Category Archives: Homesteading

homestead building, canning, drying, log hauling, hay making, creek flooding

Bees, Homesteading, ShepherdstownWV-1993-2017

Edgewise woods this Winter -and the Bees

Edgewisewoods This Winter

East Edge Snow
East Edge Snow

It has been a rough winter here, starting out with a good size snow right after Thanksgiving, morphing into a “What happened? I thought Winter had arrived super early and now we’ve got nothing. No snow, temps hovering above freezing…What gives?” Then Winter came back with a vengeance and it got really cold and stayed there for days on end, dipping below zero degrees a couple of times and into the single digits on numerous mornings. I put my long johns on and kept them on for the duration. My tall waterproof leather Keen boots and beautiful, thick Smart Wool socks got a serious workout every day and have more than justified their cost. I had good traction and warm feet even in 13 inches of snow. I wore them to the barn to do chores, to work, and hiking as well.

This winter I finally managed to get a heated waterer for the chickens, actually a dog bowl, but they don’t care.  It keeps us from having to haul the galvanized waterer in to the house and thaw it on the woodstove. It doesn’t hold as much, but it is so easy to refill with the freezeproof hydrant out in the barn.

Chickens with their heated dog waterer
Chickens with their heated dog waterer

I installed that after the winter of 96 when we had FEET of snow and we got tired of digging a path to the barn everyday to water haul buckets to the horses. Sometimes I wonder why it takes me so long to figure these things out. I tried, once again, to put a tank de-icer in the horse trough but she will have not drink with anything floating around in her water. Maybe next year I will figure that one out. I broke the trough busting the ice out of it this winter and had to improvise with a plastic tub.

The chickens and horse came through the winter fine, laying well and staying healthy.

Mara in the Snow-Fat and HAppy
Mara in the Snow-Fat and Happy

The dogs spent a lot of time in the house, even though I bought them winter jackets from a friend who makes really nice ones. They were great when it was snowing. I didn’t have to dry the dogs off each time I let them in, just shook off the coats and hung them near the stove. It was too cold to leave them outside all day when I was at work and they turned into couch potatoes quite willingly with very few accidents. They have enjoyed being outside here lately though and now lay exhausted on the couch. It was amazing how close they managed to get to the woodstove when it was seriously cold outside. The cat, Frieda, didn’t go out her cat door any more than she absolutely had to all winter. She loves her heated mudroom, as do we. It is so nice to leave all the snow and mud out there instead of traipsing it through the house. The covered porch/ woodshed was one of our better additions too.

Unfortunately, we did not get our skis out at all. I have been having issues with my shoulder and cross country with poles was not an option. Plus, it was really cold…

 

Bees -March 2015

Hives in Snow
Hives in Snow

My poor Italians did not make it through the Winter. They were alive in January. I could hear them quietly humming when I knocked on the hive. But when I opened the hive up on that warm Sunday March 8th, they were all dead. There was plenty of honey left, so at least they didn’t starve, but I think maybe there were not enough of them to keep each other warm. It was very sad. The Russians were buzzing all over the place the same day, acting kind of frantic (which made me nervous) so I left them alone and did not open them until this Monday evening the 16th. They were a mess. They had built comb bridging between some of the frames, there was almost no honey left, I saw no brood and I could not find the queen. I have never found a queen so it is possible she is on one of the two frames I did not move. I put a screened bottom board on to help with mite control, switched the bottom deep with the upper deep, and scraped out all the dead bees. There were way more fatalities than I

Dead Bees
Dead Bees

expected and now I am worried they won’t make it either. I disturbed them so much that I figured I would leave the one large mass huddled together alone and just feed them and let them rest. I will feed them again in a few days and look for the queen and some evidence of eggs again then.

I have ordered a nuc to replace the Italians and a 3# package for my new hive and I may have to buy a new queen for the Russians. A nuc is an already started mini- hive with a laying queen, some honey, some pollen stores, and a bunch of bees ready to go. There is so much to learn. I have been to two beekeeping classes the last two Saturdays and have joined the Eastern Panhandle Beekeepers group and been to one meeting so far. I was surprised at how many people were there. We filled to overflowing the meeting room at the WVU Fruit Reseach Station over in Kearneysville, WV. I’ll bet there were 150 members present for the monthly meeting. The weather was a major topic. A lot of folks lost some of their bees this winter. The bloom time of some plants the bees rely on has been delayed too. There was discussion about feeding pollen patties, sugar syrup, IPM (Integrated Pest Management) that will need to be carried out. It seems to be a helpful group. They set new folks up with mentors so they would have local support in their new projects. Three speakers talked about rearing queens, splitting hives, feeding and pest control. Like I said, there is a lot to learn when it comes to bee keeping. I have a long way to go but they are fascinating creatures worth learning about.

