our ochre way | a homesteading blog about gardening, farming, and permaculture in north carolina

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homestead wedding tips: how to make your own fun, funky, and cheap food and cocktails tables!

October 8, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

our wedding was last weekend (wow! we can’t believe it’s already over!), and so much of what we accomplished was due to our re-usage of many things that we already had at our home. we were determined to get through or wedding without spending too much, and i think we were successful!

we had 2 parts to our wedding: a pre-reception here at our house that led right into the ceremony and a true reception at a separate location about 20 minutes from our house. we served snacks and beverages at our house before the ceremony, and wanted to have cocktail tables set around the yard near the garden beds for people to put their drinks on. we also decided that we wanted to put pictures of jason and i as kids on each table to encourage folks to move around the garden and see the different crops and areas of the yard.

first of all, we needed a table to use for serving the snacks, but we did not want to buy another folding table and the three folding tables that my parents were letting us borrow were already to be for the reception food and dessert tables. i remembered that a door that we took down from our upstairs hallway was being stored, unused in the basement. 4 high bar stools later and that same table laid down flat on top of the stools, we had a table! a sturdy, free table! add some bolts of fabric borrowed from my mom, this pieced-together table looked very presentable and very “us.”

photo by Jenny Tenney Photography

here is the table… back in the basement and without its table cloth

the cocktail tables were also simple and fun to make. we chose our prettiest 2 plastic rain barrels, turned them upside down, and added an old sign and an old table top that we found in our woods as we were cleaning up for the wedding! more fabric from the same bolt on top, and a lovely wooden vase made by my father to keep the fabric from blowing off just in case of wind, and you’ve got a unique and free cocktail table perfect for a homestead wedding!

photo by Jenny Tenney Photography

another table that held the water cooler and cups was really more bolts of fabric on top of an old washing machine! you never would have guessed!

needless to say… it is definitely possible to create tables and seats (more on this later!) from materials you have around your homestead. and, if you are anything like us, you’ll love making creative, memorable, and cheap surfaces for your wedding guests to use as tables!

.:.

Lobster of the Woods: Cooking Lion’s Mane Mushroom

October 7, 2014 / jason / 6 Comments

After researching our lion’s mane mushroom find, Emma and I felt safe enough to harvest the mushrooms and eat them. But what is the best way to cook and enjoy a lion’s mane? Well it seems that the internet agrees that frying them in butter until browned is the best way to experience their delicate texture, and lobster like flavor. Sounds good to us!

Lion’s Mane Mushrooms are both a delicacy and a medicinal powerhouse

After cutting the mushrooms off close to the bark of the standing dead tree, we trimmed off some of the dirtier pieces, and shook off any remaining debris. We then sliced the mushrooms and started heating up some butter on the stove.

Sliced Lion’s Mane, ready to be fried in butter and garlic

To the melted butter we added a few cloves of chopped garlic to infuse a little more flavor into the dish. Once the butter was nice and hot, in went the sliced mushrooms.

The hairs crisp up, while the mushroom absorbs the butter! Yum!

We gave them a good fry on each side, and because the mushrooms are so absorbent and soaked up so much of the butter, we needed to add more butter to the pan.

Nice and browned, these lion’s mane mushrooms have a delicate seafoody flavor and amazing texture.

After about 3-5 minutes, it was time for the first taste test! Delicious! The lobster/scallop flavor was not as intense as I expected, but rather a subtle and interesting note. We figured out that the mushrooms had absorbed a little too much butter, and so we pressed some out of them with paper towels. This made a big difference and allowed us to experience more of the unique texture of the lion’s mane. It’s hard to explain, but the contrasts between the hairs, and the almost rubbery texture of the inside makes for an amazing culinary experience.

This batch was a little over. The hairs were very crisp, but the delicate flavor was overwhelmed.

We fried the mushrooms in batches, and our last batch was a little over done. Lesson learned, don’t overcook these mushrooms. The flavors and textures are subtle and delicate. Nothing more is needed than a quick saute, and a pinch of salt. Well, maybe a glass of wine too.

discovering lion’s mane mushrooms in our woods: a video

October 6, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

as jason mentioned in his post yesterday, we’ve discovered two lion’s mane mushrooms growing wild in our woods, on a dead oak tree, overlooking the large pond and the gully.

here is the video that we filmed shortly after discovering this amazing find!

can’t wait to eat them! yum!

.:.

A Great Woodland Surprise! The Lion’s Mane Mushroom

October 5, 2014 / jason / 2 Comments

Today in the woods, while walking the dog, emma and I stumbled across something great. It was there, perched on the side of a dying tree in our woods, 2 lion’s mane mushrooms in all their glory. Lion’s Mane (Hericium erinaceus), was one the mushrooms we considered when we began our mushroom growing operation. Although we ended up deciding on growing shitake mushrooms on logs, the legendary buttery textured and lobster flavored lion’s mane was one we dearly wanted to try.

