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Countryside Contributor
Articles by Countryside Contributor
Mullein, Not Just a Common Weed
You will find mullein, a woolly-leafed, tall-stemmed biannual, along roadsides, in meadows, and riparian corridors throughout the United States and Canada.
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DIY Rotel-Style Tomatoes and Fish House Relish
Do you ever end up with so many tomatoes that you start running out of ideas of what to use them for? Worry no more!
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You Can Be a Watering Expert
Each species presents their own unique challenges when it comes to keeping them happy and healthy, but there’s one thing they all have in common — the dependence on fresh, clean water.
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How to Add Calcium to Soil
Ensuring your soils have an adequate level of available calcium should be an essential part of your field fertilization practices for several reasons. Here’s why and how to add calcium to soil on your homestead.
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Diagnosing and Treating Hardware Disease in Cattle
Cattle occasionally swallow foreign material such as pieces of wire chopped up by a baler. Hardware disease in cattle occurs when a sharp object penetrates the gut lining and damages some other organ or creates peritonitis (infection within the abdomen).
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Growing Sweet Basil: Don’t Let Good Basil Go Bad
Do you have any experience growing sweet basil? I’ve had a lot of success in growing herbs outdoors, but growing basil has always been our most successful crop.
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DIY Yellow Jacket Trap
Imagine it’s noontime on the farm and your family is ready to enjoy a great lunch outside. The plates are full and the view is postcard gorgeous. But, oh no! They are back!
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Prevent Sheep Bloat by Managing Your Flock
“What does a bloated sheep look like?” was the question on the phone late Sunday evening. The question brought back some nightmarish images to my mind from the first time I saw sheep bloat:
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5 Tips to Developing a Permaculture Food Forest
Food forests, also known as edible permaculture forest gardens, are growing in popularity worldwide. A food forest is taking the old-fashioned monocrop orchard and adding many more layers of utility to it, while making it more self-contained and lower maintenance.
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Collecting Wild Mushrooms
Collecting wild mushrooms is a fascinating hobby rewarding us with tasty wild food. Nature’s bounty is endless.
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Growing a Traditional Victory Garden
During WWI and WW2 the vast majority of people grew some of their own food. It was not only expected, it was patriotic and a symbol of helping to win the war.
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5 Best Rural Rice Recipes
Rice is extremely versatile and a rice recipe can go with just about any cuisine. According to Ricepedia, more than half of the world’s population (or 3.5 billion people) derive 20% of their daily calorie intake from rice — and for good reason.
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Cooking with the Sun
Do you enjoy cooking outdoors? Then stretch those outdoor living skills by cooking with solar energy.
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Sheep Giving Birth: Tips for Successful Lambing
Over the past 12 lambing seasons, the main thing the sheep giving birth has taught me is that every season will bring a new lesson. I’ll never forget meeting a seasoned shepherd with 50 years of lambing behind him who told me that he still learns something new every year.
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Shed or Pasture Lambing
The muffled, deep Maaa of a ewe “talking” to her newborn lambs reaches my ears before I open the barn door. Newborn lambs nursing, tails whirling, makes walking to the barn on frigid mornings worthwhile.
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