The Po Po Got Me!

Many of you may ask what does this have to do with homesteading?  This is why I call myself the "Rookie Homesteader"  Never a dull moment!

It is important that I give you some background information.  Take my wife....Katie.  I love her more than the worlds of the universe could ever imagine.  However, WE ARE TOTALLY OPPOSITE.  She is liked, I am not.  She is calm, I am anxious.  She doesn't worry, I do.  She would be happier in a city setting with the most modern life she could possibly experience.  Almost like the Jetsons!  LOL  Get the picture?  However, I couldn't make it without her!

She has a friend of whom she has became very close to.  The share interest and views, putting me even further from connection.  Let me throw in a disclaimer.  This woman is an anointed woman of God and to be respected.  None of this is intended to be harmful towards her.  It is just that people are different or in my case I am different from most.  :)  You can imagine that the two of them together do not get my sense of humor.  Katie gets it....but not in public of any sort.  If we are around anyone she tends to roll the eye at my humor.

On this particular day, I woke up and Katie had taken the SUV.  Not a problem you say, well yes it was...the SUV had my license, and new registration.  This is typical of our marriage.  We are very unorganized.  This would not normally be a problem, but the Po Po had already pulled me over warning me.  I have a history with the big white Cadillac that always has dead stickers.  :(  They sit right above my school where I work, and I knew I would get it if I showed up back in town.  I called Katie and explained this. Her response was to tell them to look it up in the computer no big deal.  YA LET'S TRY THAT.

The mean little boy rose up in me. I ended up taking my mom's vehicle to work and once I got there I text Katie and told her that I done as she told me and told the PO PO to look it up in the computer.  I told her that he responded back by saying he wasn't a computer tech and gave me a 200 dollar ticket.  Well, she freaked out.  I felt accomplished and went on teaching the whole day and forgot about it.

Meanwhile she is telling everyone including her best friend I mentioned up top.  Her whole department was feeling sorry for her having to pay 200 bucks for a ticket.  It happened to be Noah's birthday party and the two of them rode home from school together so they could take Emma to gymnastics and pick up pizzas on the way home for the party.

So picture this...they pull in my mom's house to get Emma and noticed my car.  OMG.  I am sure Katie was furious and I am sure the question arose as to how I got a ticket in a car that never left my hollow.  LOL.  So  Katie had to explain how terrible I was and that I had obviously told a small fib for the sake of an awesome joke.  This type of humor probably wasn't received.   Who wouldn't feel sorry for her having to put up with this?  LOL.

Needless to say I was confronted from the wife...go figure.  NO MORE PO PO!

Rookie Homesteader Vs. Everyone Else - The Difference

As the Rookie Homesteader, I often find myself in situations that many farmers or homesteaders don't.  Most people swing on luck.  For most, the very season they set out to raise a garden, they have the biggest crop known to man.  The instant they decide to raise chickens, they get them and receive 20 eggs a day.  If they want a pig, they get one and it is at butcher weight within 2 months!

And now for the reason I call myself the Rookie Homesteader.  When I grow a garden, no rain;  When I get chickens, my neighbors dog eats them; when I get a pig (Well read about my first Pig experience here).  Ya...that is my luck with farming.  However, I cannot stop!

I do feel like I am making so much progress.  I have canned goods in my cabinets, pork in the freezer, and a ton of ideas LOL.  I got 20 chickens in the room in their brooder.  These will be raised for meat and will be butchered.  However while they are here they will enjoy the full life that a chicken possibly could and fed healthy food for my family.  As you can see from the pictures below my mom was not as excited :)

I know she is thinking these will end up like the hundreds of others that I bought you....food for a dog!  I have a plan this time.  LOL  It will be chronicled here keep watching.  As of now they are safe in my house chirping away.....Katie will be complaining on facebook in 2 days of the noise LOL.

I mentioned in the last post that Arthur was butchered.  He provided plenty of meat.  I cannot wait to get another one.  My friends Amber and Chad Bishop cooked the first meal off of him and since then I have made ribs along with Pinto beans from the neck bones.  DDEEELLLIIICCIIOUUUSS.  Loved it.  The taste was so pure and cannot be described.  The best part was I didn't feel disgusted after I ate.  I knew the food was wholesome and knew where it came from.  Much better to give to your family.

It is Amber's birthday today.  I am going to give her a shout out on here and wish her a happy birthday.  Hope it was great.  Here she is in her birthday suit LOL If you are new to the blog please read the past posts...I am sure you will find them entertaining.

A Life Well Lived.

