Tammy Farraway

Hello everyone!

Dave's wife, Tammy, here.

Things are really starting to gather momentum (finally!).

Four parcels have sold in the last year. The community is/will be working on putting up 3 houses. (To clarify- each owner is paying for labor, materials, and use of equipment.) Another member has dried-in his home and is working on the rest. We are thinking of adding at least a tiny home on each of the remaining parcels, but that project is much farther down the priority list.

The community water system is essentially complete, Buying into the system is not mandatory, and water lines are the responsibility of the owners involved. Some parts of the lines are shared; some are individual.

The saw mill building is up. A large portion of the framework of the mill has been rebuilt in metal (old mill and a lot of rotted wood in the frame). Dave is hoping to get the framework out of his shop and installed in the saw mill building soon.

We have added rabbits, ducks and a volunteer goat to the chickens we started with. Two other members have rabbits, and one is about to add bees. Future thoughts: possibly a beef calf, kune kune pigs or milk goats.

The orchard has had some setbacks. The apples were all taken out by something that apparently ate the roots. The cherry also died - not sure why. The pears, on the other hand, are thriving, and the plum is doing well. The elderberries also seem to like it here. Several of us went in on a bunch of hazelnut bushes this spring, and most of those are doing well. Future thoughts: some of the 'bush' fruits- nanking cherry, honeyberry, gumi berry, aronia, service berry, goji berry, josta berry, and/or sea buckthorn. Will also give some other fruit trees a try, and Dave has built a trellis system for grapes.

The gardens are moving along. With all the critters, downed trees, and the wood chippers, we have lots of inputs for building soil. Future thoughts: more perennials- rhubarb, herbs, more asparagus and other perennial veggies.

Closing thought- if you have been thinking this might be your community but there is no rush, time is almost up.

All the best,
-Tammy

Raspberry leaf tea actually tastes very like 'regular' tea. Added to other herbs, it brings the flavor closer to 'regular' tea as well. Your Mileage May Vary.

-Tammy

Barbara Simoes wrote:Years ago, at our local co op, they sold something that was called maple sugar.  it looked like brown sugar but was maple flavored.  it was very tasty!  I guess, I would try dehydrating or freeze-drying it.  From there, I would powder it in a food processor and store it as another form of sugar.

Maple sugar comes from continuing to boil the maple sap past the syrup stage, It's not the same as the sugar sand they're talking about here. which is a by-product,

Sorry, I was exaggerating a little. We use anything over 3 inches as firewood too, although we have a pretty big pile of firewood logs now and a couple of large hugels along with smaller logs in the bottom of all our new raised beds. Most of our land is wooded, so we have a LOT of trees & branches coming down pretty much all the time.

We'd like to create compost to fill the new beds (and build more).

Francis Mallet wrote:...

Why would anyone call it useless? It does what it's supposed to do. Not like round head screwdrivers, now those are useless. Give it a spin Tammy you'll see it's not that difficult to make. The screen is 1/2" hardware cloth.

...

I should call it Mighty Champion instead, yeah I'll do that.

I bought my chipper when I had a half acre lot in the city. It could definitely handle all the yard trimmings and leaves there.

Now that we have 90 acres in the country, he'd rather have something that can chew up a downed tree and produce a mountain of chips. He also doesn't like having to be careful when you're feeding material in so you don't jam it.

I accept its limitations; he wants a better tool.

Mighty champion sounds good to me!

This is great! I have a chipper like this. My husband calls it useless, but if I could chip into a trailer or the back of the dump truck...

Trying to clean the seeds is the largest stumbling block to saving my own seed. I've been doing it all by hand and, oh my gosh, what a total pain. The larger seeds like beans are not horrible, but radishes? cabbages? Wow. It's rare when I can't come up with something else that needs to be done instead. It's amazing how productive you can be when you're avoiding a task you don't want to do.

The zig zag seed cleaner looks like a do-able project. Thank you! It would be particularly valuable to a homesteading community that could share its use.

Michael Cox wrote:I had one experiment with powders last year - some dehydrated mushrooms. It failed miserably, because my hand-held blender just wasn't up to the job. Could just be the wrong type of blender, but is there something special about dry powders, vrs wet soups etc...? Do you need different blades/blender style?

You don't need different blades, but it might be your blender just isn't up to it.

Another option to try- blend before drying. It helps if you have fruit leather trays, but there are other options. After your leather is dry, it will pulverize easier than dried pieces. Also if your leather might have some moisture, freezing before pulverizing helps too.

Your mileage may vary.

Another use for veggie powders- homemade cup of soup. To broth or bouillon, add 1 or 2 tablespoons of veggie (or mushroom) powder. Makes a really great afternoon pick-me-up.

Kena Landry wrote:I would be interested in having a nutrition expert weigh in on the actual benefits of powdered veggies. My understanding is that you keep minerals and some vitamins, but lose the more sensitive vitamins and most (all?) of the fiber and feeling of fullness from the bulk and from having crunched actively.

...

It doesn't make sense that you would lose the fiber when something is dehydrated. Where would it go?!? If you were juicing, absolutely.