Ginger and Easter

Ginger is growing! I am so excited.  So far I have two sprouted through and two more that should be up through the soil soon.  I bought a larger pot for it so it has room to spread it's feet.

The tumeric hasn't sprouted yet.  But from what I've read it takes a lot longer.   Our church friends dropped off a beautiful little bouquet for the kids to put together.  Smells like summer!  We (like everyone else) spent Easter at home.  Sure missed my parents and siblings.  The kids and I worked together to make cheesy potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and a beef roast.  It was fun to have them in the kitchen working together.  Mother Nature provided a blanket (blizzard) of snow on Easter Sunday.  Our little egg hunt was pretty pitiful.

A bunch of stuff

So I ventured out to the store today.  It was kinda chilly and rainy today.  On the way back there were some neat clouds rolling over the farm.  I like pictures of clouds so I got one.


I picked up another asparagus plant and a rhubarb plant.  I've got onions, potatoes, garlic, the blueberry plant, and a grape plant to get in the ground in about 3 weeks. 


The Micro Tomato has a bunch of tomatoes!  I can't wait until they're ready to eat.  I have three of these so I might have a ton of tiny tomatoes all at once.  They won't last long around here.

The blue berry bush is also growing good.  It's doubled in size.



This totally sums up my afternoon.  The morning was fine.  But after lunch has been one disaster after another.


Another kombucha batch is done.  It fermented for a few extra days, but I'll add some ginger or cinnamon sticks to it.


The sour dough seems to be doing great.  I've never made it before so I'm just going by what others have on their blogs.

My tea owl.  Just because she's cute.

Who doesn't need another new skill? Next up....Sourdough

Awhile back I listened to the podcast (linked below) and have had discussions about sourdough in the live chats.  Sourdough has been on my 'to do' list for awhile.  I just haven't done it.  Who doesn't need one more thing to keep track of and one more thing to add to the top of the refridgerator?  A friend asked yesturday if I wanted to do this with her.  So sure!  I finally started the sourdough starter.  Today is day 2 so it's just a rest day.  This is the first time I've ever done sourdough.  I bake bread all the time.  The old school kneeding and rising way, the bread machine way, and the no kneed bread that just rises in the pan and gets baked way.  I've mastered the other ways.  Time to add another skill during this coronavirus quarenteen.  I'll have to adjust days maybe so the kombucha and sourdough aren't done on the same day during the summer.  

If you have time, the podcasts are a great thing to listen to.  Search prepper broadcasting network on youtube, stitcher, or itunes.  The one I linked here is youtube.   

Quarantine birthdays

So far we've had one birthday during flu month and two birthdays during this coronavirus deal. This is how we "go to the movies" these days.  On the xbox.  Good thing I ordered the new couch before shtf!  Everyone has somewhere to sit now.  

Happy birthday, kids.  We'll do something fun this summer when (or maybe if) the coronavirus takes a break.  

Kombucha and seed starts

Kombucha is expensive to buy in the store.  A friend sent me a scoby and starter so I could make my own.  Best thing that happened in 2020 so far!  The bottles in the store run $3.99 and up in the store here.  So I was spending a ridiculous amount of money every week.  Now I haven't bought any from the store for a month.  So far I've done second ferments with blueberries, rapberries, cinnamon, and ginger.  The cinnamon was extra strong, but good. The others were awesome.  I have the big tea jar surrounded by one of my heated plant mats for now.  It's what I had so I used it and it's worked well.  Maybe too well.  I've read that it can take 2 weeks to get it how you want it to taste.  Mine is about 10 days.  Then just two days for the second ferment.  I've gotten great bubbles and what seems like a really good scoby both times.  Even started a tiny scoby hotel.









My girls like to buy cactus plants.  They're pretty low maintenance.  This one is growing little shoots already.















The pink celery from Baker Creek Seeds are growing good.  Celery from the garden doesn't have that nasty chemical taste that the store bought celery does.  I don't use chemicals on them so they taste like celery is supposed to taste.  Celery is kind of a picky grower.  It takes a good bit of care.


The cabbage is quickly out growing the flat.  This is a longer growing cabbage.  I really want cabbage so I started a few early.  I wont start the short growing varieties until the end of the month.



The youngest likes to help water the flats. He gets a spray bottle so he doesn't drown them out.

No April Fools joke

I've always hated April fools day stuff.  People always take it way too far.

So no jokes from me today. 

We drove up to Dordt to get K's things from the dorm.  They needed everyone to move out asap so they could use it for quarentine areas.  It was a sad afternoon.  Here's hoping the kids can get back to college in August!

We played some soccer and set up the volleyball net.  It got way to windy for the net so we'll set it up again another day.  The girls want to keep practicing their volleyball skills so it'll get lots of use.

I'm exhausted. Time to listen to I Am Liberty's show tonight on Prepper Broadcasting Network. 

Btw- if you're still looking for tp, Walmart still doesn't have any.