Dh and I were joking last night about whether or not we would get a "passing grade" on Frontier House.

First let me preface this by saying that our long, cold Winter has lows in the 40's. Most days are in the 50's with nighttime lows in the 30's.

I told him that I was getting the chimney swept and inspected today, and that I would be mostly done with Winter prep after I got firewood.

This led to a funny discussion. Here is what I've put by (that's a weird expression btw!) for the winter:

1. 12 cubes of pesto
2. 1 sandwich bag of dried basil
3. 7 jars of strawberry jam
4. There is exactly 1 tomato growing on my beautiful vines.
5. 9 pomegranites are growing on our tree.

We're going to starve! :lol: Can you imagine the pioneers putting by pesto?

In other news, dh and I decided to lay out the cash to replace all the remaining single-pane aluminum windows. I am so happy! We're going to replace the front door in October I think. The house should be wonderfully snug after that.

My goals is also to plant 10 fruit trees and till up the bottom of our two acres for a garden next year. We'll have to fence it in because of deer. So, we have some $$ going out, but I'm hoping to recoup some of that in food since we have a long growing season. I have a feeling I stink at gardening though. :D

Homesteading is hard! :lol:

Woot! Sounds awesome! Well...the bottom part, anyway! ;-)

lol. Yeah, I think you'll starve. But at least you'll go out in style.

Frontier house was so fun to watch. So much of it left a real impression on me. Mostly the single swatch of fiber for bum wiping....and the female sanity products. ooof.

Yeah...don't count on the garden economically, is my advice. Mine is getting hammered by rain, is too big to cover, and everything might die. :eyes: It's yellowing badly. We are at the mercy of Mother Nature. We may be eating green tomatoes, chicken, greens and potatoes starting in August! My pumpkins are rotting into the sodden ground, the tomatoes have stopped fruiting, even my dill is dying!

Sorry. That wasn't very encouraging, huh?

We're going to starve!

:lol:

We love pesto and I want to put some by. Why did you call it a cube? And did you make it up and then freeze it?

Rhea

Can you watch Frontier House online anywhere? What channel is it usually on? Sounds interesting!

Yeah...don't count on the garden economically, is my advice. Mine is getting hammered by rain, is too big to cover, and everything might die. :eyes: It's yellowing badly. We are at the mercy of Mother Nature. We may be eating green tomatoes, chicken, greens and potatoes starting in August! My pumpkins are rotting into the sodden ground, the tomatoes have stopped fruiting, even my dill is dying!

Sorry. That wasn't very encouraging, huh?

:eyes: I'm sorry Lauren. I know how hard you worked on it this year. :( Can you prop those pumpkins up on bricks or something to get them out of the soil?
:lol:

We love pesto and I want to put some by. Why did you call it a cube? And did you make it up and then freeze it?

Rhea

I froze it. I made it, then put it in ice cube trays to freeze. Then, I popped out the cubes and put them in a plastic bag. :)

Can you watch Frontier House online anywhere? What channel is it usually on? Sounds interesting!

Here is a link, but I can't find it online anywhere. PBS - Frontier House: Frontier Life (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/frontierhouse/frontierlife/essay6.html) I've watched several of the reality series, and this one was my favorite.

Oh, I forgot to mention, at the advice of my greenhouse guy, I am hand pollenating my tomatoes now. That is way too much work. :lol:

Apparently, my lack of bees may have something to do with my lack of tomatoes. I pick my zinnias each day and make them kiss tomato flowers. We'll see what happens. :D

Can you watch Frontier House online anywhere? What channel is it usually on? Sounds interesting!

There are several clips here (http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=frontier%20house&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wv#)

I would LOVE to get this as a DVD set!!!

Oh, I forgot to mention, at the advice of my greenhouse guy, I am hand pollenating my tomatoes now. That is way too much work. :lol:

Apparently, my lack of bees may have something to do with my lack of tomatoes. I pick my zinnias each day and make them kiss tomato flowers. We'll see what happens. :D

Hopefully the hand pollinating will do the trick!

