We have lots of walnuts on this property. I’ve been around walnut trees most of my life and have tried to eat them a few times with no luck. Why didn’t the walnuts I picked up in the backyard taste like the ones you bought in the store? Well, first of all I didn’t know [...]
Today I had a chance to do some foraging for other items around the yard. Even though all of the apples are gone (I think the nearby walnut trees are killing the apple trees; we’ll fix that) for the year, there are plenty of left-over things to eat. In a previous post I mentioned all [...]
Our friend Lydia sent us a link to an NPR story about a couple who created a washing-machine cider press after reading this Mother Earth News article about making The Maytag Cider Press. WOW, great idea! Has anyone tried this? I’d like to give it a shot, but neither the NPR clip, nor the MOE [...]
When it comes to technology I am pretty old school. I’m still using CD’s, still not carrying a cell phone, and not until a few backs did I ever send a text! But, I’ve broken new ground….. I’ve been wanting an Ipod Touch for a few years now but never could justify the cost. I [...]
This makes the second-time I’ve seen a hummingbird moth (actually third since there were two this time) on our front porch. They seem to love our as-yet-unidentified wildflowers out there. Hummingbird Moths are pretty cool creatures. They look like a baby hummingbird at first, and fly like one too. But if you look closely you’ll [...]
The bad news is that getting hit with a falling chestnut is like having a small porcupine dropped onto your head from ten feet above. The good news is we have all the chestnuts we can eat and they are raining down like manna from heaven! I picked chestnuts on a small market farm in [...]
A quiet moment as Waylon naps and Missy tests out the boat… The boat was made by Sherwin, the previous owner, and is mostly just used to clean out the drain pipe in the middle of the pond. But it makes a nice little joyride now and then too.
We didn’t move to the new place until most of the garden was gone, but there are still some roma tomatoes, lots of bolted basil and a few pepper plants still producing. I even found some forgotten onions when mowing down the cover-crop. Although we won’t have the pretty stocked shelves of multicolored canning jars [...]
My friend recently let me “store” his all-grain beer making equipment. We were brewing a batch of beer one evening not long after he dropped it off and I had the idea this setup would for be perfect for canning. So, today was the day to put up some ‘sauce and I couldn’t wait to [...]
We left our chickens at the old place since the buyer wanted them and we figured we could always get more (and we will). But for right now we are learning that, in terms of scrap food disposal, fish are our new chickens… As you can see in the video, our little pond has an [...]
We believe that humankind has lost some important things in the march toward progress. That is not to say progress and simplicity are mutually exclusive. We believe we can have both, and this site catalogs our journey as we try to do exactly that.
The Transplants
Missy & Everett
TreeStone Farm
Tommy
The Old-Timers
Coming Soon
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The Urban Homesteaders
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The Minimalists
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