenient, but sometimes they send you the wrong item, like what happened with the futon, but once it was put together and we realized it was smaller than we thought, I couldn't conscion taking it apart and sending it back because my husband worked so hard, through a lot of frustrations, to put it together.  So here we are.
Lots of rain here, I moved my alovera plant up on the porch because its gotten PLENTY of rain.  We got a single roll of thunder which made my day.  When the weather is like this I'd rather sing on facebook live with tip links listed, no singin' in the rain for me haha.

The bad news is no beach day visit for me, my poor boogieboard is hiding dejectedly in the closet.  The good news is that my husband is finally doing better after a lengthy throat thing, we finally found antibiotics that fixed the bacterial infection and we're so thankful.  And in other news I got my annual haircut, I can't conscion spending money on a haircut more than once a year, especially because I go to a friend and we always end up eating out afterwords together, so yeah it becomes a very expensive haircut haha.

Hello flu, horrid to see you:
So its my turn to catch it.  I'm on day 7 and its brutal.  I think the fevers are finally done, but the coughing and lung issues and fatigue continue.  I think this is the lenghtiest sickness I've had as an adult, as far as being this heavy for this long.  It will likely be a couple more weeks before I can sing properly.
But since I'm eating real food again we have been enjoying my oyster mushroom kit bounty, the kit is fun if not a tad high maintainance haha.  I'm going into the dr. tomorrow and hoping I don't end up with any secondary bacterial infections like my husband had.  His initial sickness was better than mine, but his secondary shit was where the problem was for him, I'm hoping to avoid such.

And no, our friends weren't able to come in from out of town to stay over after all, because flu.  I feel frustrated that this thing is taking so long to be done with, it just keeps dragging onward.

Boring November:
We enjoyed our first harvest from our mushroom kit, we'll do a second round soon.  Then at some point we'll bury it in straw outside and see what happens.
But not much else happening.  I ended up with that secondary bronchitis infection I was hoping to avoid, and after antibiotics the coughing continues but manageable, everyone's getting it this year and its very lingery.  My body is balancing itself back out post anti-biotics, little issues, but getting some goodguy bacteria back in there.  Hoping to sing by the end of the week or early next week, time to get back on track.  Long interuption in getting things to the consignment store, but getting back on track there too.

We still haven't had our first frost.  It usually comes in early Nov. around here, we only have a handful of frosted/snowy/icey nights here, but its odd that we haven't had our first frost yet.  It means my calendula are still blooming and we can still eat them in salad.  I need to figure out how to eat the day lilies we have, they have lots of shoots and I've heard the little tubers are edible.  The pumpkin plants are finally truly dead, that little after thought baby pumpkin didn't end up amounting to anything, but I will take the seeds from our porch decor pumpkins I grew and use them next year for the same thing, a tiny variety which isn't phesible to eat.  I'm thinking about harvesting what is left of my fava bean plants, they weren't successful at making beans the way the plants I planted in the springtime were, but I can eat the leaves off of them, or should I just leave them overwinter and see what they do?  Harvesting little bits of the last things.  Oh and the kobucha squash didn't go, I think the neighbours planted it too late and so it fizzled.

I'm glad you're feeling better - we've got some pretty nastry seasonal bugs in this area too. My husband has been pretty poorly, but OKish now.

Let us know what you find out with the daylily. It's the sort of thing that is recomended for forest gardens as an edible perennial, but I've not done more that take a nibble so far. The flower buds, leave shoots and root tubers are all supposed to be edible. When I've planted mine I did notice some little sausage shaped tubers, but the plant was new so I didn't take any.

As regards fava beans. I don't overwinter them here (the season is just too wet and windy for too long and the stems rot), but planting in the autumn to get an earlier crop is definitely a thing further South in the UK. If they've flowered I don't think they over winter, but young plants will take a bit of frost and snow. I would try cutting them back (and use the leaves as a green vegetable) and see whether the roots survive and grow on in the spring. Nothing lost unless you want to plant something else there early next year.