A Homesteading Weekend

Last weekend was great!  My sister and I had fun from beginning to end.  If you didn't catch the last post, we attended the second Mother Earth News Fair at Seven Springs, PA.  Talk about homesteading and sustainable living galore.  They had everything from livestock and cooking, to foraging and hammocks.  Seriously folks, if you can thing of it, there was probably a lecture or workshop on it.  In fact, there was SO much to do and see that it would have taken you a week to see and attend everything (if you had a week).  We had to do a little strategic planning to figure out what we wanted to see and when.  They great thing about going with my sister was that we pretty much were interested in the same things, and outside of maybe two lectures, we took in the same information.

So it was great from the start!  We had booked a 'rustic' cabin at Kooser State Park for the weekend.  I'm glad we made our reservations ahead of time, as I think every single cabin was spoken for.  Let me say, for 'rustic' we sure made out pretty darn well:



Other than the absent bathroom, it had all the amenities you could ever want.  Seriously, I think I could live just fine in one of these if it had a water closet of sorts.  We got all settled in, made some dinner in the wood stove and spent the evening folding and waxing origami stars, pickin' on the strumstick, and chatting up our excitement for the upcoming day.

Waxed Origami Stars

The next morning we arrived at Seven Springs by 8:15am, hoping to get a close parking spot (which we did).  The outdoor grounds were opened by 9am and my sister seemed to make a beeline for the livestock.  I don't think it was intentional; maybe some unseen driving force, or the subliminal whisper of, "over here."  Whatever it was, she made it to the meat rabbits in break neck time, and by 9:15 had bought herself a pair of Silver Fox does and one buck from Mule's Eared Farm.  Well that was fast.  We happened to run into Jenna Woginrich of Cold Antler Farm (one of my favorite authors and bloggers) purchasing herself a Silver Fox doe.  She was one of the keynote speakers at the fair that weekend.  We were able to attend two of her seminars on Raising Meat Rabbits (I guess that was fitting, seeings how we just bought three) and Living A Sustainable Life.  Both were great.  She's a great speaker as well.  Before I forget, here's my sister, happily holding one of her new rabbits:

A girl and her rabbit.

Well, that's all i have to tell for tonight as my computer is about out of power!  And I suppose it's past my bed time.  I'll share more hopefully later this week (I've only just touched the tip of the iceberg), as well as my preparations for the Johnny Appleseed Festival coming up in my home town this weekend.

Meat Birds

We bought our first ever meat birds today. Eight in all. The feed store was a bustle with future poultry owners today, as everyone is getting a bit of spring fever, and who can resist all these cute little puffy balls of fluff. We've been talking about raising a few meat birds this year and when we saw the 2 for a dollar, WE couldn't resist. This is going to be a new experience. I'm not sure how I will feel come processing day, but I'm going to find out. I've mentioned before: we are omnivores moving towards a more sustainable lifestyle. I want to know where my food came from and how it was raised as much as possible. I know that these birds will be well cared for and appreciated. My goal is to do my best to make sure that they only have ONE bad day. This will take a little research on our part as we've never processed our own poultry before. I will be doing a lot of reading, watching, and talking to other fellow chicken farmers in the next 2-3 months to make sure we are prepared. In the mean time, I too will adore their cute fuzziness. It's all a part of the process.

Frontier House

Mother Earth News Fair 2010

This past weekend I attended the first ever Mother Earth News Fair in Seven Springs, PA. It was a blast and I heard that there were over 10,000 people who attended! I would believe that; it was quite crowded. They had a little bit of something for everyone, from crafting and fiber to new wind turbine designs, beekeeping, bread baking, and chickens. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I love watching the working dogs! I don't know if there will ever be any hope for my Old English Sheepdog, Kenai. I've never seen them actually used in herding, but he's got the instinct. I asked this lady above if she'd ever seen an OES herd before, and she said, "no", and indicated that they were harder to train. I would believe that; Kenai is quite stubborn though VERY smart. I've also read that they herd more by size than stare, like the Australian Shepherds and such, and require more interaction from their handler (unlike the Aussies). I still love my OES most! They are great dogs, none the less.

Above is a newer design for a wind turbine called the WindTamer. It is supposed to create a vacuum that makes harvesting the energy from the wind more efficient. Or at least that's what I've gathered. It was neat to watch how it swayed and angled itself with the direction of the wind. There was virtually no sound either! This could be promising as it seems that many have complained about the noise that the larger turbines make with their massive height and blades. The WindTamer does not have to be placed at such a great height either. I will be interested to receive information from this company as we have dreams of being off grid....one day.

Living Off the Grid