The City Mouse in the Country

        I have to be honest, I wasn't sure if or when I would get back to this blog.   It is easy to make excuses but honestly, I've not done much of anything to improve the "homestead" in over a week or two; and that honestly bothers me. An old Caboose in Stoneboro     I do tend to be a lazy man and I just feel that I should be doing more to help prepare this home for the coming winter, but so far the temperatures have not dropped below the mid 40's and the last  two days have been a pretty consistent rain, which makes doing anything outside unpleasant at best and down right near impossible at worst.      What this has allowed the lovely Sue and I to do however is spend a little time traveling, exploring and finally getting our new pellet stove installed.  Well Sue grew up in this particular part of Western Pennsylvania, I did not.  We decided to go sight seeing, take in the wonders of Autumn and just relax for a bit.       Now generally speaking I would get all

We are at the supermarket yesterday and manged to buy nearly $150 dollars worth of goods.  Including some ground lamb that I intend to turn into a late 16th Century dish o nce I find some powered nutmeg and cloves.   Interestingly enough, the same market had cloves but I've no way to make them into a powder.  So, if anyone wants to get me a pestle and mortar for the holiday's that be great.  But I regress.   Sue and I have a refrigerator and two freezers, both of which are stuffed to the gills.   Our basement has become an ad hoc pantry as food takes over one corner.  My wine fridge has 3 local wines in it and I'm planning on adding a few more to it in the coming months. I've got a few beers stored away as well. I could not help but laugh and tell Sue that the "City Mouse" was storing away food for winter. Which, she reminded me, is exactly what we are doing.   We moved into our home in September.  Basically living here for only two months and missing out on

      With everything that has been going on recently, the recent death of my mom and some changes in my job which required me to go through an intensive background check, getting a new roof - which should be happening this week hopefully -installed on the house and our new wood pellet stove installed next weekend (more on that in a bit).  I've simply not been able to move forward on some simple projects.   For example, I wanted to get the mulch pile for the gardens started in mid October.     Now here it was, getting into late October/early November and I still didn't have any mulch piles started.  Nor do I think that I'll have them ready by spring.  For example, not only do I have to deal with my Dad's needs - he's currently living with my brother, which is roughly a 75 minute drive south of me - but I've meetings with a lawyer, insurance to sort out and other things.   Thanks do to an internal change in my company, I have to fingerprinted and undergo an inte

    It's been a few days since I've been able to put electronic pen to electronic paper so to speak.  This was due to the untimely death of my mother, Patrica Ann Wilson or simply Pat as many of her friends and family called her.             Like any mother she could be a pain in the ass, loving, supportive and making her son's crazy at the same time.  However she always believed in and supported my brother Gary and I whenever and however she could.       The funny thing is that Sue and I moved back to Pennsylvania because we knew that our parents were getting older, and that we wanted to spend more time with them.   Now this happens with us being less than two months in the area.  At least my mother got to see our new home.     I'm sure that she probably thought we were crazy to move this far out into the country, where are nearest neighbors really are a horse named Billy and a goat named Nanny.      The funny thing is that I've always found solace in nature.  As

      It started with a simple question.   What does Goat's milk taste like?     Several years ago when Sue and I first started to seriously consider moving home (Okay...two years ago) and moving into the country we laughed about getting goats.       There were a few reasons for this really: Sue finds Goats really cute, and the baby goats are adorable They produce milk I personally love goat cheese   We both have had goat meat in the past and enjoyed it.      However we only have two plus a bit more acres here, and goats - while any animal to be honest - have to be worth our time and expense.   Remember we're talking feed, cleaning up after them and basically never taking another vacation again because we have to look after the animals.  While we have never specifically ruled out any farm animals, it's not going to happen anytime soon.     So any animals other than our two cats were pretty much out of the picture for now, although we inherited two additional outdoor cats by

 First off, I'm a fan of history and food.  So when I found Tasting History on YouTube I was a fan right off the bat. In fact, I tried this dish below.  Although I was disappointed in it at the end of the day.  I didn't have two of the ingredients; lovage and caraway seeds (which Sue swore she had), so I ended up replacing them with celery leaf and cumin.  The chicken ended up being very moist and peppery but there was no "wow" flavor.  Nothing that unusual about it, even though it used several ingredients that I was unfamiliar with.  I don't mind being pushed out of my comfort zone in the name of good food. It did bring up an interesting question for me however.  If I'm serious about learning how to garden, preserving my food and other things...would I be willing to try and raise "forgotten" foods? This interest actually goes all the way back to collage, when I learned that Spirulina was used by the Aztecs in a type of dried cake.   Of course, th

       Definitions are important to me.   Part of that reason is because I have a degree in education and biology and a love of philosophy.  Although I never really used either degree to a certain extent, but biology has it's own precise language for clarity.  So does philosophy.    I worked for engineering firms for several years where you had to be precise, you accidentally transpose a number and the building could fall down.   Or at least cause delays that could cost thousands of dollars, if not more.    I ended up working for banks and Insurance companies where medical terms are used to describe a exact problem, which in turn may lead to that person paying a higher premium, or not getting insurance at all.     It's not always fair but it is important.  It's important that I have an exact definition or at least a clue about what I'm doing.  So for me at least the term "homesteading" doesn't really apply.   Turn the TV on today and you will find some

Over the past month we have moved from one part of our lives and into another part.  Nearly everything is where it should be, the work on the house is scheduled and Sue is starting to concentrate on getting her business back up and running.  Our lives are getting back to "Normal" or what ever constitutes that right now.   We are falling into a routine. I like my job with NYL and the fact that they were willing to let me keep it, even though I moved over 1000 miles away from my home office.   Our new house was slowly coming together and growing on me, although I still had some reservations. For example, while the local volunteer fire department was only about five miles away, the nearest hospital was further than that and had a reputation for barely being able to deliver puppies much less any serious issues that either of us my have.   Going to the store was going to be less and less a weekly or biweekly trip like it was before and more of a monthly one time option simply