Lion’s mane mushroom growing on a standing dead tree in the wild

So, you can imagine or delight when emma saw these two white orbs growing out of the side of a tree. Our shitake logs are not yet fruiting and we’ve been itching to eat some mushrooms. We recognized the mushrooms as lion’s mane, but when it comes to mushrooms, you can never be too careful. We headed back t the house, and after consulting both the internet and a mushroom field guide. We learned that lion’s mane mushroom have no look-a-likes, and we were able to confirm these wonderful delicacy as safe and edible. This is very important if you ever consider foraging for mushrooms, the need to be 100 % certain before eating any wild mushroom.

the lion’s mane mushroom is very distinctive and doesn’t have any look-a-likes

We will be headed back out tomorrow to harvest these mushrooms, and will most likely saute them in butter with garlic, the method that seems to bring out their rich flavor the best. Stay tuned for updates, and keep your eyes peeled when you are out and about for edible delicacies!

a chicken gets a spa vacation!

October 3, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

after the whirlwind of the wedding, i noticed that one of our bantam hens didn’t look so great. after i fed the chickens one day, i could see that she acted a little skittish around the others while everyone was eating, and her feathers looked patchy, revealing her bare skin on some places. based on her behavior, i expected that she was being picked on by the others (particularly the bantams). she didn’t seem confident enough to search out the more delicious scraps of food, and looked around the whole time she ate as though she expected to get jumped.

every now and again, one of the bantams will become an outcast for a little while, and i haven’t yet figured out why. there are certainly some dominant hens that peck at others if they want them out of the way while they’re eating, but i hadn’t seen this particular hen run up against any trouble.

look at bren’s pretty feather pattern!

i decided to catch her and put her in solitary, the way we did with sola, a chicken so named for her sad, single tail feather. catching bren was easy. she was inside the house and it was simple to corner her and get her in the net. she struggled so much, though, that it took me a little while to untangle her. once she was caught, i was finally able to examine her feather problem. first of all, she looked healthy under all of the missing feathers. she didn’t appear to have mites or any cuts or open wounds. it is possible that she’d pulled out her own feathers so she could sit on eggs, but i hadn’t yet seen her sitting on a nest, so i wasn’t sure about that. where her feathers were missing, some were growing back, and since her feathers are dark, you can really see the way that feathers grow: emerging from the hard, clear tip of the feather like a flower opening its bloom!

bren’s bare breast

bren’s feathers begin to return on her neck and chest…

for now, just to keep an eye on her, bren is in a cage by herself in the carport. i consider this the chicken spa since she gets all the food and water she wants and doesn’t get picked on at all (if that was the problem). we’ll let her spend some time in there until she grows some feathers back and then we’ll reintroduce her to the flock and see if things get a little better for her. for now, all she has to worry about is that big black dog that likes to jump at her cage as he walks by and that black cat who thinks that sleeping on top of the chicken cage is fun.

bren, enjoying her time in the chicken spa

.:.

wedding symbols continue…

October 1, 2014 / Emma / 5 Comments

as jason and i were walking around in the yard yesterday and looking at things, i noticed that a little special something was still out in the yard. we cleaned up what we thought was everything from the wedding on sunday, but i discovered a symbolic element that was left behind, becoming more meaningful since it was the last wedding remnant left.

the sun sets over our surprise…

our champagne glasses, given to us as a pair by my mother and filled with champagne by jason’s mother, were still sitting on a hidden wooden log together right beside where we took our after-wedding pictures. those are the glasses that we raised as jason’s mom toasted to our new, exciting life together, and although we drank some of the champagne for the toast, i suppose we were forced to set the glasses down while taking pictures. there they sat for three nights and three days, until we stumbled upon them again.

sounds like a scene from a fairy tale, doesn’t it? a fairy tale that ends with a magically blessed life made even sweeter by two untouched chalices, that withstood a trinity of days and nights and remained unbroken, still holding the memory of that very special toast!

what a perfect pair… solidarity!

.:.

Compost! A Gardener’s Best Friend

September 30, 2014 / jason / Comments Off

One surefire way to improve soil health, life and fertility is with compost. Compost is essentially human created humus, decomposed organic matter teeming with beneficial microbial activity. The recipe for compost involves acquiring enough organic material to start a heap, maintaining a good moisture content, and then turning it to add air to the equation. Compost not only provides nutrients like Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosphate, but it also provides a healthy dose of the bacteria and fungi that help plants utilize and acquire what they need from the soil.

