A friend asked me, while looking at a carcass to cut up on his butchering table, how I would butcher a lamb if I had one here for Mark and me. So today, we will talk about how to process your spring lamb - or goat - for two. 

What mother nature is providing

• Watercress season is here
• Wild mustard flowers - as usual in time for Easter
• Dead nettle and chickweed
• Dandelion greens and flowers

Tales from the prepper pantry

• The tools are organized!
• The last onions have landed in my kitchen - I kept finding more
• Avocado quinoa salad.
• Butternut squash bisque this week

Stretching Meals

• Turkey cycle again this time, but with new recipes - we will share some next week.

Operation Independence

• The trout conundrum as they relate to operation independence. Help please.
• What is the Independence Fund anyway?

  Great resource for cutting up a lamb from the Guardian of all places: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gallery/2008/nov/19/foodanddrink  

Make it a great week!

Song: Cilly Song, by Sauce

Today, we are going to talk about some fun projects we did over the last week here at the Holler Homestead. There were some changes that needed to be done because of the pig, some fun wild plants popping up, goat hijinks and more. And yes, as usual, nothing went as planned but a bunch of stuff got done. This really makes me think the most important skill you can develop if you plan to integrate homesteading practices into your life is troubleshooting and keeping things flexible.

Rainbowcrawlers.com

What mother nature is providing
More rain
Stinging nettle
Dead nettle (for salad)
Watercress
Egg recipe of the week: Tuna egg salad

Getting the Gardens Ready
Story: Farmers market meeting

Tales from the prepper pantry
Cleared out everything but the last 7 onions and 2 butternut squashes in the root cellar. Reorganizing it for the summer months
Using up green beans and beets at a fast clip now that the new crops are about to be upon us
BBQ story

Stretching Meals
The Boston Butt Project

Operation Independence
Pig shelter story

Make it a great week!

Song: Dr Feeley, Dr. Skinner by Sauce

How are you doing moving toward your goals? These past few weeks have had me thinking pretty hard about how simple it is to set a set of priorities in your life and family, then use them as a filter through which to make choices. It is so simple, in fact, that it is hard. Then I got to reading a book I was helping someone right and one of their chapter titles was “Organized people who are wrong beat disorganized people who are right every time.”  

What mother nature is providing

• Watercress
• Shagbark
• Stinging Nettle
• Mullein
• Wild Garlic

Getting the Gardens Ready

• Wood chipping in the garden space
• Trimmed up the peach tree and elderberries

Tales from the prepper pantry

• The Sweet potatoes have rotted
• Still have butternut squash - the powerhouse of the pantry

Operation Independence

• Another load of pallets arrives this week
• New Well Pump Installation
• Slogging through the taxes one day at a time

Make it a great week! Song: Belly Dancing Vamp Tune, Sauce

We are going to talk about life and more importantly life today, not yesterday, and not tomorrow. You hear people say all the time to live in the now but that seems kind of weird, right? I mean, if I just do what I want every day to be in the now, then when tomorrow comes, I will have used up all my cash and will end up out on the street. Well, maybe living in the now but being aware of the future is important. We will cover more of that in the main topic of the show.

What mother nature is providing

• I don’t really know, but Houston has chick weed
• Watercress and Mint
• It froze again so some of the early starts and the daffodils will be beaten back when I get home
• Crappie

Getting the Gardens Ready

• All it does is rain...so nothing

Tales from the prepper pantry

• There will be a pig in the freezer when I get back so we will be makin bacon
• Centering meals around the meat in the freezer that needs to go. Goal is to keep as healthy as possible.
• Really focused on using up the canned goods
• Sugar snap peas, radishes and tangerines

Stretching Meals

• In a hotel:
  • Tamales
  • Sushi
  • Rotisserie chicken and salad
  • Uber eats

Operation Independence

• We are not going to have to buy pork for awhile...
• Focusing on operation yearly income through facilitation projects at least once a month

Song: Special by Sauce