Pallet Wood Potting Table

Hey all!
We hope everyone is enjoying the early days of spring!  We're starting to see some "greening up" around here, so that gets me really fired up about our veggie garden! Over the past few weeks, Julie and I explored some up-cycle plans for a potting table for our garden.  We finally settled on an idea using pallets.  It just so happens that Julie had a pallet connection.  Believe it or not, the husband of one of the gals Julie works with owns a pallet building and refurbishing business.  For $30, we purchased 10 85lb pallets from him.  We started by ripping some of the pallets apart and piecing together a table.  We ultimately used 2 pallets, 2 1/2 in deck screws, and a weathered oak stain.  Here's the finished product!

Next up, we are going to attempt a bench and a porch swing.

Thanks for reading!
chris

Walking on Medicine

Greetings,

Kim Lusk, a really good friend of mine, and an Oconee county native, is beginning a book about natural remedies using wild edibles.  Her knowledge of local natural remedies is really interesting to me, especially in a society that is quick to grab the medicine bottle.  In fact, many of her relatives were sought out during the writing of the Foxfire books for their "mountain know-how."  Needless to say, she knows her stuff.  I have really enjoyed learning from the "Green Witch".  :)

Below is a rough draft of her introduction to her book.  Hopefully, I can convince her to do a post or two on our blog regarding natural herbal and wild remedies.  In an effort to become more self-reliant, knowing how to take care of our own bodies with what is around us is very valuable information! Below is an exert from her book.

  Walking on our Medicine

     "Where others see weeds; I see nutrition. I see healing.  I see blessings from Father God and Mother Earth.  I see (and can already feel), my hands and feet in the earth---gathering and delighting in what has been given to us, if we would just take it.  In this endeavor I feel such thankfulness and joy, and pure unadulterated contentment.

     I am puzzled though, for how did we get so far away from our ancient and inherited memories?  Why did we start “taking pills” just because a doctor ordered it without even questioning the safety of such a thing?  Why did we just toss the “granny women/witches aside after they had treated and administered to us so patiently, successfully and steadfastly for ages?  Because some man who studied medicine ages ago said they knew best? Even though they had studied only cadavers? Even though they had never even attempted to treat an illness?  Medicine has definitely improved radically over time.  Yet, there are times, and they are many, when our healing can be achieved through the plants that have been given to us. Most importantly, our health can be achieved and thrive through these simple herbs/weeds that we walk upon, rip from the earth and poison.

     Back in the day, people relished the wild edibles to be found through their foraging efforts.

     But this took a drastic and detrimental turn during the 19th century industrialization.  Eating habits shifted towards white bread, beef, and processed foods. Good-bye health.

     People attitudes changed about dandelions, chickweed and other edible wild foods/weeds. These wild potherbs that were at one time relished by even the wealthy, fell to the low ranks of poverty food.

      What a shame---these wild edibles are packed full of nutrition, good “green” flavor and health!  They are free!  They are abundant! 

     As we look around us, we see how our health has diminished over the years.  Obesity is the norm.  We curse and pull up the very herbs from our yards that would add to and enrich our health. 

      I was fortunate, in that my papa was an “herbal medicine man”.  He treated many of our ailments from kidney stones, to upset stomachs, arthritis , etc. with his herbal medicinal.  Thank you papa (Clarence Leroy Lusk) for this heritage.

     As has been said many times…Food is our medicine, and we are what we eat."

Take Care,
Chris

Stick Arbor Finally Done

Over this past weekend, in spite of a pretty nasty bug I caught at work, we got the arbor knocked out on Sunday.  We ended up using two cedar fence posts for supports.  Julie's dad came and helped me out a bit on Saturday.  He had a great idea on using wire for the gate hinges, but they were just too heavy and started to sag shortly after we put them up.  So, we ended up having to buy hinges.  This put our total cost up a bit, but I believe it will stay up longer this way.  Here's a picture of the almost-completed arbor.

