Drying Homegrown Herbs

I had forgotten to post this the day that I did this project back in July. I still have a hard time with the arrangement of photos in my blog posts. But you get the idea here.

I have had this Excalibur Dehydrator for 20 years, I bought it at a yard sale for next to nothing but have only used it a handful of times over the years. Hopefully, that infrequency is about to change. Today I picked some very overgrown Basil from my little herb box off the back porch, rinsed it in a colander and spread it out over two trays to dry. The pics show the before and after, as you can see a large amount of fresh herbs condenses down to a much smaller amount when dried. Yes, herbs are cheap, you can buy them for less than a dollar at the store but there is a real sense of satisfaction in cooking a meal seasoned with home grown spices.

I have a surplus of Thyme and Oregano to do next.

I don't have a book to go with the dehydrator but I am sure an Internet search will give me some ideas on how I can preserve some of the other garden surplus. Anyone have any success with dehydrating fruit? If so I would love to hear from you.

Still alive and kicking.

Dear blogging friends, I just want to say I am still alive and well. Life lately has really derailed my ability to blog and follow blogs. My family and I have been in transition again, as we neared the end of our one year lease we decided the place we were renting was not ideal for our large family.

Fortunately my daughter in law found an amazing home for us to rent on Craigslist. Five fenced acres with covered stalls for the horses, room for the dogs to run free, lots of gardening space and privacy out in the country. We are so much happier.

I will be relieved when all of the boxes are unpacked and we settle in better but if I have to rent I could not ask for a more ideal home. I could even have a dairy goat and a few chickens here.

I am very excited about what I will be able to do here.

We stubbornly moved every one of the big half barrel veggie plants we had going and we continue to get a steady supply of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and tomatillos which we don't quite know what to do with (they are extremely prolific). We also have eggplant and pumpkins coming along.

I am still working way too many hours but somehow I have managed to find a rhythm to it all and am making it work.

Summer came to Florida early this year and with a vengence, we have had consistent temps 95 to 100 degrees every day for about 2 weeks. We finally are beginning to get some regular rain, thank goodness because the whole place was beginning to look scorched.

So life goes on, I hope to catch up with your blogs and lives soon, I have missed my blogging pals,

Here's to a happy summer.

What kind of energy do you bring to the table?

I heard someone say "you and only you , are responsible for the energy you bring into the room". I really like that and hope to keep it in mind as I go through the day in and day out grind, but man my energy really needs some coffee.

Introducing Ashton

This little guy is my newest project, he is my first Angora Bunny, he is nine weeks old and my grandsons who name all of the animals are calling him Ashton, Ash for short. He will provide me with Angora fiber that I hope to learn to spin into yarn. I found a local woman who teaches spinning classes and how to dye the yarn and sells all of the tools for gleaning your own fiber. I am excited about this new endeavor. He came from a really nice young family who are just starting their rabbit business and they have handled him so much he practically leaps into my arms whenever I open his cage. I am in love.

Traumatic Day for Rocky

My baby is growing up. With my busy schedule I try to handle little Rocky as often as possible, including picking up his feet. Today I had the farrier add him to the hoof trim regimen that I have done on my horses every six weeks. He was not a happy boy. He fought with everything he had, but in the end it got done. He is a sweet horse and I continue to enjoy the him for the surprise gift he was to me. I won't begin to be able ride him for about two years, I hope that he will eventually become the replacement trail horse for my trusty old horse Red who is now 27 and just beginning to show signs of his age, he will be a hard horse to replace, hopefully with lots of love and careful training Rocky will fill his shoes someday.

Mini Tornado

Lots of rough storms blowing through here in Florida the past two days, was glad to be off work and hunkered down at home. Yesterday, a mini tornado blew all the tomatoes off the plants and some siding off of the house, snapped a little tree clean off like a match stick, but the family, horses, dogs and kitties are all fine and that's all that really matters. Hope you have sunny skies where you are.

Today is my one day off, but since I worked the last three nights I was so tired and slept all day, so now I'm up at 4 in the afternoon and it's morning to me. Sadly I have but 4 precious hours of daylight left to make the most of. Such is the life of the night shift worker.

The weather here in Florida has been beautiful, Monday my kids and I went on a spur of the moment camping trip, we packed up and went to a local campground called Rainbow Springs, we had such a good time but could only stay one night, we are anxious to find time to make a few more treks out before the heat and humidity gets too bad.
The past few weeks here have warm but without the humidity that plagues us later in the year so we have been spending lots of time outside. My lovely daughter in law Casi has been bitten by the gardening bug, thank goodness someone else in my family sees the value in growing your own food.

