High 34 degrees  Low 8 degrees Clear with 6 inches of snow over night that began to melt in the late afternoon, becoming a solid sheet of ice in the evening.

I was recently asked to share my favorite fruit tree varieties here on the blog. My apologies for taking so long but now is the time of hard woodcuttings, seed starting, classes, and getting my SongCroft Naturals products in to the Grow Washington store. It has been a busy time (as always).

There was another reason for not getting right on listing the varieties I like, there are just so many.  I mean for some women, it’s shoes and purses or jewelry and perfume but for me, it’s plants and dirt. I just can’t get enough! So narrowing down my list was a bit hard and I must start by saying that there are plenty more varieties of fruit trees I love but these are the ones that made today’s list and each for their own reasons.

Apples are a mainstay in most of Americas diet. I grow a few different varieties and would grow even more if I had more room. When I choose a fruit it will be for flavor, characteristics, size, disease and/or pest resistance. Of course whether or not it survives in my area is a factor as well as what time it comes into fruit. The Chehalis Apple was discovered in Western Washington. It does well in a short season area with a lot of rain so it is a perfect fit for me.  Other favorites are Williams Pride, Akane, Winter Banana, Liberty, Spartan, Gravenstein and the columnars. Columnars are fun because of their unusual growth pattern and because they fit into pots or other small spaces. I do not care to buy varieties with multiple varieties, which have been grafted on since they are not usually very hardy and at least some of the grafts will usually fail.

Pears are great and I love to eat them fresh or canned. Most are not really great at being stored in a cellar but they are so good that they are worth it.  Bosc stores for a month or two and usually tastes better afterwards. Orca has been a reliable variety for me. It was discovered on Orcas Island, WA. which is also in Western WA. Bartletts are delicious fresh but do not store very well. They are great canners though! Red Bartletts are pretty.

Cherries are a challenge. Every time they come into season I feel a sense of anxiety since it’s the birds or me. I tried planting some for them too but they don’t seem to get the “some of them are for me” part.  Some folks say that the gold cherries are less bothered by the birds but I think the best eating are with the Vans, Stella and Lapin varieties. I like the dark cherries best!

I have grown peaches in the past. Frost has been reliable and abundant but only lasted about 12 years before petering out. From what I hear, this is normal. I now have an Avalon which is young and gave it’s first couple peaches last year. They were small but delicious. We’ll see what we get this year!

We have a Puget Gold Apricot that is growing like crazy, probably due to the autumn olive planted next to it (nitrogen fixer) but it hasn’t given any fruit yet. We are crossing our fingers that this will be the year.

As for Plums, Beauty is our hands-down favorite for fresh eating.  We discovered it while staying on the Bullock’s Farm on Orcas Island.  Sam had us pitch our tent right next to a tree and the kids were as happy as clams!  Italian plums are the best for preserving.

I hope that this is enough to get you started.  I am planning on expanding this to a much more detailed version for the newsletter.  I think it would be a helpful article for many.  I will be sure to mention which fruit is good for preserving in what way and which need to be eaten fresh.

Happy garden planning!

High 33   Low 20

Snowing with high winds!!!Whoohoo!

(If you want to learn even a little of what you are reading here, our apprenticeship program starts Jan. 15th. Last call for registration!)

http://songcroft.com/index.php/the-songcroft-school-of-self-sufficiency/

Folks email me all the time saying they get tired reading the list of things we do. Well, you might want to grab yourself a cup o’ tea and kick your feet up ‘cuz this is going to be a long one because I’m going to give a summary of 2010!

All in all, it was a good year in many aspects. We accomplished some of our goals and completely failed on others. Okay, failed is pretty harsh. We just didn’t get everything we wanted to get done done. I am sure we got more accomplished than the average bear since both Brian and I are ‘Type A’ Capricorns.

Our apprenticeship program filled up and we had 3 teens all year!

We had a successful Fish Camp here in conjunction with Wolf Camp.

