Wise Women's Ways

As the harvest seasons comes to an end, one of the last projects we do here on the homestead before the snow flies, is to get the horseradish dug and processed. When I moved here to the homestead over 23 years ago, the horseradish has pretty much taken over the garden area. From years of tilling and only harvesting small amounts it had flourished and spread. I began moving the bits and pieces of root to the end of the garden in rows as we tilled each spring. Even though it is still in the garden, it is a small area and is managed by picking the root pieces out each spring after tilling. It only takes a small piece of root for the plant to take hold and grow. I love having my three long rows of transplanted plants at the end of the garden. It is easy to harvest and not scattered among the other vegetables like it had been growing before. Thankfully we still had the mini backhoe (from hubby's work that we've been using for other projects) here and my hubby dug up enough for two...

While picking apples at the Holmes we discovered Walnuts! I found quite a few resources on processing these gems! This resource and link from Arlene Wright-Correll explains a number of uses and how to process them. What I was looking for was how to make Walnut Ink. Here is another resource from an Artist on how he made the ink. I already knew I was going to make an Extract and had done that before...which I'll share in another blog post. Yes! Wear gloves. My pair had a little crack in one of the fingers and I had a stain for about a week. I cut all of the green hull off of the nut. This hull is what I used for the Ink and the Extract. I cut the hulls off since I am going to make an Extract as well and also plan on planting the nut. I would like to have my very own source on our property! The link is from the U of M and being a Master Gardener, I am always happy to share the excellent resources and information there. ...

There are a few botanicals that I wild craft each fall. One is the staghorn sumac Rhus typhina . Countryside Magazine has a well written article for a thorough reference to read. This is one of my favorite magazines of all and I've learned more from this magazine than any other. This is for seasoned to newbie homesteaders and the BEST resource. Here in Minnesota we usually get a frost in the middle of September. This year it was a little earlier and here on our homestead where our land is lowland near the Mississippi we had two hard frost in a row...hmmm was that around the 15th I think. My parents living just outside of Brainerd, did not get a frost that week. Our first outing which was the week after the frost, was on the backroad to Cuyuna. We (Francine, myself and my youngest son Remington) collected a good amount for a healthy batch of tea, but many of the berries had started drying out already. A few days later, Rem and myself went back and turned off the main road we h...

Tuesday night I finally was able to attend my Dyed in the Wool Spinners meeting for the first time since spring.  We meet once a month and the gals in the group bring their spinning wheels or other projects, and we all visit and share ideas.  I'm working on spinning up a latte-colored brown sheep wool into a fine, sport weight yarn for a shawl I saw on the knitter's website Ravelry. I love the feel of working with natural fibers like sheep wool, alpaca or angora.  Wool doesn't come ready to spin, however.  When it comes off the sheep it's dirty and full of lanolin.  The first thing you have to do is wash it, usually in warm water and dish detergent.  It has to be laid out to dry naturally or it will felt up into a big mess! After its dried it has to be combed out.  You can do it by hand with hand carders (which look like giant dog brushes) or by a drum carder which stretches the wool over a toothed round drum and combs it out as you turn the wh...

Lots of different stuff going on this time of year! Over the years I've learned to be a multi-tasker and out of necessity get a lot of projects done in this very short harvest season in Minnesota. Living on an old established homestead has taught me how to live in and with the seasons of the year. Actually it's always a very busy time, no matter what season it is. So, harvest time here must be prioritized. I'll snatch moments for more fun things like wild crafting...but when the tomatoes are ready...they've got to be "done up". I'm almost done with the canning. Just a couple more batches of "Convenience" to do. I had a very adequate crop of tomatoes this year. Yeah! Last year was not so good and we ran out of everything by mid-summer. As you can see I had some monster tomatoes! Most of the tomatoes we grow are heirloom. We save seeds for next year's growing season. This year we grew Brandywine, Italian Roma, German Pink, and Long Tom. W...