Wendy lee, writing at Edgewisewoods.com

 

Homesteading

Passing the Keeper Test-Finding the Right Life Partner

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Passing the Keeper Test

A Keeper
A Keeper

It is vitally important that a potential life partner be able to pass a few basic skills tests before you decide to embark on a long term serious relationship. Unfortunately there is a steep learning curve involved that took me awhile to grasp. My partners have had to pass muster in skills that have gotten progressively more difficult as I’ve matured. The guy I ended up keeping has had it the worst, of course. There was never an initial decision on my part that he must do this or that a certain way or get tossed back. No. It was more of an ongoing list of challenges as the options presented themselves over time.

Partner number one managed to get away with just being extremely sexy, gentle, and willing to take me away to our dream of a West Virginia homesteading adventure. This lasted about six years. My plans were to help him build our own off grid house, grow and store the food we needed, sew our clothes on my foot powered sewing machine, and in the end, make pottery for a living. Lots of things got in the way. Life does that. The house building turned out to be a lot harder than we thought, for one. Of all my brothers’ friends, the one I chose was the only one not a carpenter. He drove a truck, and made good money doing it, so he didn’t have to work away all the time. We lived on about $3000 a year for quite awhile back in the 70’s. Building a house is not easy without electric tools and only a chainsaw for sawing and it takes at least two people. It is really helpful if one of them has actual experience. Using hand tools slows the whole process down considerably and the long hike up our steep hill to the house site did not help. Porch sitting was way too inviting. And then there was hay to cut, weeds to pull, water to haul, goats to milk, clothes to wash, a million chores to do. As time wore on and trials got harder we started to fail. He had a hard time accepting help from others and then, with a new baby, I was way too busy. House building is not a one person job, heavy lifting requires help. All the responsibility of the new baby fell to me and the house building progress slowed down with no one seeming to be driving. We eventually gave up.

My second partner was proficient in building with stone and wood and could even do electrical work so he seemed promising, at first. I fell for him in a big way when he presented me with a porch full of milk crates neatly filled with dry kindling for the woodstove. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. We never managed to get further than the first few courses of foundation block on our house building venture. We grew and sold organic produce and worked ourselves to death for very little pay. Luckily we had free rent on an old log house next door and only small bills. We borrowed money for a drilled well but it ended up being needed for a lawyer when he got busted selling pot. Two more babies entered the picture and hot running water was still a dream of mine. We hauled water from the pond and heated it on the stove for baths and used the wringer washer on the porch for laundry. I washed all the diapers this way and it was a step up from the wash tubs and scrub boards I had used before. Then we had to borrow money against the land. He didn’t work steady enough to keep us going and didn’t want me to earn more than he did. I was finally learning how to make my opinions heard and that did not go over so well. I managed to land a job as a cook at a conference center making decent money. When he got ugly, I called it quits.

My third partner is finally a keeper. We started off a lot slower. He led

Keeper In the Woods
Keeper In the Woods

me through my first caving adventure, and being somewhat claustrophobic, that was a feat in itself. He bought me my own mountain bike so we could ride together. We long distance dated for two years with him driving 165 miles down to my place in Virginia two or three times a month. He would get up really early on those Monday mornings and drive all the way to D.C. for work.  He has managed to hold the same good paying job for over twenty five years, which is amazing to me. I get bored and have to change jobs every few years. While staying over one weekend he opened my chest freezer to fetch out the ice cream and came face to face with an entire pig head, unwrapped. It didn’t faze him- much anyway. I was keeping it for making scrapple with later. This was a good sign he might be keeper material. The, in the early morning hours of one Monday he poured himself a bowl of cereal and after eating it for awhile, and his eyes finally focusing, realized there were things moving in there. Meal worms had hatched and were eating their way through. It was an old box of something that the kids didn’t like and had been hanging around way too long. Long expired. He took that pretty well too, although he was careful to check his food from then on.

