Friday roundup

So what's today -- Wednesday? Oh well, I've decided it's time for a "Friday" Roundup which, as you recall, is posted so we can all check in on what steps we've taken, big or small, to inch us incrementally toward greater preparedness (regardless of what day it's posted).

Now that spring is here, we're getting more active. Here's what we've been doing for the last couple of weeks:

• On March 1, I was a guest with the "Advanced Prepping Intensive" webinar run by Preppers University on the subject of -- what else -- homesteading and rural living. Really neat course if anyone's interested in signing up for future classes.

• I organized our medical supplies. This is necessary not only to keep things in easy-to-find order, but it also allows us to determine anything we're short on.

• A neighbor and I attended a day-long gardening seminar with multiple workshops. Of the various subjects offered, the one thing we both wanted to learn something more about was permaculture. The hour-long class we attended on this subject was, of necessity, little more than an intro, but we may be attending a 12-hour version coming up later in the spring. If permaculture lives up to its hype, it might be a decent solution to the problems of growing gardens in a dry climate with minimal water.

• We peeked in at the bees -- and they're still alive (yes!). We'll be making a new little "bee lot" to put the hive (we're also getting in two more nucs in a few weeks) near the house so we can keep an eye on them. We'll also be putting out wasp traps to catch yellow jacket queens in an effort to avoid the disastrous attack that killed one of our hives last summer.

We're also going to get some pollen patties to feed to the bees when the weather is warmer and they can start foraging. Pollen patties stimulate brood, so we don't want to feed it to them too early in the season.

• I backed up my computer and my blog. I urge everyone to do this!!!

• I planted two tiny sweet cherry bushes (they look like tall twigs at this stage). These are probably the last fruits we'll plant in the garden. Right now we have a wide variety of wonderful fruits (some of which haven't yielded produce yet): peaches, pears, apples, plums, grapes, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, sour cherries, and now sweet cherries. The nice thing about planting fruit is they're perennial and low-maintenance.

• We cut, split, and stacked a bunch o' firewood. Before:

After (hard to see, but there are three layers of wood):

• We augered holes, inserted railroad ties, and made the first of what will be several "airlock" gates to keep cows out of the driveway or otherwise go where we want (or don't want) them to go. As we get older and the girls are not available for cattle roundups, we need to find ways to guide and direct the beasties. Via this gate, the cows can go directly from the wooded side of the property to the field side without having to be directed through the driveway.

• We made an appointment with the regional mobile butchers for early April to dispatch six or seven more cows (and steers). Yes, you read that right. We're halving the size of our herd and shifting the focus of our farm a bit to make things more efficient. Cattle are wonderful prepper livestock to have, but we don't need that many at the moment and we can ramp things up with very little effort (and the help of a willing bull) at any time.

• I cleaned chicken coop. Heavens how it needed it.

That's about it for us. What has everyone else been doing?

Re-introducing Friday Roundups

A dear friend recently told me preparedness is declining in the wake of Trump's election. We both agreed The Donald taking office may stave off an economic decline for awhile, but not forever. It does, however, buy us more time. America is still staggering under a massive and unpayable debt level, and for this reason alone I urge people not to let their guard down.

Almost two years ago, I instigated a weekly blog event called a "Friday Roundup." The idea was to post whatever we did during the week, big or small, that inched us toward increased self-sufficiency or self-reliance. It lasted about two months, then faded away (turns out Fridays are actually pretty durned busy for us).

But I thought the idea was kinda cool: namely, since everyone's circumstances and situations are different and we can all learn from each other, I invited everyone to pitch in and explain to other readers what steps they took during the week -- remember, big or small -- toward preparedness.

So I'd like to re-introduce the Friday Roundups. Ahem -- you'll notice this blog post is appearing on a Thursday, but "Thursday Roundup" doesn't have quite the same ring. I can't guarantee a Friday Roundup will appear every week on the same day like clockwork -- it may drift around a bit -- but the date isn't as important as the content.

So let's get started. Since it's winter and we're waist-deep in snow, outdoor work is limited; but we've done a few things this week:

• I ordered two sweet cherry bushes from Burgess. Last summer we got our first small crop from our two tart cherry bushes; and while they puréed beautifully, we also wanted sweet cherries for fresh eating. (We also wanted bushes instead of trees.) After some research, we found these sweet cherry bushes which hopefully will fill the niche. When ordering, I confirmed with the company they wouldn't be shipped until later in the spring, since I can't even get through the garden gate due to snow. We do, however, have a place to plant the tiny bushes when they arrive.

• I'm purging. Forget spring cleaning -- spring is usually too busy -- but snowy weather is an incomparable time to dig down in the corners and eradicate the unnecessary. Don and I started with our bedroom, which – being upstairs away from the vacuum cleaner – tends to accumulate dust. (Dust is something of a mainstay around here, between the farm and the woodshop.) Don’s allergies finally demanded we do something about it, so we gave our room a thorough cleaning and purged clothes and shoes we no longer needed. We ransacked the dark recesses of closets and found two old dog toys Lydia had stashed there ages ago. The bedroom is now bright and airy and dust-free (for the time being).

Buoyed by this success, I started tackling other neglected corners. We are a book-heavy household, and over the years began accumulating books we read once and no longer wanted to keep. Same with magazines. The books, being heavy things, probably jettisoned hundreds of pounds of weight all by themselves. This is an ongoing process I'll continue through the winter.