We took a few camping trips as well as went to our favorite seasonal gathering.

The things we didn’t get done were due to a matter of lack of weather, money, time or energy. The early part of Spring was very wet.

When we went on a camping trip, the chickens got out and scratch up much of our garden beds. I replanted and got things under control, so I thought, and one of the kids didn’t latch the gate so the chickens rearranged everything again. It is amazing what they can do with my tidy little rows in an hour! Of course, they left the forest garden alone since it would’ve taken more effort to walk over there.

We lost part of our duck flock, we think to neighbor dogs, so we are down to just three. Our son was heartbroken when he found his pet duck “Blackfoot” dead in the field.

We sold lots and lots of eggs all Spring and Summer. That was a nice supplement to the family budget.

We also sold a few goat kids too. We got a lot of milk and enjoyed the cheese.

Brians workshop was built and we will finish it in the Spring.

Our cabin was transformed in to a classroom and manufacturing facility for our SongCroft Naturals Personal Care product line. (The ingredients are so safe I can use them on my babies!)

We grew a good garden that is still providing us with fresh vegetables. We had tomatoes until early December and ground cherries too!

I “put up” lots of canned meat, fruit and vegetables, pickles, kim chi, as well as dried fruits, herbs and vegetables too.

I caught two bee swarms and hived them.

We put in the forest garden in April and it’s looking good.

We are one year closer to harvesting asparagas!

So, to the coming year. What are our goals? Well this is what I have settled on:

1. Finish Brian’s shop!
2. Enjoy our apprentices
3. Launch SongCroft Naturals our all natural Personal Care Products and have a Farmers Market booth.
4. Grow a bountiful garden that is well and truly chicken proofed!!!
5. Have more of the family’s help with harvesting more often so our production stays up and our waste in minimal.
6. Preserve more foods and herbs than last year.
7. Learn to smoke different meats.
8. Clear the spot behind the cabin so I can plant new beds. I haven’t decided what to plant there yet though.
9. Plant an evergreen edible hedge on top of a berm to create privacy as well as more perennial food.
10. Plant an evergreen privacy screen near the road.
11. Make more soap than last year. We ran out and I got too busy to make more.
12. Plant more trees for firewood.
13. Which reminds me, reinforce the goats browse area.
14. Fix all of the little jobs like greenhouse door handle, hinges on the compost bins, etc…
15. Re-design the lower part of our land.
16. Build new hay storage.
17. Build a new rabbitry.
18. Expand the summer chicken yard from 16×30 to something like 30×30.
19. Host Farm Camp.
20. Host Illumina Girls Camp.
21. Host Fish Camp.
22. Camp more, play more
23. Sing more.
24. Dance more.
25. Breathe more consciously.

I hope you enjoyed reading our summary of 2010 and being witness to us setting goals for 2011. Somehow it makes it a little more of a commitment if others know that the goals are set. (Maybe I should mention the 10 pounds?)

Oh, and if you come by for a visit, feel free to roll your sleeve up!

Thanks for reading. Your comments are welcome. Please do share our blog with others that you think might be interested. Happy New Year!

High 61 Low 36      Overcast and gray with rain on and off

Registration for the SongCroft Self-Sufficiency Skills Course is now open. Register before it fills up! http://songcroft.com/index.php/the-songcroft-school-of-self-sufficiency/

Here is a video on rosehips that you might enjoy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzftj3kJkd0&feature=related

This week I spent most of one evening preserving rose hips. If you have never eaten rose hip preserves, you are really missing something special. I hope you will try them after reading this article!

Rose hips are a great perennial food crop that is higher in Vitamin C, iron, Vitamin A and calcium than oranges. In addition, rose hips are a rich source of bioflavanoids, pectin, Vitamin E, selenium, manganese, and the B-complex vitamins. Rose hips also contain trace amounts of magnesium, potassium, sulfur and silicon.