Julie did an awesome job with the River Birch branches.  The pictures we took after we finished up were too dark to post, but I'll be sure to post a picture over the next few days.  

chris

Stick Fence Weekend

Well, the fence is finally finished for the most part.  Just a few more sticks for the arbor and then build the gate and we are done with this thing!  Here are some pictures of the fence.  My folks got to come up on Sunday to help us wire it all together.  We ended up using 16 gauge re-bar wire to attach the sticks together.  In all, we used 44 8 ft. pieces and 616 4 ft. pieces for the pickets.  In all, this project cost us around $25 for the wire we used.  Not too bad if you ask me!!!!!! The greatest part to me was getting to work with my wife on this.  She really worked her tail off to help get this done.  She's something else!!!! It was also good to see the folks and work with my dad. Here's some pics from Sunday's progress:

The next step for us is to get our beds built.  We are going to use pallets to build the beds.  Also this week, I am going to get our soil tested.  This dirt hasn't been touched in many years; back when it was a cattle farm.  It will be interesting to see how good our dirt is.  

We also will be getting some seeding done this week.  We already have some tomatoes seeded that we got from Annie's Heirloom Seeds.  The kids have really helped with the seeding.  We will try and write some on that later this week.  

chris

Stick Fence Progress

After much debate, and several opinions from reliable folks, we have decided to just go with a wire method for our twig fence.  We'll just put these things up and wire them to the cross beams.  HOPEFULLY it will keep the critters out, including our two huskies.  My dad is coming up this weekend from Powdersville to help us get this thing put together.  I am excited about having him help.  He's good with this sort of thing, so I'm sure i'll learn a thing or two.  Here's a photo of what we want our fence to eventually look like.

Once we get our fence put together, we're gonna try different garden bed border ideas.  We've looked at using deadfall, which is plentiful around our property, using a wattle method, and even using pallets that are cut in half.  After that, it will be time to start laying this thing out.  We have all of our beds staked off and roped so we know they are measured correctly.
We're going to use this chart that I read on a really interesting blog Alternative Energy Gardning to lay out our beds.  Here's the chart:

Hopefully, we'll be posting some new pics on Monday with a completed fence!!!!!   Hopefully... ;)

thanks for readin,
chris

Operation Tree Cutting Complete

This weekend the plan was to get all of the trees cut for the garden fence. Well, 44 8' logs, 616 4' branches, 2 chainsaw blades, 1 pair of garden shoes, about 50 scrapes and cuts, and about 50 aching muscles later, the wood for the fence has been cut and measured!!  As exhausting as it was, the memories we made as a family have definitely made it all worth it. It's such an amazing feeling to know that we are using what the land provided to help sustain us. Seeing all 5 kids working together puts huge smiles on our faces. They are so proud of themselves, too. The next step is assembling the fence. If the weather is on our side, we will face that challenge next weekend. 

First Post

Welcome to our family blog!!!!  This blog is our story of how a big family can become more self-reliant in a world that makes everything so easy for us.  The purpose of our project is to teach our kids how to work the land, how to grow our own foods in our garden, how to look for wild food and how to raise our own chickens for eggs.  We are extremely excited for our kids to have this experience on a farm.
Currently, we own approx. 15 acres of land in the Picket Post area of Oconee County, South Carolina.  Julie and I married in May of last year.  We both have children from our first marriages.  Julie has triplets, two girls and a boy that are 9 years old, and another son that is 7.  I also have a 7 year old from my first marriage.  We have two dogs and two chickens currently.  (This was 7 until about a week ago, when the great chicken catastrophe occured in our front yard.... no fun)
Anyway, our long range plans for our farm is to develop an heirloom garden that is year round and allows us to become more self-reliant.  We also see the enormous benefit from just knowing where our food is coming from! 
We would GREATLY appreciate your input and advice, and thanks for reading!
chris