BIG Plans {Friday Five}

What's going on behind the computer these days? Planning, saving, measuring, and more planning. In the coming few months, our little homestead will undergo a lot of changes. Here's what's going on:

Kitchen Renovation Underway - When Uncle Leonard, our personal contractor-like friend, suggests moving up the start date for the big gut and replace kitchen project, we had to say yes. Mid-April is now early April, which means supply purchases begin now. In four weeks we will (pending no big surprises) be cooking with gas! Gas! I can't wait to fix our dysfunctional kitchen. I'll share specific plans and our strategy for quick renovations soon.

Mudroom Finishing - Uncle Leonard will tease us endlessly unless we finish the mudroom before he arrives in a few weeks. Afterall, he was instrumental in building it...in July... We'll be drywalling, painting, and adding gutters this weekend. Oh, and clearing out the garage so we have room to store the kitchen supplies as they're purchased

Ponds and Swales - The front plot where we'll plant Swainway Urban Farm produce has some water issues. We debated an agricultural tile system but that seems to be throwing away a potential resource. Instead, we're going to try digging two small ponds with a series of swales to direct and hold water. We will plant the edges in water-loving habitat flowers and grasses.

Move the Chicken Yard - Our chickens need more space to roam further away from the main garden. We're going to give them a big portion of the yard in a shady area that isn't ideal for planting. I think we're finally going to invest in portable electric fencing so that we can change the shape of their yard as other projects reveal themselves.

Low Mow - Alex is thrilled that I want to mow a lot less this year. We'll keep enough grass mowed for kids to run in and baby trees to survive, but we want to let a lot more grow wild. The wild will be managed be seeding flowers and incorporating native transplants. Less fuel wasted, more wildlife habitat, and less work - why didn't we think of this last year?

Of course, we're still seeding greens and roots in the hoop house, potatoes and peas outside, and tending seedlings inside. And celebrating Pi Day. And teaching classes, working with Swainway Urban Farm, and occaisionally tending shop at City Folk's. And making freezer food for the week or so we'll be without a kitchen. Busy days.

What are your BIG Plans?

BIG Plans {Friday Five}

What's going on behind the computer these days? Planning, saving, measuring, and more planning. In the coming few months, our little homestead will undergo a lot of changes. Here's what's going on:

Kitchen Renovation Underway - When Uncle Leonard, our personal contractor-like friend, suggests moving up the start date for the big gut and replace kitchen project, we had to say yes. Mid-April is now early April, which means supply purchases begin now. In four weeks we will (pending no big surprises) be cooking with gas! Gas! I can't wait to fix our dysfunctional kitchen. I'll share specific plans and our strategy for quick renovations soon.

Mudroom Finishing - Uncle Leonard will tease us endlessly unless we finish the mudroom before he arrives in a few weeks. Afterall, he was instrumental in building it...in July... We'll be drywalling, painting, and adding gutters this weekend. Oh, and clearing out the garage so we have room to store the kitchen supplies as they're purchased

Ponds and Swales - The front plot where we'll plant Swainway Urban Farm produce has some water issues. We debated an agricultural tile system but that seems to be throwing away a potential resource. Instead, we're going to try digging two small ponds with a series of swales to direct and hold water. We will plant the edges in water-loving habitat flowers and grasses.

Move the Chicken Yard - Our chickens need more space to roam further away from the main garden. We're going to give them a big portion of the yard in a shady area that isn't ideal for planting. I think we're finally going to invest in portable electric fencing so that we can change the shape of their yard as other projects reveal themselves.

Low Mow - Alex is thrilled that I want to mow a lot less this year. We'll keep enough grass mowed for kids to run in and baby trees to survive, but we want to let a lot more grow wild. The wild will be managed be seeding flowers and incorporating native transplants. Less fuel wasted, more wildlife habitat, and less work - why didn't we think of this last year?

Of course, we're still seeding greens and roots in the hoop house, potatoes and peas outside, and tending seedlings inside. And celebrating Pi Day. And teaching classes, working with Swainway Urban Farm, and occaisionally tending shop at City Folk's. And making freezer food for the week or so we'll be without a kitchen. Busy days.

What are your BIG Plans?

Heating With A Woodstove

We bought a woodstove at Menard's on clearance last spring. In October, Kicking Ash installed it for us. Heating with a woodstove is a romantic homesteading ideal and we do enjoy it. But today I thought I'd uncover some of the not-so-fun reality:

1. The hearth will be messy. Keeping a fire roaring requires moving and adding logs every few hours and clearing out ashes every couple days. This will necessitate sweeping at least every other day, something that annoys my lazy housekeeping self.

2. The entrance to your home will also be messy. We store a week's worth of kindling in the not-quite-finished mudroom and bring in bigger logs daily. Every movement of wood fuel creates a trail of sawdust, bark, and leaves.

3. The air will be dry dry dry. After getting by with an open stainless dish of water for a little while, I found a large vintage cast aluminum tea kettle that we now keep filled with water to humidify the air.