I pollinate mine, have to as they are indoors. But I do that just by shaking them. Everything I've read says that a breeze blowing the little blooms around, or a shaking, is enough to pollinate. We've had lots of tomatoes this year, so it's working. Previouisly, this one time we had this large room with skylights and I grew a whole bunch of Romas in there, I let them grow up 10'. Those I pollinated with an electric tooth brush. Not the brush part, just the vibrating part. Turned it on and walked around touching branches and making them vibrate. Had a great crop of Romas.

Hopefully the hand pollinating will do the trick!

I pollinate mine, have to as they are indoors. But I do that just by shaking them. Everything I've read says that a breeze blowing the little blooms around, or a shaking, is enough to pollinate. We've had lots of tomatoes this year, so it's working. Previouisly, this one time we had this large room with skylights and I grew a whole bunch of Romas in there, I let them grow up 10'. Those I pollinated with an electric tooth brush. Not the brush part, just the vibrating part. Turned it on and walked around touching branches and making them vibrate. Had a great crop of Romas.

cool! I tried it today. Apparently, shaking vigorously isn't a good idea. I popped some blooms right off. :lol:

cool! I tried it today. Apparently, shaking vigorously isn't a good idea. I popped some blooms right off. :lol:

The first time I asked my daughter to shake the flowers, I heard this gasp and then a bunch of giggling. Turns out she had been lightly flicking the bloom groups with her finger, moving from flower bunch to flower bunch, when one bunch of flowers just flew right off. :lol:

I just watched Frontier House a week or two ago, and I am currently watching Colonial House. I checked them out from my library. I also recently watched 1940's House (war-time Britain), and have requested 1900's House and Manor House. I love these!

Frontier House is on PBS...I taped it when it was on marathon one time in Florida. I think Netflix might have it too? I also found a cool book based on the series with lots of neat behind-the-scenes info and passages from homesteaders of that era, at Big Lots of all places for $5.

Stacy, thanks for the pumpkin advice :). I'm doing what I can to keep them dry but I just have a lot of pumpkins and it's hard to keep up with it. Things are so sodden that they're in puddles at this point.

mamabear, how is your weather now? Still raining? Has it dried up at all?

Rhea

we say "put up" :)
and I just had to say that I've put up pesto also, lol
I've got it in half pint freezer containers. 8 so far and going to do another batch later in august.
we love pesto. And pasta is a staple around here, sawyer calls me and spinner pastaterians :lol:

mamabear, how is your weather now? Still raining? Has it dried up at all?

Rhea

Still raining and wetter than ever. :eyes: It's pretty bad. Everyone's gardens are yellowing and stunted. I am uploading some pics from last week before mine got really sodden. I have standing water up to 4" deep in spots.

Can you cover any of it to keep the rain off? Might be too late for this year, but I did a google search on "garden too much rain" and saw where one person has stakes in the ground for inserting pipes and bending them over to the stakes on the other side, then covering with plastic when needed. Like a greenhouse tunnel. I know, sounds like a pain, but once in place you'd be prepared. And, it would probably guarantee something like five years, at least, without too much rain just because you were prepared.

Rhea

Can you cover any of it to keep the rain off? Might be too late for this year, but I did a google search on "garden too much rain" and saw where one person has stakes in the ground for inserting pipes and bending them over to the stakes on the other side, then covering with plastic when needed. Like a greenhouse tunnel. I know, sounds like a pain, but once in place you'd be prepared. And, it would probably guarantee something like five years, at least, without too much rain just because you were prepared.

Rhea

Thank you. *mwah* I did the same search, though, and yeah - no way. Besides the fact that the wind is so brisk through there that it would pick up the PVC and plastic and whisk it down the hill in a day, the garden is 25x45 feet - just way too huge to span with PVC and plastic.

I could get out there and start digging trenches by hand, but the ground uphill from it is also completely sodden - you step on grass and go ankledeep into water. It's pretty much - pardon the pun - a wash.