• We've been strengthening our neighborhood ties. Preparedness is a three-legged stool, and "community" is one of those legs. Don and some other neighbors got together (as they do about once a month) to discuss increased neighborhood cohesion and assistance.

This time of year, part of this cohesion and assistance involves snow removal. Here a neighbor is using a tractor-mounted snowblower to clear our driveway:

Here we're getting another neighbor's truck unstuck in the week after Christmas.

• We held our weekly potluck -- which also contributes to neighborhood cohesion and assistance.

So, with the understanding we're in the middle of winter and projects are limited ... what's your Friday Roundup?

Cherry purée

After netting our little cherry bushes a couple weeks ago...

...it was time to draw back the veil...

...and pick some cherries.

This is the first year we've had cherries from these bushes. The fruit was beautiful, but I was disappointed by the taste. These are sour cherries but with a high sugar content, and I was expecting, I dunno, sweet cherries, I guess.

Nevertheless I picked the first crop and re-veiled the bushes until the rest should ripen. I got a solid bowl-full.

Next I had to figure out how to stone them. I don't have a cherry stoner (though I'll probably get one in the future), and a quick internet search revealed a chopstick would work in a pinch. And so it did, though it was laborious.

Not great, but adequate for my immediate needs.

However it was messy messy messy. Protecting clothes (apron) is vital.

Tossing the pits into a large bowl splattered cherry juice everywhere, and poking the pits out of the cherries splattered more juice. Trust me: apron, old shirt, anything.

Next step, the food strainer. I first used this tool last year when straining tomatoes, and it worked beautifully. The instructions specifically state it's necessary to remove the stones before puréeing cherries, hence the chopstick option.

I didn't have many cherries, so this step didn't take long. It did splatter some more, though. I tell ya, don't have anything nearby you don't want stained when processing cherries.

I ended up with a bit over a pint of purrée, so I put it in the fridge until the rest of the cherries were ripe. A few days later I picked the remaining fruit, unnetted the now-bare cherry bushes, and puréed the final (tiny) crop.

Final haul for our first year of harvesting cherries: two pints:

These I labeled and put in the freezer until I have enough fruits to combine into a canning session.

I started out being disappointed by the sourness of the cherries, but after puréeing them I've changed my mind. Sure, they're not the best for fresh eating, but the purée is absolutely phenomenal and the smell is divine. Sweetened just a bit, the purée can used for sauce (ice cream, anyone?) or juice, and it's loaded with nutrients. So, no complaints.

That said, we did some research and found a sweet cherry bush we'll order next year, and give that a try. Variety is the spice of life, or so they say.

By the way, this was a day's haul last week: last of the raspberries, half of the cherries, and the blueberry bushes are just starting to peak.

Bridal cherries and ripening raspberries

Back in June 2014, we planted two cherry bushes.

We preferred a bush over a tree since a bush is, conceivably, easier to net. Birds are notorious cherry-lovers, and netting a tall tree is too difficult. When we lived in Oregon, we had two beautiful mature cherry trees, but in ten years of living there we never got a single piece of fruit thanks to the diligence of the avian visitors.

So bushes it is. Besides, we could plant bushes in a large tire in the garden.

The variety we chose was Carmine Jewel dwarf. According to various sources (here and here, for example), it's extremely cold-hardy and a heavy producer. It's classified as a "sour" cherry, but has a high sugar content and makes for excellent fresh eating.

We had reserved two large tires for the bushes.

After planting, we gently wrapped thin slivers of rubber around the bush and anchored it with baling twine, so the wind wouldn't knock them over.

The bushes did well for the first few weeks, and then one of them got covered -- and I mean blackened -- with aphids. I made a spray mix of chopped up garlic, peppers, and water, and two or three times a day I spritzed the bush with the spray, saturating the leaves and seriously annoying the aphids. It took a few weeks, and I thought I lost the bush, but finally the pests were conquered.

The following year, the stunted bush that had been affected by the aphids was about half the size of the healthier bush, but both plants grew and thrived, and I had no more aphid issues.

This year, for the first time, the bushes exploded with blossoms.

Buds:

Flowers:

Minute cherries, about 1/4 inch across:

The cherries have been ripening and looking just lovely.

And then -- what a surprise -- the birds found them. Robins and cedar waxwings were particularly enticed.

Both these species are among my favorite birds and welcome in the garden. I didn't want to do anything that would harm them ... but I didn't want them eating my cherries either.

But the biggest culprit of the cherries, as it turns out, are the chickens, who often find their way into the garden when I'm weeding or watering. Most of the time they're fine, but boy were they gobbling those cherries.

So in order to save our first crop of cherries, Don and I needed to net the bushes. We chose to use a surplus mosquito netting, the kind that drapes over beds (found it at a thrift store). The netting was so large that we cut it in half.

The netting looks uncannily like bridal veils. After the wind pulled one of them off, Don anchored them with screws.

Hopefully the netting won't cut off too much sunlight. The cherries are thiiiiiis close to being ripe -- a couple already are -- so we'll see what happens. At least the birds can't get to them any more.

Meanwhile the strawberries are starting to decline in volume (at last!), but now the raspberries are picking up.

These are Younger Daughter's favorite, and she's been going out two or three times a day and picking a bowlful.

As the berries ripen, we'll start picking enough to start freezing.

Now the blueberries are starting to ripen as well. Gotta love summer's bounty!