countryside
Dairy Sheep – Consider Icelandic Sheep
What struck me right away when my first Icelandic sheep lambed were the similarities that these sheep had with dairy goats. I had a commercial goat dairy in years past and these ewe lamb mothers had udders that would be respectable for a good milking dairy goat.
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Get An Early Start With Carrots
Carrots are one of the most versatile vegetables I grow in my garden. We plant them once a month through spring, and again after Labor Day. Except during summer’s intense heat, I harvest a continuous supply for salads or for cooking.
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Know Your Firewood Moisture Content
Knowing firewood moisture content can make the difference between creating steam or heat. Most folks agree that water doesn’t burn, not unless you break H2O down into H and O, both of which are highly flammable, and that doesn’t happen in your stove or furnace.
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Cold Weather Tips for Raising Hogs for Meat
Cold weather requires some planning for any homesteader raising hogs for meat. In the area of proper nutrition, thought and extra effort must be given to available supplies of fresh ice-free water at all times for all classes of hogs—the piglet, the weanling, growing/finishing, gestating and the lactating sow.
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What You Can, and Can’t, Can
Just about anything you would grow in your garden may be preserved by canning. Only a few foods cannot be safely canned at all, some may be canned in one form but not another, and still others don’t hold up well under the prolonged heat of processing.
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Milkweed Plant: A Truly Remarkable Wild Vegetable
Milkweed plant isn’t your average weed; in fact, I feel guilty calling it a weed at all. The common milkweed, Asclepias syriacqa, is one of the best known wild plants in North America.
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Summer Green Smoothie Recipes
Whether making a green smoothie or adding summer greens to a fruit smoothie, these blended concoctions are healthy and revitalizing.
The last year or so of high school through college, a close group of friends and I would go rollerblading or bike riding along the river.
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Improving Soil with Cattle and The Best Green Manure Crops
Holistic grazing and the best green manure crops naturally improve soil. Add legumes or rotational cattle grazing to revitalize land.
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Countryside Theme of the Week
Each week on Instagram, @iamcountryside features a different theme and encourages homesteaders to play along with the fun and informative homesteading-based themes. Follow along with #countrysidethemeoftheweek.
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The Joy of Growing Horseradish (It’s Great With Almost Anything!)
Add to Favorites By Sue Robishaw – Cold-climate gardeners can boast few crops that prefer their freezing winter abode, but the sturdy horseradish not only prefers it that way, it requires …
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Finnsheep are the Perfect Fiber Animals
Add to Favorites By Mary O’Malley, Honeysuckle Farm johnandmaryomalley@yahoo.com An ancient variety, Finnsheep are both meat- and wool-yielding animals. Finnish sheep characteristics have been bred for thousands of years. Stentorp—the farm …
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Why a PTO Slip Clutch Needs to Make Your Farm Tools List
Add to Favorites Anyone who owns a proper farm tractor will tell you two things: they’re indispensable and they’re expensive to fix. I recently pursued a quote for repairs on …
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How to Store Firewood: Try Low-Cost, High-Efficiency Racks
Add to Favorites By Ed McClearen, Fleetwood, North Carolina – One thing we have in abundance here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina is firewood. Last winter, we …
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Wild Plant Identification: Foraging for Edible Weeds
Add to Favorites On a sleepy Sunday afternoon, on the grounds of an ex-horse stable, Nate Chetelat presents a wild plant identification tour for a local gardening group. The focus …
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Safely Limbing and Bucking Wood
Add to Favorites By Ben Hoffman Bucking wood isn’t as easy as it looks. Learn how to limb a tree and buck wood safely. Many country folks buy their firewood in long …
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