Update on my parents

Several readers have asked for an update on my parents. So here's the update: There isn't much to report.

Seriously, that's a good thing ... I guess. My mom is doing well in the long-term care facility. My dad visits her twice a day and feeds her lunch and dinner. He often stays with her in the evening until visiting hours are over. He's actually making friends with others in the nursing home and enjoys the companionship, and just sharing time with Mom.

I'm beyond grateful Mom is getting the care she needs. Dad is adjusting to being alone in the house, and has a "smart watch"-type gizmo that can alert help if, say, he slips in the bathroom or something. My youngest brother, who lives about an hour away, keeps in daily contact with him. (Literally. My dad calls my brother every morning when he wakes up, just to report he's fine. It's something they both agreed to do on a daily basis. My brother is a saint.)

Two of my brothers and sisters-in-law are taking my dad to Las Vegas in July for his 90th birthday. Frankly that sounds like the vacation from hell to me, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't actually have to drive in that blasted city. At any rate, Dad admits it's been a long time since he's been able to travel anywhere, and is looking forward to the trip.

I thank everyone for their concern and ongoing prayers for my parents in this new phase of their lives.

Product Review Monday

(Don's book recommendations this week are by an author named Eric Sloane.)

I own a bunch of books written and illustrated by Eric Sloane. You should too if, like me, you're interested in how our forebears created the day-to-day things that made their lives easier. I grabbed a random sample of books by Mr. Sloane off our shelves: "American Yesterday," "The Seasons of America Past," and "A Reverence for Wood."

Each of these books covers an American time period from the pre-Colonial to the mid-20th century, and each topic contained in the books is a look at how things were done in days gone by.

Mr. Sloane is a excellent pen-and-ink illustrator. Frequently I have used his text and drawings as a springboard for projects. 

These three books are just a sample from our shelves. We own many more Eric Sloane books and cherish each one of them.

You can find these books second-hand in hardback, but current editions are in paperback and therefore less expensive.

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My product recommendation this week is a corollary to the kitchen compost bucket I reviewed a few weeks ago: Our compost tumbler. I'd wanted one of these for some time, and we finally sprang for one three years ago. It's especially handy for handling kitchen waste since we don't have chickens yet.

I had no particular inclination toward any brand or style of compost tumbler when I searched for one to buy, but this one had something like 18,000+ reviews on Amazon, 68% of which were five-star ratings. The price was right at $75, so I took a chance and ordered it. I have not been disappointed. Be aware it will require assembly.

This composter has two chambers, so you can let one side cook while filling the other side with newer materials. The capacity is 37 gallons. I empty it once a year. Yes, you read that right: It handles a year's worth of kitchen waste for our household. I usually empty it in the fall and bury the composted material in the garden beds (which sometimes yields volunteer spaghetti squash or zucchini plants in the spring from some of the food waste that didn't have a chance to compost down at the time I emptied the composter).

I'm still big on living as close to a zero-waste lifestyle as possible, and this compost tumbler (made in Canada from recycled plastic) removes a major source of garbage, namely kitchen waste. Strongly recommended.

(Obligatory disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate, if you purchase through those links, we earn a small commission.)

The moral of a mean memory

I hadn't thought of this event in years. Just today something triggered the memory and I decided to share it.

When I was in high school and had decided I wanted to be a field biologist when I grew up (this was in 1978 or so), I was ga-ga crazy over Jane Goodall and her research. In those days – since my parents were on a strict budget with four kids to raise and my dad's business sometimes struggling – extraneous spending was a big no-no.

Additionally, before the internet, finding a coveted item was often a matter of pure chance. I wanted to find whatever I could on Jane Goodall, not an easy task.

One day my mother and I went to a thrift store in town. I liked this particular thrift store because it had an awesome selection of National Geographic magazines. Routinely I went through their selection, searching in vain for the December 1965 issue which featured Jane Goodall on the front. I desperately wanted a copy of this issue because, well, Jane Goodall.

On this particular day in the thrift store, I saw a pile of National Geographic magazines on the floor in the book section ... and there, on top, was the precious issue I so desperately wanted! I was thrilled! I remember snatching it up, face ablaze with joy, staring at the magazine. At last, I'd found it!

