Spring is in the Air at the Homestead

With a week or two of beautiful 60 degree weather, it certainly makes one feel hopeful that Spring is on the way. We have had our share of snow this past year and even had a white Christmas, which I am thankful for. Hopefully all the cold snow has nourished the ground with moisture and killed a lot of the pests we see in the garden.

I decided to grow a sunflower patch beside the house where it gets lots of morning sun.  Since we don't directly eat the sunflowers, we added lots of organic rabbit poo to fertilize the soil.  Country Boy tilled it in (above).



Main Garden



We also plowed up the main garden and I planted my pea patch.  Nothing is coming up in the pea patch yet, so I have already purchased more seed and plan to replant when the rain lets up and the ground is dry enough.  If plowed too soon after a rain, the only thing that will get it back into shape is the freezing of winter.  So plowing too soon will only ruin the soil until next year and I don't want to take that chance.



My pea patch

















In a portion of the yard, nothing, not even grass grows. So I decided to utilize that area as well. A local siding business gives away the pallets that once contained the siding. The pallets are untreated rough lumber, rectangular and are hollow. I am using these to make small beds in the area were nothing grows.

Poor Soil Area

 

Pallets with Hollow Bottoms

I am going to fill the boxes with a thick layer of newspaper to kill out anything growing.  (Nothing grows there, so that won't be a problem anyway.)  Next we will add soil level to the top of the box.  I plan to plant an asparagus bed, carrots, artichoke, lettuce, and radishes in these beds.  I will update the blog with photos when I get this done. 

Also, we are finally getting eggs.  These are our first eggs.  We get about four a day now. 

We have some new female rabbits or does.  We now have eight does and five of them are expecting.  We will be up to our ears in bunnies before long.  We are working on a "rabbit tractor" and I will update the blog with photos about it as well. 

That's about all that is going on here on Little Lily Acre Farm.  Hope you all are having an early Spring.

Grinding Rabbit Meat

We got our Nesco Professional Food Grinder and we got it at a great price.  With ground beef over $2 a pound, we plan on grinding chicken, turkey, pork and rabbit!  Please check out the video below for our operation and review of the meat grinder.

Go here to watch our Grinding Rabbit Meat video.

I will tell you that we are very happy with our grinder.  It is very sturdy and has a huge 5 lb hopper.  It ground the meat effortlessly, although it was a bit noisy.  We are very pleased with it and think anyone would be.

We had rabbit burgers this afternoon.  We treat our rabbits with love and kindness, which is more than we can say for animal meat that you find in the market.  It is very low cost.  We feed our rabbits rabbit food and will be putting them on the ground to eat grasses with their food.  But the rabbits are helping to pay for themselves. We have sold two litters and it helps to buy the feed.  And, what we don't sell, we process for free food.

Also, as I stated in the video, CSN Stores gave us a gift certificate off one of their products for this review.  We could have purchased something cheaper and got it for free, but we got this for nearly half off.  I couldn't be happier.  Contact CSN Stores and see if they would like for you to review a product on your blog.  Couldn't hurt and it certainly helps you to get things for your homestead.

Product Review Preview - CSN Stores

I have been invited by CSN stores to review one of their products.  If you haven't ever visited one of their online stores, they have  wide variety of items, from swing sets to green houses and so much more.

I'll be back to do a review of the product that I have selected from them.  Be sure to keep an eye out for it!

Preparedness Radio Network, Blogtv and Youtube

Lately, I have been trying to soak up all the information I can.  I have discovered three sources of information on the Internet.  Youtube, Preparedness Radio Network on Blogtalkradio and Blogtv.  

Youtube is the oldest of the three.  And if you are a visual learner, like me, this is a great resource.  I have found that I can go to Youtube and search for almost anything and learn something on the subject.  Of course, the information is only as good as the informant.  You can run across some weird things there, but there is good information to be found.  My washer was not working properly and I searched for a video and was able to keep it going.

  

Check out my channel for a couple of videos.  More to come when the weather breaks. 

http://www.youtube.com/user/PreparedHousehold?feature=mhum  Also, check out my subscribers, they have a lot of good info to get you started.  

Another good resource is the Preparedness Radio Network on Blogtalkradio.  Show after show of information to help you prepare, homestead, etc. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/doctorprepper 

I have listened to shows on gardening, food storage...you name it.    I highly recommend it. 

If you sign up to be notified or "follow" the shows, you will receive an email.  Click on the link and listen live.  There is a live chat room where you can chat with like-minded people.  You can ask the show host questions and receive answers.  You can also listen to previous shows.  I have a widget on my blog to the left and you can click on it and listen while you read.  A good source of information.

A new kid on the block is Blogtv.  It is hard to search for preppers or homesteaders, you just have to know about them.  I have started having shows on Tuesday nights at 8 pm eastern.  http://www.blogtv.com/People/PreparedHousehold .  Subscribe and you will emailed when a show starts.  We have talked about personal disasters and gardening so far.  Another good channel is http://www.blogtv.com/People/americangamefowl

So, come join the fun.  You can learn and collaborate with like minded individuals.  

So, as always...be prepared.