4. Your daughter might see wood ash and a slate hearth as an art medium. Her kitten might erase all the images with a swish of his tail. Now the kitten will be, you guessed it, messy.

5. Your pets will gather as close as possible to the radiating warmth. This is charming and you will feel sorry that you have to disturb them to add another log to the fire.

6. You will underestimate the amount of wood you need for a given day or week or season and be out at the woodpile chopping in all weather. Splitting logs is good, empowering exercise. It's also a never-ending exhaustive task.

7. You will feel deep satisfaction from harvesting renewable fuel and using it to fill your home with beautiful warmth.

Heating With A Woodstove

We bought a woodstove at Menard's on clearance last spring. In October, Kicking Ash installed it for us. Heating with a woodstove is a romantic homesteading ideal and we do enjoy it. But today I thought I'd uncover some of the not-so-fun reality:

1. The hearth will be messy. Keeping a fire roaring requires moving and adding logs every few hours and clearing out ashes every couple days. This will necessitate sweeping at least every other day, something that annoys my lazy housekeeping self.

2. The entrance to your home will also be messy. We store a week's worth of kindling in the not-quite-finished mudroom and bring in bigger logs daily. Every movement of wood fuel creates a trail of sawdust, bark, and leaves.

3. The air will be dry dry dry. After getting by with an open stainless dish of water for a little while, I found a large vintage cast aluminum tea kettle that we now keep filled with water to humidify the air.

4. Your daughter might see wood ash and a slate hearth as an art medium. Her kitten might erase all the images with a swish of his tail. Now the kitten will be, you guessed it, messy.

5. Your pets will gather as close as possible to the radiating warmth. This is charming and you will feel sorry that you have to disturb them to add another log to the fire.

6. You will underestimate the amount of wood you need for a given day or week or season and be out at the woodpile chopping in all weather. Splitting logs is good, empowering exercise. It's also a never-ending exhaustive task.

7. You will feel deep satisfaction from harvesting renewable fuel and using it to fill your home with beautiful warmth.

Announcing City Folk's Ground Swell!

I'm excited to spread the news about a project that's been simmering for more than six months. Shawn of City Folk's Farm Shop* approached me in the early spring about an idea to create a 'school' of sorts for homesteading. We worked on the concept, recruited a few other experienced homesteaders, and came up with City Folk's Ground Swell. Ground Swell will be a nine-month long project to inspire and educate a small group of mentees running February - November 2014. Our goal is to expand the homesteading community and recognition for efforts towards sustainable living in central Ohio.

Mentees will take classes at the shop (also open to the public), participate in group discussions, and work on special projects with the mentor families. In exchange, they will receive guidance from mentors, discounts at City Folk's, and the opportunity to re-skill themselves in keeping house, growing and preserving food, and weaving a sustainable community.

Our family is part of the mentor team alongside Joseph and Jen of Swainway Urban Farm, permaculturists Milo and Elizabeth, and Blue Rock Station's Annie and Jay. We're participating because we want a bigger community of serious gardeners, pantry-fillers, and eco-friendly folks to share and learn with.

We're looking for mentees who want to be part of the inaugural class of City Folk's Ground Swell. I know Harmonious Homestead readers are people who have what it takes to challenge themselves with the support of the mentor team - learn more and apply to be a mentee! Applications are due by January 30.

*Full disclosure: I help Shawn with social media, communications, and occasionally work in the shop as a paid consultant.

Good Enough & Latkes {Recipe}

At the beginning of November, I made a goal to post once a day for National Blog Posting Month. You could say that I failed, because I only wrote here eleven times in the last thirty days. One of the reasons I couldn't find the energy to post more often is that Lil is struggling with self-confidence and decision-making, requiring intense parenting effort. She's a smart, active only child in a family of first borns. And while some people think the effects of birth order are debatable, Alex, Lil, and I embody the typical characteristics of first children - we are all fiercely independent folks with perfectionist tendencies. When things don't go as we expect, we become frustrated. Alex stomps and slams, I give up and stew, Lil cries.

To help Lil, and ourselves, we're all working to adopt an attitude of 'good enough', especially about things we can't control. The library didn't have the book she wants - what's available that is 'good enough'? Wood isn't dry enough to reliably start a roaring fire - what can we use to make a 'good enough' blaze? My vision of a dyed silk scarf* didn't turn out - how can I over dye or embellish to make a 'good enough' piece?

In the new light of 'good enough' I recognize that my eleven blog posts in November is almost twice as much as my monthly posting average for first ten months of 2013. I may not have met the goal, but I feel successful because I published eleven articles.

I hoped to cook, photograph, and write our latke recipe in mid-November so that you might be inspired to make them for Hanukkah. We're four nights in now, but that leaves four more nights for you to consider making potato pancakes - the timing of this recipe is 'good enough'.