But a man soon rained on my parade. In my excitement, I hadn't realized the pile of National Geographic issues stacked on the floor were ones he'd selected to purchase. So he snarled at me that those magazines were his. I don't remember exactly what he said, but I remember the snarling tone. He was just so mean about it. I dropped the issue back on his stack, did an about-face, and walked out of the thrift store. Once I was outside, I burst into tears.

At sixteen years old, I seldom cried. My mother didn't know what happened, nor why I'd walked out of the thrift store. She followed me outside and, to her shock, I was weeping almost hysterically. She thought I'd been physical assaulted by someone, and was ready to charge back into the thrift store and do battle on my behalf. But through my incoherent hiccups, I told her no one had hurt me (physically), but how that man was just so mean. I couldn't get over how mean he was.

Anyway, that ended our shopping trip. Mom took me home, I got over my crying jag, and life went on.

About two weeks later, Mom presented me with my very own brand-new copy of Jane Goodall's book, "In the Shadow of Man." She'd ordered it through a bookstore in town.

Now understand, the purchase of a brand-new (and technically unnecessary) book at that time was an almost unheard-of expense for my parents. And yet, they realized the depth of my interest in Dr. Goodall's research and decided to get me my own copy of that book. Forty-seven years later, I still have it, because of course I do.

Jane Goodall even signed it after I attended one of her lectures. I should point out that my dad took me to that lecture during my senior year in high school, another example of how my parents supported their children's academic interests.

Anyway, I don't know why I suddenly remembered that man's sheer meanness in the thrift store after all these years. I hadn't meant any harm when I snatched up that issue of the magazine, but for whatever reason he couldn't find it in himself to gently inform me he planned to purchase the issue himself. I'd met plenty of mean kids in school, but this was the first purely mean stranger I'd ever met. Say what you will, I remember him after nearly half a century.

My parents were able to take that mean memory and turn it into something beautiful.

So be kind to people. That's the moral of this memory.

Bad cookies

I found a wonderful-sounding cookie recipe the other day: Strawberry shortcake cookies. Doesn't that sound terrific, like a beautiful summery snack?

I had a bag of frozen strawberries left over from last year's crop, so I defrosted and drained them in anticipation of making the recipe. In fact, I quadrupled the recipe because that's how much frozen strawberries I had on hand.

The results were lovely. 

The taste ... not so much. There wasn't anything really wrong with them, you understand. It's just that they were, well, cake-y. These were strawberry shortCAKE cookies and tasted cake-y. Not like cookies.

We tried to like them, we really did. But whereas cookies normally get eaten fairly briskly in this household, these seemed to just ... linger.

After a few days, I saw mold growing on them and decided enough was enough. I consigned the entire quadrupled batch to the composter.

Not recommended. Reminded me of this meme:

A new venture

Since losing my online job in February, Don and I have had endless discussions about new ways to earn income. One of the things we wanted to do for some time was to self-publish a variety of things we've written over the years (including Don's collection of country humor stories).

But oddly, I also have a number of (clean) romance novels that remain unpublished. One in particular, titled "Rachel's Folly," remains my favorite unpublished manuscript. It's too long (74,000 words) for Harlequin's Love Inspired line, and too outside-the-box for Harlequin's Heartwarming line. So, with my agent's blessing, I'm going to go "indie" on this one and publish it myself.

Don started watching YouTube videos detailing how to self-publish books using Amazon, and it just spiraled out of control in terms of complexity. Between our daily workload and projects we're tackling, he just didn't have the bandwidth to learn something so completely unfamiliar to both of us.

So we connected with a woman named Jessie Denning, who used to be the managing editor at Backwoods Home Magazine before splitting off to start her own business. She quoted us a reasonable price for formatting and uploading the manuscript to Amazon. Don and I will try our hands at designing the cover art.

The mechanics of getting the book into print (especially since most of the heavy lifting will be done by Jessie) is the easy part. The difficult part is marketing. And that's where I'd like to pick the brains of you, dear readers.

Keeping in mind my limited experience with social media, what are your recommendations for how best to market an indie book? I'm all ears!

