Elanor Gardner

It's shepherd's pie tonight, made of beef,  and we used potatoes from the garden, and we will sprinkle the top of the pie with cheddar. This year we were given seed potatoes. Our potatoes are very white with very delicate skin. The potato bed looked very nice this year, as we defeated our annual ant problem early on using a mixture of sugar, water and borax.
Also, it is pumpkin pie for desert as we are feeling celebratory today.

A few pics - potatoes can keep growing for a bit, and carrots too. Already harvested medicinal herbs to make tinctures. Had to use my yarrow tincture yesterday when we dropped a 10 ft tall sunflower on the house and startled a cat who decided it was time to bolt....off my leg. The bottom pic, we never planted. It just sort of happened.

I officially have a building permit! I am so happy. That was so much work as I did the plans myself to save $. So many late nights were spent on working on blueprints, electrical load calculations, heat loss calculations, and elevations. I took a half day off work yesterday to drop off everything at the building inspector's house 2 1/2 hours away. Today I received the approval. Yay! Onward to concrete!

Step 1: Find several different plots of land you would like to own.
Step 2: Learn to write an offer to purchase land.
Step 3: Find out with an online property tax gis website, or with a platbook, who owns the land.
Step 4: Stop by each owner and ask if the ever thought of selling some acres. Ask them if it would be okay, if, in the future, you throw an offer to purchase in their mailbox.
Step 5: For all the owners that said okay, or even seemed " on the fence" put an offer in their mailbox.
I bought 10 wooded acres with a small house on it some years ago. The lady was looking to move as her husband died.

My current homestead does best at growing perennial foods and medicinal herbs. We are pretty good at caring for chickens and kitties too. We are good at making soap.

John Townsend did an episode on making coffins.     The coffin recipe starts way towards the end of the video

I talked to a building inspector this week. He said get me this, that and the other. Than we'll get a building permit. Then they township sent me a signed building permit application I had submitted, and said let this signed application serve as your building permit. Can I go, or can I not go? I am so confused.

Once we were remodeling and two friends stopped over to help mud the drywall. I had to feed them, so while two continued the work, one gal and I went off to the kitchen to make food. I made egg bake. We had eggs. Hash brown squares and sausage keep well in the freezer, so we had that too. We live in Wisconsin so we ALWAYS have cheese, and cream, and I threw in a can of drained green beans. Baked it while we worked on the house. The only lengthy part was browning the sausage. To sum up, layer frozen brown squares in a cake pan. Brown a pound of ground sausage and spread across hash browns. Whip 12 eggs with a pint of cream, salt and pepper, and pour over sausage.  Cover with green beans and shredded cheddar. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit 75 minutes covered with foil and 15 minutes more uncovered.

Diuretics: dandelion root tincture or dandy blend tea, or helichrysum essential oil ( I use edens garden brand).  Watch out with the magnesium recommendation above if you are on high blood pressure pills You'll find sometimes, that you have a lower blood pressure with magnesium supplementation. I'm no doctor, but I heard from one that sometimes it is a magnesium deficiency that causes high blood pressure in the first place.

Funny to see your post today about microgreens. I just watched a video 2 days ago about broccoli microgreens being one of 3 key foods to add to a Mediterranean diet to really burn visceral fat rapidly. The other two were walnuts and salmon. Good luck with your growing!