Katerina Rhame

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since Jan 04, 2016
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Recent posts by Katerina Rhame

Fruit salsas, thats brilliant! Would be way more practical than jam. I have only had mango salsa though....would you share what  you make yours with?
3 years ago
I loved reading through all these comments! I'm in zone 6, and my main winter foods i grow (other than meat, which I have a chest freezer for) are sweet potatoes, white potatos and squash. Id say it was a balance, i learned sweet potatoes bc I love them, and I grew squash because it is prolific and I learned to like it. It did take a bit but we've learned to enjoy them and use one or the other at pretty much every meal to replace the traditonal starches of  bread, rice, or pasta. Im lucky that my partner will eat anything I make and love it, but i did ease the transition by spiralizing these and other veggies and making pasta-like dishes with them. They dont require any special preservation to last the whole winter.
I also want to try sun drying my squash in slices after reading thats how Native Americans stored much of their squash for winter.

That is so hardcore that you produce your own lard and dont need to buy cooking fat! I would love to get to that point someday.

I love fermenting everything after reading both of Sandor Ellix Katz's books. I put some sort of fermented veggie on the table at every meal as a condiment. If I lived in a colder place I'd do even more storage by fermenting. But I definitely put taste as the highest priority. Im like you, I dont want to force myself to eat weird textured frozen veggies. Unless its peas or green beans. If its unappetizing and makes me want to go to the grocery store for something better, its the last time i'll do it. (fermented spinach!)

I am in the same boat re: bananas and avos! Love them and have one most days in a smoothie... could just use just my own blackberries instead but I want the bananas lol. I have recently discovered the existence of paw paws though and found some on my road! I think theyre a promising replacement for those missing tropical fruit. They are zone 5-9 but maybe with a good microclimate could survive 4? I dont know if they can grow on the west coast but I'd be so interested if someone has had success there!
3 years ago
I love mixing the white/yellow kind 50/50 with tahini or peanut butter for a high protein veggie dip or drizzle on roasted sweet potatoes. also glaze salmon with it.
3 years ago
I hope this is allowed here, sorry mods if its not!


1. What, to you, is the most pressing environmental problem?
2. Are you alarmed by the proliferation of plastic in the environment?
3. Do you take any actions to reduce your use of plastic?
3b. If so, what?
4. Do you support government mandated plastic bans?
5. Has anyone here nearly eliminated their use of plastic, and if so, what is the most challenging aspect to get rid of?
6. Do you think reusables are too  dangerous in the time of coronavirus?
7.Do you agree that efforts to reduce waste should be suspended or cancelled in light of the pandemic?

I'll be using these results as a primary source for a research paper, your participation is appreciated! I'd like to know the answers from folks here, compared to a general audience on facebook.
4 years ago
Wow thanks so much everyone! This is so much good information!
Leigh Tate, thats so awful, I think the feet would be the worst place other than your face! I ended up using honey and lavender oil, but next time i'd do aloe and your trio of essential oils. I'll also be quicker with the lavender and longer with the cold water and see if that prevents blistering; mine is very raised and oozing water, gross!


Tereza Okava, I'm glad you healed well and I hope your friend is doing okay, that's a horrifying story and I cant imagine the pain! Luckily mine is on my outer forearm and its not bad, only a line as thin as a crayon. Did you use soap to help get off the oil quicker or is only water better?

Lorinne Anderson, thats super helpful! thanks! Never thought of using cling wrap but it is basically what the commercial strips are!
4 years ago
Hi there! Normally I just read others posts but....unfortuntunately i havent done much reading/investigating into herbal and homestead type medicine yet and am  wishing i had! I splashed oil on my arm making dinner and two hours later i cant take off the ice water or its unbearable!
I'd so appreciate it if yall shared your herbal recipes for burns!
I did a search and thought for sure thered be a post already but nope! So i made one, sorry if its in the wrong place!
Also, whats everyones favorite source of information or book on this topic?
thanks for reading!
4 years ago
Thank you so much for your response. I suspect you may be right that he wasn't going to make it anyway.