Product Review Monday

This week's book review is a book I bought years ago and absolutely loved: "Modern Homesteading" by the "Wranglerstar" family. I've always been a sucker for urban-to-rural migration stories, and this one doesn't fail.

Since I'm not really on social media and don't follow "influencers," I wasn't aware this book was written by, well, influencers. I had never seen their YouTube channel or other social media sites. All I did was read the book ... and the book is excellent. I can see why their YouTube channel is wildly popular.

So yeah, highly recommended.

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For our product review, we're recommending something with which we're intimately familiar, especially after last week's project (fencing the garden). I'm talking about the ultimate way to keep deer at bay, namely heavy-duty plastic deer netting.

We bought rolls of this stuff years ago (part of the project equipment we bought in advance). To be honest, we had never seen this in action and had no particular expectations it was any good. But the reviews were positive, so we took a chance with a single roll. We were so impressed, we ordered several more.

This deer nettng has exceeded our wildest expectations. This stuff is light-weight and flexible, but very strong. It has an added advantage that, once it's in place, it's not visually annoying.

We have used this netting for endless projects, up to and including our most recent one of fencing in the garden. It can be cut to size with scissors, but it's strong enough even to resist elk.

This netting comes in a variety of lengths and sizes. We bought rolls that were 7.5 feet high and 330 feet long, which turned out to be a good choice.

If you're looking for a way to keep deer out of your garden, this is your answer.

(Obligatory disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate, if you purchase through those links, we earn a small commission.)

Avian drama

The other day, I heard a commotion by some birds up in the air. I looked out the window and saw some magpies harassing a red-tailed hawk. This is nothing unusual; birds of prey are often harassed by smaller birds – including passerines – whenever the predators get too close to nests. The red-tailed hawk landed on a tall pine tree down the valley and that, I thought, was that.

A few minutes later, I heard the magpies again. Thinking the red-tailed hawk must have left its perch, I glanced out ... but this time I saw the magpies were harassing a bald eagle. Even more interesting, the bald eagle had something good-sized in its talons, possibly a squirrel. It was at this point I grabbed my camera and went outside to watch.

Much of what took place was in the valley across from us, obscured by trees, so I wasn't able to capture the full drama of what followed, but essentially what happened is the bald eagle was then attacked ... by the red-tailed hawk! In the mêlée, the bald eagle dropped its prey and it landed on the valley floor.

The hawk flew off at this point, but the bald eagle landed on the ground, presumably on its prey. All I could see was its white head through the brush as it guarded its food.

But the eagle had no peace even here. The magpies were back, perching on various bushes nearby and screeching at the eagle. The eagle stayed on the ground a long time, maybe ten minutes, but it wasn't eating its prey. It was just standing there, enduring the abuse of the magpies.

Finally it gripped its food and took off. It took a long time to gain height, ascending in wide circles to climb into the sky. Sorry for the fuzziness of the photos (it's not easy focusing on a soaring bird), but you can see the prey dangling.

Avian drama. It's not easy being an apex predator.

Growing strawberries

Recently a reader posted a question as follows: "I need some help please. If you would. I live in N. Idaho and for the love of me, I cannot grow strawberries. Yours seem to flourish with great wonder. Could you please post about how you plant, fertilize and water your berries so that they produce so well. I've put in new plants. Used berry fertilizer and sometimes manure. Mulched and watered regularly and still nothing. I very much would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions. Thank you."

Oof. That's a tough one because, I'm sorry to say, I don't do anything special for the strawberries once they're established (except to protect them from the deer, of course). I don't mean to sound flippant, but I've just never had any problems with them (except for the deer, of course).

That said, here's how we prepare strawberry beds and strawberry plants.

In both our previous home and our current one, our native dirt is heavy with clay – sticky mud in the spring and rock-hard in the summer. That's one of the reasons we gave up trying to grow anything in the ground and switched to raised beds. To these raised beds, we add a 3-2-1 mixture of native dirt, compost, and sand (three parts dirt, two parts compost, one part sand), plus any enhancements we have on hand (leaves, composted sawdust, etc.). The sand is a permanent way to keep the clay broken up; the compost obviously adds nutrients; and the native dirt is the most economical medium since we already have it. Now that we have livestock, future compost will come from our own animals.