My goal has and always will be for my family to have food that is free from toxic junk.   I started with the simple yet productive hen providing very healthy eggs for us.  I loved it.  I thought I was on top of the world. As you can read from my previous posts I had so much trouble sustaining them it was pathetic.  That hobby is still growing to this day.  Just recently my hens have started laying again.  Emma was as excited as me and I am sure Noah will love it this year because he will understand it more.

Emma and the first egg of the season!

My kids are total farmers.  Even though "Biga Boy" is little he still has it in his eyes just like his sister did.  Before long he will be out with me gathering eggs, butchering, etc.

Thankfully, we are in full swing with the growing season.  I love winter more than anything or anyone can, but it does make me excited to see life coming about.

We began this year with a bang!  Last October we purchased our first pig.  Emma of course named the pig Arthur The Pig and Biga Boy just looked on. 

We grew the pig ourselves.  We know every ounce of feed that went into the animal.  No hormones, No steroids, No antibiotics....pure....healthy.....complete!

This past Saturday we decided to butcher the pig.  Everyone was horrified that I was doing it.  Thankfully, my dear friends Chad Bishop came to my rescue!  I had never done it.  However we succeeded and he is being packaged this week.  We will eat great and healthy.  I do plan to get another one! 

Do you guys remember the blog co-star SERENA?  Here she is....Now she will never admit it....would die first but she has a special bond with pigs!  She had one in her house she kissed on all the time.  She was trying to train it to use a litter box, but as you can tell she isn't as "educated looking" as us country folk.  She comes from the city and didn't understand they belonged outside.  So I imagine she is hurt over the pigs death.

My pig however had a great life.  She wasn't confined to a concrete pad that took away it's rights as a natural pig.  She played and ran just the way it was meant.  My dad is afraid of animals.  She got out often and rooted up my entire yard and my dad being the total opposite of me hated the fact that his son's yard was destroyed by a nasty pig. 

However Dad thought he was big...was gonna put the pig back up for me because she only got out while I was at work. He was so scared of her but would never admit it.  LOL.  He was running at the pig with a Hoe trying to defend himself and finally he gave up.  HE was furious and I had to call my friend Keith Carter from work to put it back up. He got her up with one single cup of feed.  :)

I will be updating this often.  There are always something that happens.  Always a laugh.  I am going pickin this summer and getting much more on the farm I am sure.  Another pig is a given!.....

Not By The Hair of my Chinny Chin Chin.....

Last weekend we made our trip to Lucasville, OH.  We love it.  I have mentioned it many times before on here and especially how Serena hates when I buy animals because she fears that she will have to help haul them home.  However, we all know that Lucasville = some kind of animal.  They have everything and Tinia (lucas farm) does not want me to buy anything from there.  I follow her every word, but this one.  However I am very selective!! as opposed to what I used to be when I went there.

We bought many things and I admit that I wasn't very interested in the antiques this year.  I had the homestead on my mind!  Now I am not proud of that, because antiquing with mom and Serena rocks, but I did enjoy the animal side this year.  Next trip is Antiques.

I got several different bantam chickens of which I will post pictures of tomorrow.  I am in to them highly and they were from a breeder there I have worked with several years and they do breed appropriately and handle only full breeds. 

However we passed a vendor that had a play pen set up with 6 little piggies.  LOL.  Naturally I went nuts!  I have always wanted a micro pig, and would have thought I wanted a normal pig to raise to butcher but I don't have that space.  To my credit I did walk away and Mom looked at me and said "Get back there I am getting those pigs.  I am tired of hearing about them."  I picked out a pretty pink one and a black one.  A pair!  BIG MISTAKE.  Then Carrie looked at Serena with puppy dog eyes and with my persuasion I convinced her that her kids needed one, so she reached the woman a crisp 50 and got a black one.   Serena always has crisp bills.....I guess it comes with the Lincoln....I seem to have old wrinkled 5's. lol

The day went on.....the chickens we bought pooped all over mom's antiques which caused her a huge amount of stress lol.  We decided to leave and load all the stuff we had bought, including the free cat for Emma that she has fallen completely in love with.  We were unable to haul everything even though we had 2 carts so we went back for the pigs. 

When we brought the pigs back to the vehicle I was loading them in the cage.  The 2 black ones when in...then I had the pink on up getting ready to put it in, when my mom started screaming..."TAKE THAT THING BACK .....IT HAS RAW TAIL!"  Serena instantly laughing and agreeing because it would only happen to the rookie homesteader.   I saw what she was talking about and due to the heat and exhaustion I held it up to Keith without even thinking and said what is wrong with this pig?  He smiled and said....IT IS A BOY....THAT IS IT'S SCROTUM!  I immediately started letting mom have it and Serena spoke up...I thought that was it's Girl part.  Mom finished with that is the weirdest looking boy part I have ever seen!  LOL. 

