Enjoy the slide show.... Bee Balm's brilliant display reminds us of fire works, it blooms just in time for celebrating! 

Hope y'all have a wonderful weekend full of great fellowship, food and fun! 
Blessings -
​The West Ladies

Hope y’all are having a beautiful, productive spring!  We are enjoying the fresh lettuce & greens from the garden. We have beets, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, kale, lambsquarter, chickweed, cucumbers, cilantro, garlic, dill, onions, potatoes, and a few other plants and herbs planted out in our early garden.
This is our first spring living at our new little homestead! We are putting a lot of attention on our garden and hope to do a lot of canning, fermenting, drying and eating fresh from the bounty!
 We have enjoyed it so much!  With planting our cool weather plants, working in our mini green house, making new raised beds, Cold frames, putting up gates and putting in raspberries, and more- we have been joyfully busy! It has been a lot of fun taking some pictures we thought y'all might enjoy! We will even share the how-to’s on a few ideas we had and thought you might like to try them  yourself.

I  found two of these nicely-made vine baskets at a thrift store, then I found the flowering plant combo at a garden center for only a couple of dollars. After Mothers Day plants and seeds are many times reduced in price (of course you could grow your own flowers by starting very early and keeping and tending to them in a green house till it warms up enough). By just sitting the container of flowers right in the basket -it made a beautiful and instant center piece for an outdoor table before guests arrive!  This bright bouquet is still giving us joy and can be planted in the garden too! 
We are raising our own zinnias from seed I just planted about a fifty foot row (where blueberries will go this fall, after the Zinnias are through blooming.
I love to grow the California Giant Zinnias - they get huge and grow well in our clay soil! These colorful beauties make wonderful bouquets too! Check out my Youtube video about growing Zinnias! ​

Another fun idea for spring time gifts like Mothers Day or  summer get togethers or if you just want to brighten a corner on the porch or even inside the home is to 
 find a six or four pack of small zinnias or begonias or some other small but bright flower 
 (you may want to by several of these packs, depending on the amount you wish to work with)
Put a single flower plant in a Peat Pot (3”or so ) covering roots with a light potting soil(water lightly so pots don't get to soggy)
We've put these small sweet little flower pots in baskets, tins and other cute containers.
We even made these for “name tags” at the meal table by using one peat pot of flowers, if you like, tie jute around  the out side of the pot with a cute bow, write one name on one craft stick - then push the craft stick  down in the soil of the flower pot  with the name showing ! They are so cute and you can even send them home with your family, friends or guests! Let them know that when they get home, they can dig a  little hole and plant pot and all in their garden, if they want!

Back in  February we started sweet potato slips indoors, by putting an organic sweet potato in a wide mouth jar with water. Toothpicks  stuck in middle of sweet potato help hold it just so that the sweet potato is half in water and half out. Soon little shoots appeared on the top portion of the potato. When they have  grew out enough, we gently pulled them off the potato and placed the shoots in their own smaller jar of water. We left the sweet potato in its jar to make more slips. After the shoots or slips grew nice roots we planted them in the cold frame to keep them very warm and growing till time (when it's really warm cause sweet potatoes love the heat!) to plant out in the garden. This worked very well for us !  
This could also be a great learning- by-doing project to get your children involved in-they will love watching and helping these beautiful plants grow. They may also learn as they harvest the potatoes from the ground that growing their own food is something they can do and that come time for supper sweet potatoes taste very good!

This morning we planted the last of the sweet potato slips in our early garden & out in our sunny-warm weather garden we planted Yellow Watermelon and Roma Tomatoes that we started by seed. They are growing very nice and healthy, we are thankful!. Speaking of vegetables ….
A wonderful way to preserve and prepare many easy to grow veggies is by fermenting! (Now, our veggies weren't ready for harvest yet so we purchased some organic cabbage, carrots, etc from a local farm stand- you could do the same!)
The process is fairly simple and the food, once its ready, is so good and  very healthy for you!
Fermenting vegetables helps to keep your food fresh without freezing or canning! Which is really handy for us off-griders It is an age old, proven art of ”putting food by.” Fermented food contains many enzymes, nutrients, and probiotics. This super-food is so good for your digestion and builds your friendly bacteria that is so helpful for your body’s health. Ferments are just full of life! A book that I refer to often and keep on hand, this time of year is called-
Keeping Foods Fresh-Old World Techniques and Recipes!

We love this book! It also contains great methods of preserving by means of keeping vegtables and fruits in honey, oil, salt, sugar, vinegar and by drying. If you love and enjoy the taste of your gardens bounty, you'll love this book!