When building our gardens, since we're working on a large scale, we'll often bring in sand and compost by the dump-truck load from landscaping companies. Sometimes we'll even bring in topsoil (which, for the record, is often no better than the native dirt; we've been known to dub it "top clay").

With these elements mounded up, Don will use the tractor to mix. He'll scoop the 3-2-1 ratio of elements into a pile with the tractor bucket, then use the tractor rototiller to mix thoroughly. Once this is prepped, he'll bucket it up and scoop it into the raised beds.

Since strawberries are a permanent plant, and since soil settles over time, we tend to overfill the strawberry beds to allow for that. Then it's a matter of planting the strawberries.

If you buy bareroot strawberry plants, begin by soaking the bundle of plants in water for a couple of hours to rehydrate the roots and break dormancy. After this, trim a couple inches off the bottom of the roots. Trimming not only allows plants to be planted more easily, but it allows the roots to be fanned out properly for best results (less crowding). It also stimulates root growth. Here are two plants: Top with untrimmed roots, bottom with trimmed roots.

When planting, scoop out a hole and fan out the roots. Don't bury the crown of the plants. Pat firm and voilà.

I used to mulch strawberries, but I don't any longer. Mulching seems to prevent runners from taking root; and the more runners that take root, the quicker the plants will create a thick canopy and shade the soil from getting too dry. In essence, left alone, strawberries become self-mulching.

I never fertilize my strawberries. It's not that I'm opposed to it; it's just that I never think about it, and they seem to produce well despite that. The most I'll do is add compost in the spring; and even then, often I don't.

The big debate in the strawberry world is June-bearing vs. everbearing. I prefer everbearing because I like getting fruit the whole summer. However I've come to prefer everbearing for another reason, and this is purely anecdotal.

In our last garden, we had both everbearing and June-bearing varieties. The everbearing strawberries, once they were established, produced loads and loads of berries, year after year after year. The June-bearing beds produced heavily for the first three years, and then sorta gave up. The plants were perfectly healthy, but they produced no fruit. As in, zero. After three years of no fruit, it got to the point where I just ripped them up and used the beds for something else. I don't know if I did something wrong with those strawberries, or if June bearers tend to do that anyway, but I've come to prefer everbearing. Just my two cents.

In summer weather, I water the strawberries often – every day if the weather is hot, and every couple of days if the temps are moderate.

Right now I have two varieties of strawberries: My beloved Fort Laramies, and some Ozark Beauties I'm experimenting with (and so far am very pleased by).

I don't know if this information will be helpful to the reader, but I hope so.

The sound of summer

At our last home, we had western meadowlarks everywhere. They were difficult birds to photograph. Because their voice carried a long distance, invariably they were so far away that a photograph showed, at best, a tiny dot. But I loved them. To me, their sweet song was the sound of summer. (How's that for alliteration?) In fact, I consider the song of a meadowlark one of the prettiest bird calls in nature.

Meadowlarks are birds of the grasslands. Apparently this preference is because trees harbor potential predators (hawks), whereas the open fields are safer because birds of prey are easier to spot. At any rate, I absolutely stinkin' love meadowlarks.

So it was with much disappointment to discover, for whatever reason, that meadowlarks don't reside in our current area. It doesn't make much sense, since we have plenty of grassland. Why weren't they here? No idea.

Last summer, once or twice, I heard a meadowlark call, but nothing with the frequency to indicate the bird I heard was anything but an outlier.

But this year ... this year we have meadowlarks! All over the place. Their call is now almost as frequent as at our last home. Once again it's the sound of summer.

A few days ago, a bird's song was so loud that I knew it was close by. I stepped out on our back deck and saw a male perched at the very top of a pine tree, singing his heart out.

I sincerely hope these birds are here to stay.

The argument for buying ahead

Don and I have been engaged in several heavy-duty projects lately. Of course you know about the milking stall and calf pen:

Now we're consumed with getting the garden properly fenced against deer. We've foregone making the remaining garden beds in favor of getting the entire garden area covered with weed cloth, rocked in with gravel, braced by extravagantly tall poles, and netted in deer netting. (Don't worry, I'll put up a full blog post on the project when it's complete.)

