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1. Rabbits love newly germinated beans. Old timer trick to stop them from eating your young plants: plant the seed then take tin cans with the bottom & top removed and place around the seed and slightly bare the bottom with soil. The beans will still geminate and the seedlings cannot be eaten by the rabbits. By the time the seedlings reach the top of the can the plant is to biter for the rabbits to eat. Remove the tin can.
   Tin cans with the newly designed molded bottoms are somewhat of a challenge to remove the bottom. Older designed tin cans are easier to remove.

2. Beef bacon sounds very interesting, don’t know how I’ve missed it over the years. Please keep us updated with results and suggestions.

3. What does the term ‘summer broken’ mean for the horses?

   1. Hello Michelle,

      Because we live in snow country, we do not ride our horses in the winter for their safety and ours. Deep snow and icy areas can cause injuries to both parties. Therefore, the horses get a long winter vacation from riding. Come spring they may not wish to come under human control/get back to work, again. They have lots of excited energy, “pretend” to spook easily and are in general very unpredictable. So to summer break them, we need to ground work them for a week or two before getting up on them. We lead them around, the property showing them all the “spooky” areas, tie them up, brush them, clean hooves, love them up, correct them when they don’t give us their full attention, bang things around them, saddle and bridle them and lunge them in the arena in fairly tight circles, asking them to give us their full attention while they walk, trot, canter, step over logs, et cetera. After dominance and compliance/a good working relationship and understanding have been achieved. We mount and ride them on a lunge line for a day or two in the arena. If, after this, they’re behaving well, we’ll trail ride around the property. At this point, we consider them “summer broke” and are willing to take them off property for trail rides.

      Horses are prey animals, meaning the can spook at anything. They’re unpredictable at any time, therefore we must always be on high alert when working around them. We are not Adrenalin junkies and value our lives and our horses’ lives. We always want to mitigate all potential danger when working with them. Therefore, we slowly summer break them to keep us all safe.

      Blessings,

      Lily

4. Reading about your homestead or farm reminds me of my father’s place where we had cows, horses, chickens and goats. Also, gardening was always a big event too. All of that is gone now with the exception of the horses and a very small garden due to my father’s age and health issues. I’m hoping with my sister and her husband moving up there this week that if nothing else the gardening will expand. She loves to grow her own vegetables. She also loves to can foods, make jellies and preserves.

   As for me, I hate to sound like a broken record, but I’m still planning on working on developing the perfect sub-sonic 300 Blackout load as well as loading a few hundred rounds of the 125-grain supersonic. Now that I have some rocks I’ll working on my flintknapping skill set that I’m attempting to acquire. The weekend may result in hauling the tractor out to my get away property and plowing the five-acre field one last time for weed control and preparation for planting. I ran out of oxygen absorbers so I need to order some more. I’ve been vacuum sealing rice and beans in Mason jars and adding them to my storage at my get away place. I have county water out there, but I want to look at having a well dug for nothing more than putting a hand pump on it as an emergency backup.

5. Cleaning up and getting ready to plant the garden. We initially used the garden area to raise a few pigs many years ago and it had a low pig shelter on it. We have gardened around the shelter for years improving the soil significantly and slowly removing most rock. This weekend, we tore down the shelter and I am breaking up that soil for the first time. Using a pick and pulling out numerous large rocks. I think I had forgotten how hard that garden was to put in initally but now I am reminded of all the hours I spent swinging that pick years ago.

6. I have been in prepper mode for several years, but have had to pay the bills by working six days a week, as has my husband. Still have much in place, 60 rural acres, and an empty, unused RV. I am increasing becoming aware of how vulnerable we are, by ourselves. What about putting it out there for some one to join us? Is it too late? Too risky? A dumb idea? We just don’t have time to keep things up.

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