 Here is a great ferment/kraut recipe that we were introduced to lately, we made up a batch a couple of weeks ago and have been enjoying it every day since!
Use organic ingredients-this is a BIG batch yielding approx. 5 quarts- we fired up the generator & used our food processor to shred everything & the juicer for the celery. 
Juice 1 Bunch of Celery
Shred the following Veggies:
2 medium heads of Cabbage (save a few outer leaves for later)
15 large Carrots
1 large Golden Beet
1 Granny Smith Apple
1 bunch Parsley
1/2 bunch Cilantro
4 inch piece of Ginger
1 bulb of Garlic (yes the whole bundle of cloves-garlic helps the fermentation process start)
You can add a jalapeño if you like!
In a LARGE bowl, mix all the shredded vegetables (& apple!) together and add 1/4 teaspoon of liquid Kyolic Garlic and the Celery juice, mix thoroughly.
Pack the vegetables (and juices) into quart jars, leaving 1/2 inch of head space. Place a cabbage leaf over the top of the packed vegetables, tucking it into the jar, put the lids on loosely so it can breathe. Keep in a cool, dry, dark place for 7 days (we put the jars in a roaster pan to catch any bubbling juices), then your ferments/kraut is ready! Store in a cold place like a refrigerator or a cooler with ice- this slows down the fermenting process. The ferments/Kraut will keep for up to 3 months.

Another book we have learned about fermenting from is- Ferment Your Vegetables A Fun and Flavorful Guide to Making Your Own Pickles, Kimchi, Kraut, and More 
by Amanda Feifer

Hope y'all enjoy these recipe and ideas, until next time, may you have a blessed weekend!
Vicki 

Hello! We'd like to introduce y'all to Tansy- Tyler & Cecilia's baby girl! 

A friend, Jan came over one day several years back and her baby, Joey, was wearing the cutest bib! She said it was her favorite bib of all! Jan let us trace off a pattern and we've been making them ever since! They are fast and easy and make excellent gifts or craft fair items. We use flannel receiving blankets (you could use new or other fabric as well) from thrift stores, yard sales or if you have extra from a baby shower, turn them into bibs.  
Here are some simple instructions along with photos so you can make these easy bibs too!
Collect and iron blankets or fabric.
Make a pattern, using the measurements in the photos ( be sure to add 1/2" seam allowance), onto news paper or butcher paper.
Cut out 2 pieces, a front & a back. We like to use coordinating fabrics.
Pin right sides together and sew using a 1/2" seam allowance, starting on the side. Leave a 3" hole for turning.
Make release cuts around neck, turn right side out & iron.
Whip or top stitch hole shut.
Sew on velcro or a button & button hole.
Then you can blanket stitch or top stitch around the bib.
These are reversible too!
Sew Cute- Sew Fun!

Well gotta go check the fire and get supper going! Until next time....
The West Ladies

Howdy everyone! Hope y'all are staying warm & enjoying this winter season! Here are some pictures we wanted to share!

These are  just a few of the projects we've been busy with! We are enjoying this time to get some organizing done before seed planting time! 
Thank you for the wonderful, encouraging comments- we enjoy hearing from you!
 Many times throughout the day we pause and think of how we are so thankful for each of the donations that you all gave to make this house a possibility- we LOVE our home- THANK YOU!!
The West Ladies

Hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful fall!
We are so busy with fall doin's that we are almost as busy as if it were spring!
Wow! We have been enjoying a very warm fall which makes it nice for our cool weather plants giving them a great start! And our flowers from summer are still blooming! The Zinnas & Cosmos are still giving us beautiful, sweet bouquets for our home & to share with friends & neighbors! 
The temperatures are still low at night which gives us a good reason to start up the Kitchen Queen wood cook stove! Yay! It's so warm and cozy in our new little home! Besides cooking our food our wonderful wood stove has water pipes running through the fire box which heats our water - hot water in the faucets, yay! We've also got comfrey and other herbs hanging over the warm stove to dry. How grateful we are for our Kitchen Queen!

 Another wonderful blessing of Fall is Persimmons! There are two large Persimmon trees here, how thankful we are to be able to harvest these sweet fruits. Easy pickings if you can beat the critters that love 'em too! I soon found out  our dog Fleck is also very found of them if I'm not fast enough he gets full and I go away with an empty basket! Jasmine has been making persimmon pudding that is extremely easy &  so yummy and healthy!
Persimmon Pudding
*Fresh Persimmons
*Cinnamon
*Fresh Cream
*Vanilla (make your own with the recipe from The Homestead Blessings Cookbook)
Cap persimmons & rinse, then mash them through a colander or sieve. Compost or feed seeds to the animals! Add Cinnamon to taste. In another bowl, whip the cream & add a splash of  vanilla. Serve the pudding in small bowls or ramekins & top with an equal amount of the whipped cream! This is best chilled.

  This year we are trying a different method for planting garlic.  First we filled the furrows (10" apart) with "dirt" from our worm beds & fresh compost! Then we planted the cloves 8-10" apart in the hopes of harvesting large bulbs next summer. 

 I've been trying my hand at wattle fences! It takes a lot of time but is so rewarding to be able to weave a border for our garden beds with natural materials from the homestead!
First we head down to the creek to collect willow branches. It's a beautiful, sunny, warm day, leaves are blowing & the creek is way colder now, but it's an enjoyable task! Then on to the garden to begin the wattle!

These are a few fall happenings on our little homestead! Enjoy this Thankful season!
Blessings-
Vicki for the West Ladies