Now can you imagine if Keith hadn't been with me and I had marched up to the seller demanding my money back as my mom told me to because it had what we thought was a boil on it's butt?  I would have been so embarrassed when they explained to me it was just a boy part!

NEVER A DULL MOMENT

Memorial Day Weekend Mania

Well I am exhausted!  I have done so much that I am sitting here trying to remember everything that I have to tell you guys.  First, my birthday was the 29th of May.  I was hoping for a micro pig, or a miniature horse, but didn't get those, however I did recieve great gifts.  Also I am sure that I didn't need any of them.  I have enough on my plate.

The first one being from my mom and dad.  As many of you know I have lost about 70 chickens total here on my homestead.  We would build a fence for them, patch holes, fix traps, only to find them gone again the next morning one at a time.  We even went as far as putting mini coops inside the fence and they still were attacked and drug through the wires.  Mom and Dad did want me to give up, but I refused.  I will have fresh eggs for my family at least along with meat.  Hopefully I can expand that to have these available to others one day.  Anyway, they bought all of the material to construct a predator proof chicken coop/run.  We got this!  Take a look.

Also, Serena, is a main character of this blog.  Mainly because we do everything together.  She did get me something very special for my birthday and it is the sign that is hanging on my coop.  It says "Rookie Homesteader".  I have it as the header picture of this blog so you can see it there too!  I love it!  BTW...here is a picture of her in her Lincoln that talks.  She won't let me haul animals in this!!!

My other dear friend Catrina got me some antique/primitive stuff which I am also into.  She got me the coolest thing....an egg carton that is painted brown with grungy cinnamon and well, it fits my lifestyle along with the mammy figure. lol.   Here is a picture of her....you will meet a lot of her too.

She volunteers at school.  She is also family.

My dear and wonderful Wife made my weekend.  SHE ADMITTED SHE LIKED HOMESTEADING.  You have to know Katie.  If it were her, she would live like the jetsons!  Now she is making homemade ice cream!  Who would have thought.  She also ordered me 2 signs for my farm that hasn't came in yet and I will be sure to put them up as soon as they are here. 

I am sure many of you remember my last post "The Itch with a name - Jackie".  Well, I had to go to the doctor....shots, steroids, cremes, and still I AM COVERED!  However, the garden is growing.  Take a look

Remember during all of this mom and my uncle are trying to get me to put viniger on my poison ivy.  They swear it is a miracle, so I tried....nothing!!!!!

And last I will leave you with some pictures of Emma playing in the bubble machine because they are just too cute not to!



The ITCH that has a name -- JACKIE

Well part of my homesteading efforts are to raise vegetables and fruits.  I have probably tried this for the past 2 years even before getting into the homesteading scene.  Well, I may have harvested one green pepper in all of my efforts.

Last year I done really good and got someone to plow and till an area in my backyard.  I knew I had succeeded......I even used the fertilizer that my paw paw uses.  Right when I had sprouts in the air, I had a problem with several goats dying.  Remember, I wasn't even a rookie then!  I thought  I had a poisonous plant and I could have, but really I didn't know how to take care of them and was killing them one by one.  to resolve what I thought was a poisonous plant problem, I moved them into my backyard in a new fence.  ( have had several since then).  Naturally I built the fence around the successful garden where the goats enjoyed corn, cabbage, and onions. 

This year, since I am now the rookie homesteader, I have decided to conquerer the garden.  I started by builing a raised garden bed.  Therefore I had to haul several loads of rich dirt in the blistering heat.  I had shorts, flip flops, and was ringing wet in sweat.  Weeds were everywhere and I was just moving them out of my way....remember I was in the mountains.

Guess what.....LOOK WHAT HAPPENED....

Yes!!! poison ivy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!













When I started breaking out everywhere....my feet, behind my ears, wrists, arms, legs, etc.  I was mentioning it to my mom (Jackie).  She never said anything but that I should put medicine on it.  I was complaining to my uncle who went with my mom to pick out the dirt for me to haul and then gave me directions.  He said that he knew there was a patch of poison over top of that dirt and that he told my mom to warn me.  Mom instantly speaks out (oooppppsss) I forgot to tell him!  NOW WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD SEND SOMEONE IN A POISON PATCH TO GET DIRT!!!!!!

My sweet homesteading friend Serena

I know I have been talking a lot about someone named Serena (my partner in crime).  I love her really I do.  She can make any endeavor fun.  She is not as dedicated to the homesteading as I am and often gripes at chores, but she will help me.  I wanted to wait until I got a picture the shows who she really is before I introduced her.  It only seems fitting that I introduce the Livestock and now her.  There will be blogs of short stories of her in the future.