Our compost pile, the perfect soil conditioner for the homestead or garden.

I started a compost pile the other day when I had a surplus of bagged plant material laying around from work,in addition to fresh grass clippings from our wedding preparations.These count as greens in the composting world, or things that are high in nitrogen. Other greens would be animal manures, legume hay, blood meal, and food scraps. The ratio I was shooting for was 1/3 greens to 2/3 browns. Browns are anything high in carbon, like paper, wood, sawdust, straw, or bagged leaves from fall cleanups. The key to good composting is waiting until you have enough material to make a pile that is at least 1 cubic yard in volume. This insulates the pile, helping to maintain the high temperatures needed to break down your organic material while minimizing losses to off gassing.

I layered my browns and greens, and added water after each layer. I wanted to have the pile wet, but not dripping or soaked. Roughly around the moisture content of a sponge you just squeezed the water out of. This aids the microbial breakdown, while keeping the pile from getting too anaerobic. After I had a pile that was up to my shoulders, I let it sit for 4 days. After 4 days,it was time for the first turn, and I grabbed my pitch fork and fluffed layers from the pile to an open space right next to it, adding water if it seemed too dry. It was nice and steamy, which let me know that the process was working!

Today, 3 days later, I turned it once more and added some leftover stale beer to feed the microbes a little more. From this point on I’ll turn it every 2 days, and after 2-3 weeks, we should have roughly a cubic yard of black gold,ready for the garden or for a wonderfully complex brew of compost tea!

our (ochre) wedding on the homestead was a success!

September 29, 2014 / our ochre way / 5 Comments

we’re back!

finally our posting will return to our normal 5-posts-a-week-schedule since we’ve gotten married!

two days ago we got hitched in the backyard, and there will certainly be more information coming soon about just how we pulled it off!

thanks so much to the many who pitched in and helped us out on our big day (which was everyone who came!!!). we appreciate all of the well wishes and we are overwhelmed with gratitude and joy.

it was a great, emotional day, and now our married life begins!

homestead wedding prep to do lists

September 12, 2014 / our ochre way / 3 Comments

we’d like to say that we’re sorry for posting irregularly the last few weeks. although we wish we had time to post every day, we’ve got a pretty good excuse…

non-stop wedding preparations!

exciting but very busy. a lot has been going on around here on the homestead–too much honestly to explain right now–but we can give you a simple lowdown of what important “to do”s we’ve got coming up this weekend before we say “we do” on the 27th.

here’s what’s in store for this weekend:

hanging more mood lighting (i.e. christmas lights) in the basement since we’ll be using the space for the rehearsal dinner and before and after the ceremony.
cleaning out the carport (which has lately the become the reject section for stuff that we’re not quite sure what to do with) and relocating a lot of the plants we have in the carport.
painting a portion of our basement wall sky blue. this is part of our wedding “guest book.” more on this later!
making emma’s garter which is the “something blue.”
writing and printing our wedding program (which we’re calling a leaflet in honor of the fall color scheme). we’re really excited about this one and can’t wait to share what we’ve done with this!
designing and making emma’s “veil”… which is much cooler than a traditional veil.
meeting our hay bale delivery tomorrow (55 bales) and storing the bales. these will seats at the wedding!
working on our party favors.
weeding and pruning our garden beds and herb bed.
killing yellow jacket nests that are right by where we plan to get married!
choosing and cutting fabric to wrap our bench boards in and wrapping them. also, choosing all of our tablecloth material.

so that’s where we stand right now! we hope that we can get back into the swing of writing every week day, but we’re just not sure if we’ll have the time. if we don’t, we will certainly start back up on monday, september 29th (after the big day!).

wish us luck!

.:.

loads of peppers and tomatoes

September 8, 2014 / Emma / Comments Off

after what seemed like a very long and tiresome weekend, we were finally able to get back out in the garden and do some much needed picking!

our black plum and san marzano paste tomatoes are doing really well right now, and some of our cherokee purples are still making it.

also, the jalapenos have kicked off to an unbelievable degree (i got 20 large ones from one plant yesterday, still leaving tons of medium-sized and smaller ones)!

some of the cayennes were ripe and also some of our aji peppers (a delicious pepper that jason and i learned to love while we were in peru).

my heavy picking basket, filled with tomatoes, peppers, and some basil.

after picking,i estimated that i got about 20 pounds of these ingredients all together. i made a blended up, salsa-like concoction that we’ve frozen to use in sops and pastes in the future. it’s probably very spicy (considering the amount of jalapenos in it), so it will have to be added to other ingredients when we cook with it.

yum!

.:.

KW Homestead

Pasture Raised Poultry & Edible Landscaping Plants Since 2013