Depending on the weather and where you live, the hips are ripe in late August through September. This year was an extremely cool year so the hips ripened in October.Rose hips can be wild-harvested but it is important to not harvest from roadside bushes since contamination from heavy metals and other unsafe substances are likely to be present.

When ripe, they come off the stem with a slight tug. Processing them takes a lot of work. Rosa Rugosa hips average an inch and a half across and are the biggest rose hips that I am aware of.

Rose hips can be dried and used as tea, they can be used to make a delicious syrup and wine but my favorite way to preserve them in honey.

The method is simple: split and de-seed the hips. Be sure to remove all of the hairs. Pack lightly in to a glass jar and cover with honey. Use a chopstick to remove air pockets. Let sit overnight. You can use it the next morning or store in the refrigerator for later use.

Rosa Rugosa is the best variety for preserved rose hips. It is widely used as an ornamental plant. It originated in Asia but has been introduced to areas of Europe and North America. It has many common names, several of which refer to the fruit’s resemblance to a tomato, including beach tomato or sea tomato; salt spray rose and beach rose are others.

It is a deciduous shrub that grows between 4 and 6 feet. It’s branches grow from it’s base and are covered with many fine thorns. They grow fast and make a good hedge in a sunny location. Once established, they are very drought tolerant.

The sweet scented flowers are used to make pot-pourri in Japan and China, where it has been cultivated for about a thousand years It is valued by rose breeders for its considerable resistance to the diseases rose rust and rose black spot. It is also extremely tolerant of seaside salt spray and storms, commonly being the first shrub in from the coast. It is widely used in landscaping, being relatively tough and trouble-free. Needing little maintenance, it is suitable for planting in large numbers and makes great hedges.

Rosa Rugosa comes in a variety of shades from hot pink to white. The seeds removed when making rose hip preserves can be used for propagation but cuttings will get you faster results. For cuttings, look for stems that will break when gentle bent. Do not use old dry branches that break but have no life left in it. Snip off a 3 inches piece of branch and place it in a plastic bag with moist toweling around it. Leave it in the refrigerator for two days. Remove the branch from the refrigerator and place the end in soil. You could use rooting hormone bought from a nursery or not. Keep the cutting moist. Check for roots after five weeks and repot to a larger pot when necessary. If the cutting was done indoors, be sure to harden it off but placing it outside for a few mornings and bringing back in each evening. The cutting can be planted outdoors in the Spring after any risk of frost.

I hope you are inspired to try rose hips in a variety of different ways. We’d love to hear from you and learn new recipes and ways you use rosehips.

High 74     Low 49        Humidity-99% and overcast

http://songcroft.com/index.php/the-songcroft-school-of-self-sufficiency/

Click the link. Find out about our programs and classes!

Things have been busy here. There has been a lot of food preservation happening. We have hundreds of jars of tomatoes, peaches, pears, jams, salsa, chili sauce, saurkraut, pickled beets, and a large variety of pickles cucumbers and kim chi.

We will be putting apples and root vegetables in to cold storage very soon. The milk flow has slowed a bit but is still coming. The chickens are molting and laying a bit more sparse but are on their way back in to full swing.

The Apprentices from 2010 had their last class and are off to all sorts of things. There was a big canning party put on by some of the alumni! When the apprentices are organizing community canning events, I’d say that my time teaching was well spent!

I added a photo of them with their certificates of completion. Aren’t they cute!

I will be spending more time getting ready for the 2011 apprentices and transitioning to a new year. Registration has just opened for the 2011 program. People are already signing up. We’ve filled up for the past two years. If you want to take the course, now is the time to get registered!

I attended the Cascadia Transition Network Summit and the Northwest Permaculture Convergence. They were two very inspiring events with lots of “Cultural Creatives” in attendance. It gave a great opportunity for building transition networks.

One of my highlights of the weekend was spending time with a young man named Tim. He wasn’t actually attending the event. He was working there. We had some wonderful philosophical conversations and I got to teach him how to propagate herbs for his culinary explorations. I hope he caught the gardening bug!

