(VIDEO) September Homestead Hangout
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This is our Homestead Hangout for September. It’s part of a series where we update you on all of the highlights that have happened in the last month on our own homestead. A lot of our content is “how-to” stuff while this gives you a glimpse into our world.
Watch “September Homestead Hangout” on YouTube >
You may have noticed we didn't put out a lot of content over the last month. That's because we were busy taking advantage of the last good weather for this year for projects on and off the homestead. We've got lots to share, so let's get started!
OUTDOORS & WILDLIFE
Early in September we went to visit family on Whidbey, which is a large island in Puget Sound, about 2 hours from our homestead. We spent a full day watching wildlife, walking the beach, and eating local seafood.
September marks the beginning of the fall mushroom hunting season, and this month Julie and I took two trips into the woods to seek Chanterelles and other edible mushrooms.
Our first trip netted a handful of mushrooms, but after a bit of rain, our second trip was much more successful. On the second trip we were finding mushrooms almost everywhere we looked, and soon our bags were actually starting to feel a bit heavy as we made our way around the steep forest slopes.
But Chanterelles weren't our only target. We were also looking for Sparassiss, also known as Cauliflower Mushrooms. Julie managed to find one, and was very excited to harvest it and add it to her bag.
Even the non-edible fungi we were finding were interesting and beautiful to look at, like this artist's conch.
We also had a few wildlife encounters in the forest including being checked out by a curious Douglas Squirrel, meeting a very wary banana slug, and one other very special encounter.
After an intense debate we decided to leave the poop behind, but we did come home with a crapload of mushrooms.
We cooked some right away. I sautéed some as an odoeuvre, while Julie lightly cooked some for use in other recipes. The next morning I cooked up the cauliflower mushrooms and scrambled them into eggs. They were delicious!
If you are thinking about getting into mushroom hunting, please do your research. There are a lot of mushrooms that look alike and while some are delicious, others may be highly toxic. Nothing presented here is meant to be a guide to mushroom identification.
Deer again made regular appearances on our trail cams in September as they continued to sample plants in the beds outside our main garden. Our fencing has continued to be an adequate deterrent to them sampling the plants we don't want them to eat inside the garden.
The deer fawns seen in the August Homestead Hangout have lost their spots and they are beginning to be more independent from their mothers... Although they still follow mom's lead when danger is detected.
We did have one animal breach our garden fence and it was the cottontail rabbit seen here in the lower right inside the fence. We're pretty sure he squeezed through a weak spot in the wire around one of the garden gates. Julie escorted him out, you'll see him run off to the left here in a moment, and we will reinforce the weak spot to prevent him or other rabbits from returning.
Our neighborhood opossum is still regularly traveling the trail through our woods, and we're still seeing what we believe is the same cottontail from the August hangout. We thought we might have seen the last of him after catching this glimpse of a bobcat shortly after the rabbit was filmed, but a day or two later he was back and looking just fine.
We also caught a Stellers Jay looking for a good place to cache a hazelnut. He kept putting it down, covering it, and then picking it back up again as if he was paranoid someone else was going to find it. In reality he might not even remember where he hid it, and if he doesn't, then we might have a brand new hazelnut tree growing on our homestead in a year or two.
In one of our earlier hangouts we found a pile of feathers that I believed were from a bird killed by a Cooper's Hawk. Well, this month we caught a Cooper's Hawk on the trail cam just 15 feet away from that kill site.
Toward the end of September we caught several coyotes on the trail cam who we believe are growing in their winter coats. Their tails were almost too bushy to be believed, and their coats looked a little less sleek than their summer attire. We know many people fear or loathe coyotes, but we are not among them. When we hear them singing in the woods at night we are always happy to know they are out there. They are very welcome on our homestead.
As we move into fall migration some wild animals will be leaving our homestead while others will arrive. We'll continue to do our best to make this a safe haven for them all.
HOME & CONSTRUCTION
In September we finally got a chance to tackle a kitchen project we've been wanting to do since we moved in, namely replacing the microwave over our stove with a proper vent hood. First we put a piece of plywood on the stove top to give us a solid surface to stand on, removed the microwave, and took down a cabinet. It all went pretty smoothly, and Emmet, the on site supervisor was very impressed. But once we put the cabinet back up. attached the hood, and started cutting holes to run the duct work, he quickly retreated to a less noisy location.
We continued to do things with power tools that may or may not have made a licensed contractor cringe. It took a bit of work but we eventually punched a hole through our outside wall and got the pipe and vent in place without doing any permanent structural damage.
FOOD & DRINK
And the hood not only looks better than the old microwave, it works great. We are now able to actually cook meals without setting off the smoke alarm which is a vast improvement to our quality of life.
GROW & TEND
It's now been one year since we put in the stock tank garden. After grappling with soil issues all spring and summer, we think we finally devised a solution. More on how we did it later. These bean roots agree; the nitrogen fixing nodules are a sign that our soil health is improving. We'll leave them in the tank to provide nutrients for the next crop.
While cleaning up the summer plants and preparing for fall plantings, we realized we had overlooked a summer squash. This round Italian variety is best eaten fresh when it's small. Since we missed that window we cut it up in slices that we dehydrated into chips.
As part of our soil experiments, we didn't implement any of the solutions on the Back 40, our patio garden, or in the greenhouse, and the results showed. The soil remained pretty dry and lifeless, leading to the same qualities in most of the crops. This was most evident in our tomatoes.
We ended up with blossom end rot in many of our tomatoes. There are many causes for this problem, including uneven watering. Since we know our soil was an issue and we found split tomatoes, a classic sign of uneven watering, we are guessing that's probably the cause of the rot. We managed to save a few tomatoes, but in the end decided to pull and compost all the plants in September.
While this was a disappointment, we decided to take the lessons we've learned this year and improve. As you may recall, we think some of our issues stem from soil and straw that were contaminated with herbicides. So our solution started with strong compost. We found a local company that heats theirs high enough to breakdown herbicides and pathogens.
We felt so much hope seeing a big beautiful pile of rich compost in the driveway! We applied this as a mulch to our perimeter garden. Then in the stock tanks we replaced the top layer of existing soil with compost before mixing it in and adding seeds. We planted some old favorites, like Dragon's Tongue Mustard and some new varieties, like Portuguese Kale.
While we can never know what the future holds, we look forward to another season of growing and learning with our garden.
Looking Back and Looking Ahead
So there you go, that's what we've been up to the last month. But unlike the bear you saw in the video, we aren't going into hibernation. We've got some exciting projects in the works and look forward to sharing them with you in upcoming homestead hangouts.