As time wore on and chores needed to be done around my place I managed to get him to help out some. He had never really had animals, except a cat, and I have always had plenty. Horses, dogs, chickens, milk goats, a cow, veggie and fruit gardens, geese, rabbits, ducks, you name it. At this stage I had three horses and the kids were learning to ride so I was building a riding ring. I had over a hundred fence posts and all the oak boards I needed from a fence moving project at the farm where I had worked for three years. Otherwise, there was no way I could have afforded to build it. We had to hand-dig 90 holes, set and tamp all the posts, and nail in two rows of oak boards.  It was not a quick project. Digging the holes with post hole diggers requires upper body strength and causes blisters until you get used to it. There are only so many holes you can do per day or weekend so it went on for awhile. We managed to also have fun caving and hiking in, between too. This was a pretty major test of his willingness to help me do a big job though, and he passed with a good attitude, even though he was not even into horses.

Partners that are destined for the long haul will be able to pass these basic skills tests. They will be open to new ideas and new directions. They will be supportive when you decide to suddenly change course and go back to school. They will try and understand when you feel the need to change careers or start a new business.  They will forgive you for making them get off the couch. They will help you with your self inflicted chores. They will be willing to play when you get those chores done. They will take you places you might not have gone alone. We now live in a real house that we changed to suit us, we garden and keep a horse and chickens and some bees. We both work hard but we play harder. The kids have their own families and are doing fine. Live is good.

The Keeper at Sunset
The Keeper at Sunset

When you find a partner who is willing to help you in your projects, who has an open mind and will support you and your changing plans for your life, grab him (or her) and hold them tight. Third time was a charm for me but I hope others learn faster than I did. It is great to finally have a supportive, ambitious and forgiving partner.

Wendy lee- writing at  https://www.edgewisewoods.com

 

Critters, Homesteading, South Jersey Pine BarrensNJ-1960-73

Dear Gretchen, (the best Dachshund ever)

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Dear Gretchen, (the best Dachshund ever)
Do you remember the patchwork blanket Grandmom made for you? And the patchwork PJ’s she made for me out of little 4 inch squares of flannel? How about the time we got a blue ribbon at the county fair when I dressed you up homemade Thumbelina doll’s Santa Outfit ? You were an awful good sport about it. What about the little deerskin booties we made for you to swim in, to keep your nails from scratching us, with your flailing doggy paddle? And the time you ran through the screen door and tore your itchy stitches out and I had to sleep with you in that scary dog box to keep you from crying all night?   I couldn’t stand to hear you crying but we couldn’t let you jump up on the bed until you got healed.
And I know you remember that horrible day when you were hanging out under the kitchen stove and the hot bacon grease flashed on the stove and then spilled down onto your poor head. I had never heard anyone scream in that much pain before. It was awful. You ran,

Gretchen and Her Scar
Gretchen and Her Scar

yelping and screaming, all the way down the stairs into the basement and tried to hide under the couch. I had to drag you out so we could get you to the vet, you poor thing. After that you had an inch wide hairless, black skin, scar that ran from your left eye all the way to your right ear and you couldn’t see out of that eye anymore.

You used to dig up all the mole tunnels in the yard and turn them into Dachshund sized ditches instead. And you brought home antlers bigger than you and chewed on them for ages. And there was that time you killed a mama bunny and brought home all her babies and nursed them with your precocious milk. You must have wanted your own puppies pretty bad to go through those false pregnancies, even getting milk and then to steal baby bunnies. It was cute though. And we had to blast you with a soapy water pistol to try and break you from chasing cars down the road after they paved it. You were way too small to be chasing cars, you know. It was really dangerous. You liked to ride out in front on the sailboat and your ears would flap in the wind. You kept me warm at night, sleeping under the covers and letting me use you as a knee pillow. Even your head was under the covers.

Gretchen gnawing on antlers
Gretchen gnawing on antlers

It was hard to leave you behind when I left home but I couldn’t take you to West Virginia when I moved. You were old and half blind and mostly deaf by then. I was afraid you would follow a ground hog down its hole like it was just a little mole and get all torn up.

