Out of the Box

25 articles
The First Milking

The First Milking

Welp, it's official...we have decided to move forward with the goat milking gig and yesterday afternoon was our first shot at it!The agreement is that we will milk twice a week (on Saturdays and Wednesdays) with the understanding that 1) we will give two weeks notice if we (or she) will be out of town to ensure milking is covered…
October 21, 2012

Possible Goat Milking Gig

Last weekend, while browsing Craigslist, Tool Lady found a posting titled "Goat Milking Gig".  So, she asked if it sounded like a good idea, and of course, I said yes!  After a few emails and phone calls, it was decided that we should meet, check each other out, check the set up out and get a little tutorial on goat…
October 19, 2012
Winter Tomatoes – Coming Inside

Winter Tomatoes – Coming Inside

Can one actually grow tomatoes inside throughout the winter?  Well, I guess we'll find out soon enough, ha?So far, the process has been fairly painless...the cuttings rooted well, transplanted fine and even recovered enough in the last month to put out some new growth and several little flowers! So, with the cooler evenings (and treats of frost) we brought in…
October 10, 2012
The Season of Preservation

The Season of Preservation

I started off the Season of Preservation with the best of intentions.  I created an excel spreadsheet and planned on updating it each time we canned an item.  This being only our second year of preserving anything, I was very excited about learning how to preserve a small variety of new-to-us items using both our water bath canner and our…
September 26, 2012
Winter Tomatoes, continued

Winter Tomatoes, continued

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned my hope/goal of growing some winter tomatoes throughout the cold months.  Well, here's the progress so far...On August 13th I took 3 cuttings from each cherry tomato (a bi-color cherry and a small sweet cherry), trimmed them of their bottom leaves and placed them in a 5 gallon bucket about 1/2 full with…
September 12, 2012
Winter Tomatoes

Winter Tomatoes

While grocery shopping last weekend I decided to treat myself to the latest Mother Earth News Wiser Living series.  Inside, I found an article about growing tomatoes throughout the winter and knew that I would just have to try it! Last year I had hoped to still have tomatoes for Thanksgiving, but that didn't happen as they all ripened up…
August 2, 2012