Homesteading: Winter Dreaming

escaping from internet to reality.

Winter is when we spend countless hours each morning fantasizing about and debating new projects that run the gamut from this year’s new vegetable garden, woodland paths, land to be bush-hogged, interior design, decks and out-buildings to be built or rebuilt.

But the truth is that winter is also one of more productive times on the farm, in terms of construction and general design. The tyranny of the urgent overtakes us in the spring, with so many farm chores that endlessly fill our days. But with plants dormant in the winter, it is a good time to do those chores and big projects for which there never seems to be enough time to complete during the other seasons.

This winter has been especially productive since we have not had to travel since early December. Jill and I both savor the time at home- being on the farm is how we calm the inner demons and find peace. But then we both love a good project and find little use for being lazy.

Today’s photo essay is has a lot of images - as it is a general update on all things at Home Malone. ‘Cause winter doesn’t slow us down here in Virginia.

First off, Jill is trying a new plant in the aerogarden. A variety of tomato called “Tom Thumb”. It is supposed to be a micro tomato plant. So far, six weeks in with lots of growth and even a few buds have emerged.

Last fall, Jill took some seeds from a red dragon fruit and propagated them in the aerogarden. In late November, she repotted them into pots that she got on sale at the local nursery. They are doing amazingly well on a sunny window sill and are growing like weeds.
We have spent a fair bit of time reading up on the amazing dragon fruit plant - and honestly, everyone should have at least one as a house plant!

Note the outlet in the photo above has a timer on it. This is for the grow lamp for the lemon below.

About four years ago, we purchased this lemon tree. She lives outside in a pot for eight months of the year and inside for the rest. She gifts us with huge lemons that have excellent flavor and keep us in citrus all year round. Jill cut these lemons into slices and freezes them. So, she can use them as she needs.

She put a grow light on the lemon tree when it is indoors - and uses a basic heat lamp base for the socket. The base is from our local farm store (which is also used for a heat lamp bulb when we have baby poultry). As noted above, a timer is on the grow lamp - so one less thing to think about.

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It is a jungle out there!

Our old office trailer and one time home, which is now mostly used to hold horse tack and supplies, has turned into an ad hoc green house. Each year, we buy plants that are sold as “annuals” - and we also grow various herbs. All die at the first frost.

This year, Jill brought them all into the office trailer and placed them in the back room -which has windows on all sides, then bought some overhead grow lights - which are hooked to a timer, and the effort has been a huge success.

Jill has a lemon, lime and olive tree, Sage, oregano and Rosemary as well as ferns and bananas growing in there. The lemon and lime trees are already producing flowers that have set.

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This January has been exceptionally cold, with a few inches of snow that just doesn’t want to melt off.

So, we have had to spend lots of time outside - feeding, making mashes with salt, breaking stock tank ice so the horses will drink twice a day and making sure everyone has lots of water to drink.

I think Jill and I mind the cold more than they do… But then, they generally don’t have to break up the ice on top of their water tank.

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This last week, we began work again on “Serenity”. That is our name for a 110+ year old building on the farm that may have been a house or general store at one time. It had been abandoned for over fifty years. Over the past six years we have slowly been bringing it back to life. When we got here, trees, vines, poison ivy and other plants had completely overgrown the building. Trees had pushed in a major wall. It was so overgrown, as were all the buildings on the farm, that locals didn’t even know they were here.

This particular building was downright disgusting inside. Some of the most foul messes we had to clean up were past black vulture nests, about 500 pounds of grain in old burlap that had rotted into the cement, and an unknown sludge from water seepage. Another huge mess came from some drywall thrown in a pile on the floor where water had soaked it for years on end. Blech.

Some of the "Before" photos

In those top images, “Serenity” is actually under all that “foliage”.
When we first bought the property, we thought about making this building into a residence but quickly (pre-COVID) decided it wasn’t feasible to do so. So instead, we decided to build it out as a little conference center and meeting space that we could use for teaching, general meetings and demo projects. Also as an off-the grid space - that required no electricity in an emergency. We completely re-did the exterior and finished that about two years ago. We used a local mill and all the wood siding is from local trees a couple of miles from here. We then used the same siding on the interior walls. A friend and neighbor helped with that part of the project. Jill found an old staircase for a few hundred bucks - that we refurbished and installed. Since then, we have been so busy that we haven’t been able to devote any time to it.

This is the exterior shell now. I just have to laugh when I get the occasional Troll making accusations that I do not actually do any work on the farm… Yes, I was actually a carpenter and a farm hand before becoming a physician and scientist.

So, where are we today?

Here are some photos of the interior from today. We still have a long way to go - but progress is being made. Our extra time this weekend was spent getting back to work on the upstairs room. Which is why I have been absent in the comments section.

This weekend, Jill and I began putting up a poplar board ceiling in the upper floor (Jill pre-painted the boards - a brilliant idea). This will be the only room with a closed in ceiling but that room needs insulation above the ceiling, as it gets hot from the black standing seam metal roof above it.

Tomorrow a chimney sweep comes to redo the little stack in the main room, so that it will be safe for a wood burning stove. He is going to redo the chimney at the front of the building in March. Jill intends to get a wood burning cook stove for that room - So much planning, reading and learning about wood cooking stoves has been done. So much still to do!

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On the poultry front: none of them are fans of the cold weather. But all seem to be thriving.

Jill also splurged early in December and bought 4 white emu eggs, which she has been diligently turning, keeping at the right humidity and temperature. The hatch date is around March 1st. This is our first time hatching emus, so fingers crossed!

These eggs weigh in at 1.5 pounds each!

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Finally, the Epoch Times and I are involved in doing a pilot for a series, which is still under wraps. Which is to say that I am not supposed to talk about it. I can write that Jan and a film crew spent two days here at the farm last week. While the photographer was here - she honored us with some photos.

So, in conclusion, being home for a couple of months has allowed us to really dive into our projects and farm again. It feels good to be home.

As you can see, some of our projects are large and some small. But there is a secret to getting things done… this, “Blow up your TV, and plant a lot of peaches”

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