Dad brought you home for me when I was eight years old, after Aunt Peg came back from Tripoli and wanted her Dachshund Shotzi back.  We had kept him for more than six months and I had fallen in love with him . I had to give him back and could not bear to be alone again. There is nothing else like having a best-friend dog who loves you no matter what. I really appreciated Mom and Dad allowing me to have you since you were not exactly a hunting dog like the Irish Setters they raised.

You lived to be thirteen years old, which is pretty good for a Dachshund. I was not there for your last two years and I feel I let you down in the end. I wish Mom had let me know when she decided to put you down. I didn’t even know until months later. I wouldn’t never have wanted you to suffer though, and I have to trust that Mom did the right thing for you. You were in pain and unable to function anymore. You were my closest friend and such a good dog. Thanks for being you.

Written by Wendy lee, blogging at https://www.edgewisewoods.com

 

Homesteading, Ritchie CountyWV-1970s

Working in the Pennsboro WV Garment Factory-1974

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Similar Factory Sewing Floor
Similar Factory Sewing Floor

The so-called air was thick with red colored fuzz and coughing was heard from just about every lung in the suffocatingly closed in sewing factory.  Great. Today would be red fabric all day which automatically put all the women in a foul mood. First shift had already been at it for quite awhile and stirred things up nicely. Just what I needed. I had just gotten over having bronchitis from living in the cold damp cow shed I called home and this was not going to help.  I stashed my lunch under my machine and quick went to get punched in on the stupid time clock. I was early but it wouldn’t matter, they wouldn’t pay me for that, they’d only dock me for being late- never reward you for being early; it’s just that there was a line and I as at the end of it. There was a one way street here and it did not go my way.

The buzzer sounded and like a bunch of cattle we all headed in single file lines to our machines and took up our work. The country music station played in the background, interrupted by an occasional announcement from management or call for a supervisor over the loudspeaker, but mostly we heard sewing machines and cutting machines humming –probably about 150 of them at once. .Zip…Zip… Thunk… Zip… Zip…The movements were automatic-no thought required. Mine was a Five-Thread Overlock machine with a razor cutting edge. The fabric I sliced off with every line of stitching helped create a lot of the red dust floating in the air. The same dust that causes Brown Lung disease, especially when using the most toxic red dyes,  like today.  The female mountain mama equivalent of Black Lung but not really talked about or even acknowledged by most people- even those who know of it. None of the other colors made us cough like that- just the red. We were making ladies shirts and I was just making the hems on the bottom of the sleeves- all day long. Dozens and dozens of them all day long. Zip…Zip…Zip…Thunk..Zip…I got really fast, really quick because it was really boring so what else was there to do? The other ladies gossiped and took it easy, but I do not have any friends here, so I just get into the work. Zip…Zip…Otherwise, the day would drag by so slow I couldn’t stand it.

Another BUZZER!-really loud, breaks my reverie, and the momentum. Break time! Everybody jumps up and practically runs for the break room with the coffee pots and vending machines. I feel like such an automaton already that I have to break away and walk the other direction and go outside. This is seriously frowned upon. Why am I being different? What is wrong with me? Why can’t I act like the others? They will not let me near the coffee pot anyway, so what would be the point? I am an outsider here and there is no room made for me in the break area and not enough time anyway for me to get to a machine or a coffee pot through the unfriendly lines. I bring my own hot drinks-sometimes herb tea with honey, sometimes coffee and a snack, and I sit outside and enjoy the five minutes of solitude and the weather, whatever it is. You can’t tell what to expect when you open the door. There are no windows in there, at all. This is my idea of hell.

The BUZZER! sounds again and back we all go, single file, moving slightly slower than on the way out. This is way worse than high school ever was and the pay absolutely sucks. But it IS pay, and for where we are, in the middle of nowhere West Virginia , we are all lucky to have a job at all. We work piecework with a guarantee of minimum wage, which at this crappy Neanderthal place means minimum wage only. If they were intelligent I would be able to make more and they would also be able to earn more off my productivity, but for some reason they do not want to do that. Zip…Zip…Zip…Thump…Zip…Zip …  .As soon  as I get good at a skill and start making more than the minimum, they quick,  switch me to a new one and have me learn that, to slow me down. Zip…Zip…Zip..Thunk…Zip… I have only been here two months and have learned most of the machines and could probably supervise the entire place, plus fix the equipment, but I am still just making the minimum wage of $2.10 an hour. Go figure. Zip…Zip…Zip… The problem is I have a brain and I am using it and it seems to make them nervous. Most folks here do not bother to bring their brain to work as it would be wasted and they learned that long ago. Like I said, I am new here .Zip…Zip…Zip…Thunk…Zip

BUZZZER ! Again. Lunch. Back outside for me. Don’t know what I’ll do when it gets really cold out here – the heater in my Volkswagon is not worth much. I do not want to think about working here too much into the future. I am only here because I am desperate, but surely not forever. Not like the ladies inside who have been here twenty some years. God, how depressing. I have to do 144 dozen sleeves today-a gross. That about sums it up.