Tim, if you read this, I hope you will remember our conversations. I hope to hear about the beautiful story you write for your life!

Among the many things happening in our lives is other transition of the cabin in to a learning center. We are opening our cabin up as a classroom for SongCroft and as a space for event rental. This will give us the ability to take more students as well as have more space for activities. We have hosted Doula trainings and other day events. This is a valuable and rare space to hold intimate sized classes in a rural setting.

We will also be making our products in the cabin and will soon have an online store. This is big news and quite the transition!

Thanks for stopping by. Please let us know how your Autumn is going. Please do let other folks know about us. We would love to hear from more folks!

The weather has changed and it feels like Autumn. The air is still warm but the rains are back. These rains are different than our summer rains. The energy is different. The sky is grey yet it is not a depressing landscape.

As I walked along the forest edge this morning, I enjoyed the many different types of moss. I could almost hear their “Ahhh…” as they took in the cool moisture both in the soil and in the air. The birds were twittering loudly so I could tell that something was passing through on the bottom of our land.

Today I will be at the Snohomish Farmers Market doing a presentation on Food Preservation. Folks who are interested in buying their peaches, tomatoes, pears and such will have a chance to ask questions before they go home and can or dry them. My hope is that those who weren’t thinking of preserving some of the local harvest will be inspired and purchase produce from the farmers while the market is still open. There are only two more market days this year!

If you want to find out more about home food preservation, come on by the market demo booth. I’ll be there, just like every other year, giving advice and sowing folks some of the possibilities for eating local!

If you can’t come by the booth, you can subscribe to our newsletter to get lots of information on similar topics.

http://songcroft.com/index.php/the-songcroft-self-sufficiency-newsletter/

High 75 Low 50       Absolutely beautiful clear blue sky!

It is late August and the winter vegetable garden has been planted. Broccoli, kale, cauliflower, collards, chard, beets, spinach, lettuces and more are all in the ground. The trick now is to keep them moist during our bursts of warm days and safe from slugs on our wet days, at least until they are larger and sturdier than they are now.

Winter gardening is for the moment, what I look forward to most in the garden. Don’t get me wrong, I love my garden year-round. The warmer seasons bring colorful flowers, berries and all types of heat-loving beings. I enjoy a homegrown tomato at least as much as the next girl but life is so busy in the summer with kids activities, campers staying on SongCroft, the milk flow and all that the slow paced winter garden is when I can really breathe.

Also, we are still in construction on various projects on our croft so we are often busy doing related projects on dry days.

There is also the fact that the Farmers Markets are booming with fresh local produce right now, at reasonable prices, but in the winter it will be hard to come by. Not many folks tend a winter vegetable garden here when prices go up to $3 a bunch for kale and little is locally sourced! I find winter gardening the most “bang for my buck.”

Yes, I am definitely a fan of winter gardens. I hope you have put yours in too!

You can watch the bees go in to the hive here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyulhSpe3z4&feature=channel

Some days I wake up thinking that I am going to get all of the things on my checklist done. I know that might seem like a tall order but I often come fairly close. Well, this morning I was up bright and early. I had a list and Brian was home with the kids. I was going to get a whole list of errands ran and chores done too!

Then I got a phone call from a friend.

Don’t get me wrong. This was not an unwanted call. In fact it was quite a pleasant surprise. This friend of ours, Alex, is a great guy and our entire family likes him (even though the kids have nicknamed him the Ringmaster of the Nerd Circus) But this morning Alex had a special problem that he called me to help him out with.

He had a colony of bees in his wall.

To make a long story short, I ended up bringing him my bee suit and a bee vacuum and talking him through the job. I left him to do it because he had to cut away a large portion of his wall.  In the end, poor Alex has a huge hole in his wall that he now has to repair but that isn’t even the most challenging part. He has to remove as much as he can of anything “bee” or he may end up with more bees or worse, wasps!

