Hey George, I've been missing seeing you here, but figured you were busy with kidding season and the 1,001 other things you do. I'm glad you dropped in to say hi. That is such a precious kid you're holding! I hope you have a successful garden this year and success in all your other ventures as well.

Dawn

I'll be watching for the website!

Hey there!

I'll stop complaining about how busy I am. Compared to you, I have idle hands, lol!

I will be watching for the homesteading site. Glad you are doing well and keeping busy too

http://homesteadingedu.com

Also a facebook page by same name

THANK YOU, AMY!!!! And Heyyah George!!!! Looks like life is full of ...well, life! And thanks for remembering us and checking in. Hope you continue to check in but I'll imagine quite a few of us will also keep tabs on the blog...and FB. So good to hear from you!

Thanks for the kind comments! And, Amy, thanks for posting that info. The website has some blog type stuff up there. But the courses are yet to come. I just turned in the rough outline and graphics for a beans course. Will be doing the same for a yogurt course, a sweet potato course, a tomato course and a chicken course; all in the next month or so ;) We have two people on the team who are educational design experts, so they take my material and help make it more effective in the learning process. Over the last two years my wife, daughter and I have taken over 650 raw videos, which deal with these matters. We have a team which includes people who know how to design courses and how to edit and use the videos. It's mind boggling to me. Our goal is to produce courses which are good for people who may be starting out with zero background in the subject matter.

We've noticed that there is now a generation of people who would REALLY like to learn some self sufficiency skills, but who have been so removed from these things, that they can't quite get on the first rung of the ladder. And, they need mentoring.

Other areas we'll eventually deal with are such things as beekeeping, general gardening (do you realize there are lots of people who simply don't know how to prepare the soil, in order to plant?!), tools, heating with wood, dairy goats, butchering, fishing, basic firearms, canning and preserving, etc. I was even thinking, the other day, we need to do a basic course on knives (pocket knives, etc.). They're basic indispensable tools. Yet we are going on two or three generations which have now been raised NOT to carry a knife, and which are largely unfamiliar with their use, care and maintenance!

Okay. I have to go for now. Good to "see" you!

George

Here's a picture of some of our latest arrivals.

So, chicken question. We were in Tractor supply today, and this guy said you could tell the difference between male and female chicks by hanging them upside down by their feet. Supposedly the males hang straight and the females try to pull themselves back to an upright position. My birding background questions this. Is it baloney, old wives tale or does it work?

Amy, I don't think that is a reliable indicator. Perhaps, within one breed, it might work. But it certainly isn't going to work with various breeds. I don't even know if it'll work with one breed. The only two reliable ways to sex chicks is vent sexing, like they do in hatcheries, and feather sexing, which only works with American breeds (most of the time). Look up feather sexing via Google. It has to do with how flight feathers develop early on. I never bothered to learn it, as I have not problem getting both male and female. They're both good!

George, love the baby ducks. I assume you have a lot of little ones right now. One of the hens that we got from you is setting now. We also have other ducks, so guess we will have a hatch, not a clutch. I think her eggs will hatch on tax day, and we have additional eggs in the incubator. We took a trio that we got from you to our son's farm and the hens have just started laying again. The ones we kept are nice and friendly, but the drake that went to the farm was a bit aggressive. The grandkids named him Satan. LOL He has a lot more space to move around at the farm and seems to do a little better. Our son also has some younger ducks and they practically live on the pond, but return to the pen at night. We like having ducks.

WOW, I'm so impressed with your new project. Will you be covering food preservation too?

Johnny

https://www.facebook.com/visionfarms/

Glad to hear from you, George. Carry on the good work.

Brook

Yes, we will be dealing with food preservation. It will take time to get to it all. I'm finding just how time consuming this is. I forgot to mention that we'll be dealing quite a bit with cooking. Cooking, in my opinion, is foundational to better living and self sufficiency. I already submitted the rough for a course on yogurt. Last year I experimented quite a bit with yogurt. There will be a course on bread making and probably another on stews, beans, etc. Really, what we're finding, is that there is tremendous interest out there. At the same time, there are many who haven't the most basic skills upon which to build. It's not that they've been lazy. It's that no one ever taught them.

Macmex,

I understand your point about foundation skills. We run across that all the time.

We (Vision Farms, Inc.) will be doing a presentation this month at a middle school in Guthrie. We will be hand grinding corn and wheat. Then making cornbread and pancakes in the classroom.

Johnny

Those are GOOD skills! Just think of the money saved and the better eating there would be if everyone knew how to make those things, and especially, if they knew how to grow the corn and grind it!

Here's something I wrote on that:

The Preeminence of Cooking

George

Macmex,

We made pancakes with organic hard red winter wheat recently. We served them at our Saturday free brunch. None of those pancakes went to the trash can. We served organic cultured butter, and choice of 100% (no added filler) local honey or real maple syrup.

I did not hear one single complaint. However, I must admit the flour we used makes pancakes about twice as flavorful. Some folks (most folks) don't know how fresh ground whole wheat tastes. It is fun to watch them taste real whole wheat for the first time.

Johnny

PS - During the cold war we always took a big cooking pot with us to the Autumn exercises. One year there was a big goose that kept chasing our jeeps through one little town. He made a great stew!

soonergrandmom,

Good job!

Macmex,

Fresh bread, organic cultured butter, 100% honey!

1/2 Gold Medal 1/2 fresh ground wheat.

Smells great here right now.