So heres heres my takeaway from this
1. Ill isolate a sick bird with his own food and water but probably not try to dropper feed as I probably just accelerated his death.
2. I can tell my 3 dominiques and 4 Sussexes apart and I would notice if one wasn't eating or drinking enough. The 6 buckeyes are indistinguishable from one another. So I may mark future batches of lookalike chicks with  a drop of paint or something so I may be able to notice an abnormally behaving one early on.
3. This may have been failure to thrive, but I read that all chickens carry coccidiosis and its normal and good that they are exposed to small amounts which is why hatcheries tell you to go 3-5 days in between bedding changes. But a weak chicken can die from coccidiosis that other chickens can handle without issue. In an older thread on chicken deaths, Elle Sagenev said thrashing is associated with coccidiosis, which happened with my chicken although he had no bloody stools or other symptoms.  So I will be sure to keep amprolium on hand to be able to quickly treat any suspected outbreaks.
4 years ago
Hi, longtime lurker here and desperation has driven me to make a first post. This forum has been integral to me getting things up and running on the farm and Im so grateful to all the folks here who freely share their knowledge and time! Hopefully someone can give me some insight to what happened. Apologies in advance for length, but I wanna make sure I get any relevant details. (Not sure whats relevant so ill include everything)
I was finally able to grow a garden and get some chickens this year due to my seasonal job in Alaska being cancelled and my dad retiring. (My father has raised chicks before)

I ordered 14 chicks from a big hatchery, vaccinated for mareks, and today they are 7 days old. Past most danger, or so I thought.

Yesterday and this morning all were active and vigorous. This afternoon, one buckeye chick was a little listless, not running around when I walked over like the rest. He was also noticeably smaller than the rest. We sat and watched to make sure he was ok, and within 10 minutes, he was half closing his eyes, not moving from his spot and looking like a sleepy chick but didn't snap out of it like a normal sleepy chick would, and would lay his head on a buddy until the other chick moved, and then would for a second be alert before "dozing" again. We thought to isolate him in a cardboard box inside the brooder so he could rest without the other chicks disturbing him. He laid down and within another maybe 10 minutes, he was laying on his side and panting heavily.
I looked up what to do for a sick/weak/gasping chick and multiple homesteading sites said to give yogurt or molasses mixed with warm water in an eye dropper.  So my dad first gave him plain water in a dropper, and he drank eagerly and rested a few minutes. I then gave him the mix, with some vitamin E oil that was also recommended. The isolation box, upon using the laser thermometer was only about 87 so I warmed a t-shirt by the space heater next to the brooder, wrapped him and continued the dropper regimen. His beak would open and close but other than that he seemed out of it, and when I put him back in the box, he was completely limp. I left for a few minutes and when I came back, he was on his back, and then began thrashing his legs about. At that point, my dad called it and ended his suffering.

Does this sound like anything to anyone? All the other chicks seem okay. I put down fresh straw bedding and sanitized the feeder and am hoping this wasn't contagious.
Could I have made it worse with the dropper stuff? One other factor was he had straw stuck to his leg pretty good with either blood or poop. But when I noticed that, I didn't want to bother him trying to clean him and getting him wet, and couldn't do a post mortem. But there was nothing in the brooder that could have wounded his leg?
It all just happened so fast and it was less than an hour  from the initial "is he sick or sleepy?" to his death. This was incredibly upsetting and I was contemplating getting goats, but reading how kids can be fragile and die quickly, I don't think I could handle losing a baby kid. I just want to understand and make sure I didn't do anything wrong!
Thanks if you made it though all this!
4 years ago
I was wondering the same thing while I was pricing potting soil. Thanks for the tips and encouragement Jen Fulkerson! Sometimes I need to remember that experimenting is a good thing and you don't have to do everything the Official Correct way. I'll be running experiments with different ratios of peat moss, top soil and sand and a bit of manure compost as thats what I have on hand. Will let you know how it goes!
Wow this is so much  great information! Thanks to all who posted! I had no idea about letting zucchini mature and Harden.

I would like to save seeds but find it so intimidating. Has anyone read the recommended book in the link on the original post and can vouch for it? I think I'll order it as it sounds very thorough!

What I would like to find out is 1. Which crops can hybridize with each other, like summer and winter squash? different brassicas with each other? flint and pop corn? and 2.) How far apart specific crops have to be from each other? Ive ordered over a dozen different winter squash varieties and don't have much space to separate them. I  also got painted mountain flint and and a couple kinds of dent corn I would like to keep distinct, but putting bags over each individual flower and hand pollinating sounds crazy!