He brought the bees to me this evening. There must have been at least six pounds. They are all in the hive now and seem to be doing okay. The vacuum methods can stress the bees so I hope that they survive.  We are also not sure he got the queen. All I can do is wait. I will know within a day or so.

In the mean time, enjoy this video. I will update you with more as soon as I am able.

High 61 Low 45  Drizzly but warm. ( Our seedlings are loving this!)

Farm Camp

http://songcroft.com/index.php/farm-camp/

This month has been busy with all of the usually Spring chores of getting the cover crops turned in, garden planted, pullets out to forage, hens in their Spring/Summer home, goat kids birthed and settled in, does milked, cheese made, rabbits bred and the post-construction landscaping started, all the while enjoying the flush of green that has taken over our land.

Although these things have me excited, it’s Farm Camp that has been on my mind. In August we will be opening SongCroft up to those who would like to live and learn about how to run a family farm. This is so exciting that I am finding it hard to concentrate on other projects. We’re going to have a lot of fun!

You’ll experience instruction on dairy goats, chickens, ducks and rabbits as well as growing your produce year-round and preserving the harvest. Mushroom logs, the basics of permaculture, food forests, alternative energy and home arts are all part of the program. It’s great to read books and dream about living a more self-reliant lifestyle but it’s a rare opportunity to be welcomed on to a farm where you are able to learn and try things out for yourself!

Checked out the Farm Camp page. Tell us what you think, what you would most like to learn and if you intend to enroll don’t wait because space is limited.

High 51 Low 43 Misty morning with sunny afternoon

About a month ago, our family had a beautiful salmon dinner. As we were eating, my 9 year-old son Simon looked up from his plate and said, “Pretty soon Mama, I’m going to put the fish on your plate.” He said this in a deeper than usual voice and with all sincerity. He is my little man.

This Saturday was the opening of fishing season. The lakes in our area are clean and well stocked. Simon got his gear together and at 6 a.m. came in to our room to wake up his Daddy so they could “Get a move on.”

The two of them went off into the morning with sandwiches and fishing gear. They met up with our good friend Derrick, who Simon has decided is his best fishing buddy outside of his Dad. Simon just turned nine and was given a beautiful fishing pole and gear by Derrick.

Having come from a long line of fishermen and having many of my best childhood memories of catching my own meals off docks and jetties, I was secretly elated that my child has fishing in his blood.

About mid-day, as I was working on chores around our place with Sofie, the guys came back. I waited patiently and refrained from asking if they had a good catch in the case that they got skunked. I instead asked if they had a good time, which they said they had

Simon looked at me and smiled his sweet “I’ve got a secret” smile and then disappeared out the door. When I went back to the door to meet him, with my camera in hand “just-in-case”, he was standing there with the biggest grin and eleven trout on a line! Some were quite large.

He had me call his grandmother and invite her to dinner. Simon set a table with floating candles and flowers that he picked. He was one proud boy.

He and his Daddy cleaned the fish and used the innards to fertilize some of our fruit trees. I cooked up a dinner of baked beans, corn bread, salad and the best pan fried trout I have ever tasted.

This was a day that will never be forgotten, by Simon or by the rest of our family. Self-sufficiency can start at a very young age.

This week I taught a class on edible wild plants of the Pacific Northwest. It was a lot of fun. I love the topic but most of all it was fun because I love spending time with our second-year apprentices. There is a special bonding that takes place after spending a weekend per month together over a couple years. Also, we are focusing on a common passion and building community.

This month we spent time walking our land identifying plants and their uses. Many were edible, some are good medicine and many are good for both. We picked dandelion and made marmalade as well as stinging nettle pasta. Rolling out the green dough was very gratifying.

We talked about the abundance of wild plants in our area as we sat down to a meal that included a salad of wild greens and blossoms we had collected, nettle pasta, and maple blossoms sautéed with garlic, shallots and butter. It was a fun and delicious meal.

I look forward to more of these types of relationships over the years. Yes, my life is blessed.