BUZZZZERRR! Again. That thing is really grating on my nerves and giving me a splitting headache. Zip…Zip… Zip…Whine, Ping…Oh, good. I get to take the machine apart and do some repairs and maintenance to it. Yeah! A break in the monotony! Sometimes I take it apart and put it together just for the heck of it but now it actually needs it. We have repairmen for this but they are kept pretty busy with the other women who use them regularly as their ‘spice’ for the day. Looks like I broke a knife so I will have to go get a part out of the repair shop up front which could take a little while. I will probably catch some flack from the floor- walker for that. She feels it is her job to give me (and everyone else) a hard time whenever possible. I think she gets about a quarter extra an hour for that job and now everyone hates her.

I got the part, swapped it out and…  Right back to work. Zip… Zip… Zip…”ANNOUNCEMENT!  THE FOLLOWING LUCKY WOMEN HAVE WON OUR ANNUAL THANKSGIVING TURKEY GIVEAWAY! Please report to the office when your shift is done to claim your prize.” Well wouldn’t you know, lucky me, the vegetarian, won a turkey. Guess I’ll have to give it to a friend. How bazzaar. Zip…Zip…Zip…Thunk…Zip…Zip…

Afternoon break BUZZZZZERRRRRR! goes off. Headache now pounding. Decide to go out and get some aspirin out of the car. Superviser stops me and accuses me of stealing fabric, smoking pot, etc, didn’t stick around for the rest. Got the aspirin out of the glove compartment and came back inside for some water from the fountain. All the folks who won turkeys were standing around chattering about how sweet it was of management to do this for them. I got to looking at them all and realized that we were all the latest hires. None of the old timers had won a turkey at all. This was strange and I said so. It was obviously rigged. What was going on?

“Oh, give it a break. Just because you don’t like turkey you have to go and ruin our fun”, said the ring leader of the group of local girls who all ate meat, married and had kids before they even got out of high school.

BBBBBBBUZZZZZZZERRR!! All thought stops and we head meekly back to our machines and pick up our work right where we left off. With…out… thought…. Zip…Zip…Zip…One hundred forty four dozen shirtsleeves… finished.

BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZER! This long day, in a string of long boring days without sunlight is finally over. I pack up my stuff and head up to the front office with the other lucky winners where we stand in line to await our frozen dead rewards. After awhile the manager comes out, gives the nod for the turkeys to be handed out and then he comes down the line and personally hands each one of us a note which says “Do to unforeseen circumstances we are having to reduce the workforce here at — —–. Unfortunately, since you are the most recently hired you must be the first to be laid off. Thank you for your services. This will be your last paycheck. If we need you in the future we will call you.” Awesome.

At first we stand in stunned silence, then a general murmur is heard. These women are very upset by this news, especially at this time of year. I, however, am grateful to have no reason to come back here next week, or ever again. I feel as though I have been let out of jail and am overjoyed at being unemployed without having had to quit. I have food put by in jars from my garden this summer, goats giving milk, chickens producing eggs, tons of potatoes under piles of straw. I might be broke, but I am not going to starve, so to hell with this job.  I am free. I jump in my VW and head home and do not look back. I made a quilt a few years later using scraps from that job which serves to remind me of that time, definitely not one of my better job memories.

They actually had the nerve to call me back a few weeks later to rehire me. I enjoyed telling them it was the last place I would ever return to. The final blow was when I realized if they had kept us for even three days longer, they would have had to pay us unemployment when they laid us off. Calling us back was restarting that clock and they could and would keep doing it. This was just one of the many garment factories enslaving poor folks in the U.S. before they did us all a favor and shipped these factories and jobs to even poorer areas overseas. Good riddance.

Wendy lee , writing at  https://www.edgewisewoods.com

photo from Wikipedia common files