But here's the thing: We're hardly spending any money during the process of working on these projects. Since my job loss in mid-February, we've cut back our discretionary spending by well over 90% and now purchase very little beyond groceries and our regular monthly bills. This is nothing unusual; over the 35 years of our marriage, frugality has been the norm, not the exception, so tightening our belts is second nature.

However during the last four years since moving to our current home, we were in a unique position with no debt and a modest-but-steady income. During those four years, we bought things.

Lots of things.

We bought things we knew we would need for future projects with the goal of transitioning our property into a homestead. Field fencing, horse panels, hardware cloth, drip irrigation supplies, hog panels, T-posts, cinder blocks, lumber, plywood, wire (various gauges), weed cloth, gravel, sand, rope, fasteners (screws, nails, bolts, hog rings, etc.), tools, deer netting, sheet metal, the 1500-gallon water tank ... the list goes on and on and on and on and on.

During those heady days, even the merest passing fancy could become reality. Don mentioned one day last year that a tool he'd love to have but didn't want to spend the money on was a T-post puller; I bought it for him for Christmas.

Well, those days are over and our spending is done. But you know what? Now we have the tools and supplies we need to bring endless projects to fruition with very little additional outlay. With our current project, for example (the garden), the only thing we've had to purchase was some hardware (hose clamps, notably) and an extra dump-truck load of gravel.

The peace of mind that comes from having all those things poised and ready to use – especially now, with our severely down-turned income – is hard to describe. We're not handicapped by a lack of money in accomplishing our homesteading goals and striding toward self-sufficiency.

Some might argue that we should have spent those four years saving our money or putting it into intelligent investments. Well, we did put some money in savings; and literally everything else was invested. It's just that our form of investment isn't what Wall Street has in mind for high yields.

Now those investments are paying big-time dividends.

Nightmare for allergies

This is the season of grass. We have a remarkable variety of grasses here in our little valley.

And right now, they're all blooming.

(Notice the flies as pollinators.)

A close-up reveals some interesting structures. What are those little white feathery things? No idea. (Grass biology isn't my specialty.)

All these blooming grasses are beautiful...

...for those without allergies. For everyone else, it's a nightmare.

Product Review Monday

For this week's book review, I'd like to highlight an excellent reference book for history buffs and homeschoolers entitled "The Timetables of History: A Horizontal Linkage of People and Events."

This is a VERY thick book (our 3rd Edition copy has 724 pages) that is – literally – nothing but a year-by-year summary of events from about 4,500 B.C. to the present day across seven categories:

• History/politics
• Literature/theater
• Religion/philosophy/learning
• Visual arts
• Music
• Science/technology/growth
• Daily life

It's not a book you read from cover to cover. Rather, it's one of those references you can dip into and realize just how much was going on in centuries and millennia past.

We have the 3rd Edition  (published in 1992), but there's a revised 4th Edition (from 2005 available). Either version is highly recommended.

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Don's recommendation:

I'm a guy who's on his knees a lot. Some of you may think that's because I have a lot to answer for to the Almighty and there certainly is something to that.

But what I'm referring to is the nearly daily need to do hard work in low places. I'm fortunate that my knees aren't the problem (an issue so many friends of a similar age suffer from); but even so, an hour or so working on something while on your knees can really hurt. So I have had a longstanding interest in knee pads.

I've tried a lot of different styles. I began with the padded elastic tube types years ago. But the elastic alway failed and since those styles of pads are more attached to the pants rather than the knees, every bend folowed by standing meant adjustments ... and if you tried to knee-walk, you always left the pads further and further down your legs.

I tried Velco strap pads, but the Velco eventually failed. My second-to-last pair of knee pads were articlualated monstosities that made movement hard and still wouldn't stay in place.

Finally, I found the CLC Work Gear Professional Kneepads. They are a joy. Great padding, flexible, totally adjustable, tough, and honestly inexpensive (read: cheap) at $30.

I highly recommend them; and if you get a pair, you (and your knees) will thank me.

(Obligatory disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate, if you purchase through those links, we earn a small commission.)