Together we have begun to formulate a plan to begin building on the Urban Homestead idea here in our new home in the suburbs. So far we have planted two 4x6 raised beds with cucumbers,bush beans, bell peppers, yellow crookneck squash, zucchini and egg plant, our next project will be to fill a several half barrels salvaged from all my old farm with pepper and tomato plants.

I recently taught myself how to knit from a You tube video, it was much easier then I thought, however the price of yarn is outrageous so lately I have been thinking about Angora Rabbits for fiber which of course would mean I would have to learn to card and spin the fiber into yarn. Has anyone ever read the children's book "If you give a mouse a cookie"? I seem to keep going there.

What Are You Doing to Be Prepared?

I borrowed this image from google images, I wish I could say it was stuff I have on hand, while I have a few things I am not nearly as prepared as I hope to be. I live less than 30 miles from a major nuclear power plant, would having Iodine tablets on hand in case something happened at the power plant be smart? No one wants to act out of fear or panic but rather to be rational and logical and plan for things that really could happen and that you can protect yourself and your family from.

The events in Japan have certainly gotten me thinking about how prepared my family is for any unexpected disaster natural or man made. I have to admit that I don't believe there is much of anything that the people of Japan could have possibly done to prepare for what has happened there but what about the things that might happen that we can prepare for?




Emergency preparedness has been a goal of mine for years and years but one that I never quite feel I have even scratched the surface of. Sure I have plenty of canned and dry goods but if hard pressed to come up with fresh water my family could only manage for a day or two, and that is not counting fresh water for my animals. Some of the bloggers that I follow have truly made preparedness a priority and I am in awe of what they have accomplished.


I know that like anything in life it all depends on how much importance you place on the thought and how much of a priority it is made. So today I am considering where to start and what items need to be acquired first.

So my question to you is what are you doing or have you done to prepare for the unexpected?

All I can do is Pray

Today anything going in my world that I might want to write about seems so trivial in light of the terrifying news from across the ocean, I send out my prayers to all of those people impacted by this horrible event in Japan I know you all join me.

A note from the trenches.

Work Work and more work, for those of you who might be wondering where I have disappeared to, that word is my life in a nutshell. Sad but true. Have been working two jobs focusing on doing what I need to do to keep it all afloat right now while I have all my kids under on roof. It won't be like this forever. My Urban Homesteading adventures are few and far between, the kids and I planted some Romain lettuce on the back porch, those little green sprouts coming up are such a nice reminder that the cycle goes on. I am still making bread regularly and spouting seeds in the window sill, but that's about it. I am reading a book on home cheese making but the thought of making it from store bought milk saddens me. I can't wait for the day I have milking goats again.

This month my colt Rocky will be six months old and I will wean him from his mama, which promised to be a traumatic experience for all. I will post pictures of him soon. He kept the blue eyes which makes him pretty unusual looking.

Hope all of you are keeping warm and well this winter. I pop in and catch up on your blogs when I can.

A Healthy Kitchen Window Project-Sprouts

Home today trying to nurse a very nasty cold, my second one in only a short time uggg. I wanted to share these lentil sprouts I grew in a Jar in the kitchen window. I was itching to grow something that I could eat and since I am not ready for outdoor planting yet this was a quick and easy project. There are a bunches of videos on YouTube of people and their sprout projects and there are all kinds of jars and sprouting kits out there that people want you to buy but a mason jar with an open lid and a piece of clean window screen ( sold by the foot at the hardware store for pennies), worked just fine. I think the sprouts took longer then they should (about 5 days) because the house is not super warm. Although at around 70 degrees it is not cold either. All of the videos I watched said you should have sprouts in 3-4 days so I am not sure why mine were slow, but they did sprout and they taste fresh. These will be added to my salads and sandwiches this week and I have another jar in the window in progress. I am pretty sure just plain lentils from the supermarket will work just fine, I ordered these last year from a preparedness website, they came vacuum sealed in a Mylar type package but I don't believe they are any different, if anyone know the answer to that question please let me know.

Feeling good about the direction I am heading, one small project at a time.

Hope everyone is staying warm and safe through the rough winter weather, even here in Florida we are getting down in the very low 20s at night. Happy Monday!