We've been making latkes during Hanukkah for several years now. The crispy, savory cakes require no special ingredients beyond what most home cooks keep stocked in the pantry. We pan fry ours in about an inch of oil which is neither as messy or greasy as deep frying. Latkes are traditional during the Hanukkah season because the oil honors the eight nights of lamp oil that the Maccabees considered a miracle, but there's no reason not to make these at any time of year.

Homemade Latkes

Makes: 3 dozen Time: 45 minutes

1 large sweet potato 8 russet potatoes 2 medium onions 5 large eggs 1 cup flour 1 teaspoon kosher salt + additional for dusting 10-20 grinds fresh black pepper 1-2 quarts olive, canola, or other frying oil applesauce and sour cream, optional for serving

1. Peel sweet potato. Shred russet (peel if you like but we don't), sweet potatoes, and onions with a box grater or food processor. The food processor creates lovely long shreds but our model has a bunch of safety features that make the process lengthy. Reason number thirteen that I dislike the food processor. If you want to do this ahead of time, place shredded potatoes under cold water for up to eight hours. 2. Pour off any liquid. Press and pour off more liquid if possible. 3. Whisk eggs until foamy. Mix in flour, salt, and pepper. Pour over potatoes and onions and stir until combined. 4. Meanwhile, heat 1 inch oil until one string of potato sizzles and fries to golden brown in a wide, heavy-bottomed pan. 5. With your hands, press approximately 1/2 cup of the potato mixture into a disc. Place gently in the hot oil. Cook for two minutes and then flip. Continue cooking until bottom is browned. You may cook multiple latkes at once but do not crowd the pan or oil will cool and latkes will become greasy. 6. Remove from oil and drain on a wire rack over a cookie sheet. Dust with salt. Place cookie sheet in a 200 degree F oven to keep warm while frying further batches. 7. Serve warm with traditional accompaniments of sour cream and applesauce if desired.

*I'm leading a silk dying workshop this Tuesday at City Folk's Farm Shop. Please join me to learn simple techniques to custom color handkerchiefs, playsilks, and scarves while making a sample to take home.

Tupperware Season-Serve {One Great Tool}

I can hear you out there. "Tupperware, Rachel, really?" you're saying. But hear me out because this one item reduced our household's plastic freezer bag consumption by a huge amount - and is useful for storing other items too.

Alex used to use gallon bags constantly to cure meat - pork bellies for bacon, marinating jerky, and salmon in rub. Often after the meat was cooked, he used another bag to store it in the fridge or freezer. The waste really added up, but even I won't re-use plastic bags that hold raw meat.

Then I went to a party at my friend Patti's house with Dee W. Ieye, the fabulous cross-dressing Tupperware mega-seller. The show was, as advertised, a riot. I'm not really a Tupperware girl but I perked up when Dee mentioned a marinating container.

The Tupperware Season-Serve is two deep plastic pans, each of which is lined with small raised dots that hold meat slightly off the bottom. The pans seal together, forming a container that can be flipped without spilling - exactly what you need to do once a day for most charcuterie.

We've used the Season-Serve for a few months now and it is everything I had hoped - it holds meat juices without spilling, is easy to stack in the fridge, and has saved at least a box of freezer bags so far. If you, like me, find yourself in a Tupperware party hosted by an over-the-top faux-Southern lady, order the Season-Serve. Or skip the show and buy one online.

And Then There Was A Mudroom

When we bought our house, the back porch was this concrete slab with a wooden railing. Here, our home inspector is standing on it.

We didn't initially expect it, but the back door became our main entrance to the house. The door enters into the kitchen, which means that dirty feet and coats had no place to live and I began to dream of a mudroom.

I mentioned this idea to Uncle Leonard, home renovator extraordinaire, about a year ago. He called in July and said "I'm thinking about coming up to work on the mudroom for Alex's birthday." Who was I to refuse help to make a renovation dream come true?

So it was that in the hottest month of the summer, mere days before a Japanese exchange student arrived, that Alex and Leonard put up some walls. "How many windows do you want?" Len wanted to know. "A wall of them?" I answered and the next day they were installed. Sometimes even I am amazed at how our crazy life rolls along.

Our exchange student Yukari arrived in time to see the roof installed, one day before a big birthday gathering for Alex. She took the noise and construction dust in stride and even climbed up to the roof, seen in the picture above at right.

Finally in early August, the mudroom got a door, another window and a third side. It was a real room, the first wood-framed structure Alex had a hand in building. And that's when construction halted. The mudroom was functional so we started filling it with 'stuff' - shoes and boots, coats, seeds, harvested vegetables and more. I dried herbs and peppers on the windows.

The remaining finish work inside will happen....someday... I envision drywall behind the coats and on the roof, an updated light fixture, and bead board below the windows. We'll build or buy shelves for storage along the window wall.

In the meantime, we love having an overhang when we're unlocking the door. Now that it's cooler, we can use the mudroom as semi-cellar storage. The room also creates a valuable air pocket that makes our home more energy efficient.

Thanks, Uncle Len a.k.a. Krash, for jumpstarting the mudroom!