Ceaberry's Homesteading: Taking Vermicomposting to a new level

Mr. Native Farmer looked at me like I was crazy when I asked that he put the old bathtub down in the lower garden. He couldn't figure out what I was going to do with the tub. Multiple ideas sprouted to mind but alas, he couldn't even fathom what I actually did with it. 

It became a worm bin. Yup. Worm bin. I need to amp up the amount of worm castings to fill my raised beds next year. In came a larger worm bin. I have currently separated my worms but for the winter every one is going in there. I am surrounding it with hay bales and forgetting it for most of the wintertime. It may not look pretty yet but it will turn into a bench back with an arbor behind it (boy do I have lofty goals?). 

I put screen in the draining holes then a bit of gravel near the holes then back filled with creek rock/dirt mixture and added topsoil. Then I added my worms and some food for them. Put on a makeshift lid and let them get to work. It is working so far and I am happy to see my worms just munching away! It is set on two high cinder blocks (6 in total so three sets). It will be framed around and a nice top fitted with a bench in front of it and a cushion and an arbor behind it with our heirloom grape vines expertly intertwined with it. You're laughing aren't you? Its doable, I swear.

Ceaberry's Homesteading: Life Hack -- Plastic Bag Holder

So I have scouring Pinterest lately for ideas to do life hacks. I came across a plastic bag holder, with a nifty pull out feature. Now theirs looked a lot more professional, but I live on a homestead, "rustic" is kind of the description of everything.

I took a sparkling water bottle, that Mr. Farmer drinks, and I cut right where the label hits. Normally there is a small indention, it is a bit thinner and much easier to cut. I left about 1/4 of the bottle uncut for a hinge. 

Since I have children I got some lovely duct tape (that is the real name for the tape, the other is a brand of that tape), in pink kitty print. I taped around the edges and put a small tab on the front with a bit of double sided tape (or the duct tape rolled up to form double sided tape). 

Then I folded and rolled the plastic bags I had laying around and stuffed them into the bottle. I had to test it out of course! This was a Pinterest win for sure!

It was so easy that I made two! One for the house and one for the car!

On a side note, dealing with plastic bags. I sometimes get too large of trash can bags. So I put a hook on either side of my trash can (and on my smaller one that I use the plastic bags in) and it works like a dream. So that is two hacks for one post! Happy Homesteading!

Want to follow my wackiness on Pinterest? Click here

Ceaberry's Homesteading: Gardening -- Vermicomposting

Vermicomposting is raising worms for composting. You are raising live beings, albeit worms but they deserve respect for what they can do for you and your garden and in that turn your family and homestead. I started with a grey tub with holes in it but I ended up buying a Worm Factory 360 (not paid endorsement). It was an excellent decision to ensure my worms the best possible home and the most attractive option for us.

Here is my bin completely setup with the wet newspaper on top and the cardboard for the first week to keep the worms from leaving their new home. I ordered my worms from Uncle Jim's Worm Farm (not paid endorsement). They had what I thought was going to be a mass exodus from my worm bin. A lot of people, including the website said they would be thin and not very mobile. I live less than 6 hours from their worm farm shipping place so my worms were very very lively and plump. They went EVERYWHERE. All along the sides and some fell off. I had the forethought to put the worm bin over the grass for the first couple of hours. They were climbing all over the outside bin. I calmed myself and prepared for the worst, they were all going to leave my bin and I would have to reorder my 250 worms.

This is why they tell you to leave the worm bin alone for 24 hours. The worms were just exploring and the few that got away in the first hour (10 of them) were just wild explorers. They settled in just nicely and the bin is teeming with more then my original 250 worms. I have all the tiers set-up, and when I harvested a tier for some seedling starting I got an interloper.

That is Blueberry, one of the resident kittens. She is a "cow" cat, how fitting...

So worms eat food, I do the blender method, well more like the food processor method but you get my drift. From these next few pics I now pre-crush my egg shells making this process a bit cleaner and easier. I made my own baby food for my second child and I bought this now dust collecting thing to help me put the food in pouches. She quickly went from puree to solid due to 6 teeth erupting in a month so it was discontinued for use in our house. I pulled it back out to start making my worm gruel. 

It has a plunger with it and the bags are reusable, especially since they are for worms. I fill these baggies and cap them and freeze. Then I just thaw out what I need to feed them and voila, worm gruel at the ready!

Try your hand at worm composting! I had a rubbermaid tub that did pretty well and now the Worm Factory 360. My next adventure is going to be a worm farm in an old bathtub we have just laying around!! Stay tuned for that fun coming in a few weeks!!

Ceaberry's Homesteading: Dishwasher woes

We had an old dishwasher that was, well... a pain. It was a problem and it was small. Little did I know what I was getting myself into when I proclaimed one day that enough was enough. About 2 months later the dishwasher started leaking water everywhere in my kitchen and shorted itself out! That was it, it was time for a new dishwasher. I actually had to wait a couple months to have the money to buy said dishwasher and hand washing entailed 2 dish drains a day. So I went to my big box hardware store, I got myself a new dishwasher.


That was the end of the "easy" part of this process. If you have an old house that has been majorly neglected for repair for 20 years then you may know what may have come next. My old dishwasher was put into place in the 1990s. It wasn't a bad dishwasher and lasted until 2017 so one can't really complain, but you leak nasty water on my floors, well your days are done. So I took off the kick plate, and my first "surprise" awaited me.

What I saw would be a home inspectors worst nightmare. I really need that Holmes guy at my house... well he might condemn it but anyways back to the dishwasher. The wires underneath the dishwasher were not even in a housing or casing. they were twisted together and capped (with the wrong size caps might I add). there was no ground (we don't have grounded outlets in 80% of our house so no surprise there. As I cursed slightly, I undid all the wires and the fittings. Pulled the dishwasher out to find my next "surprise."

The paneling on the side of my dishwasher was just jigsawed cut so there is actually no real pieces for my new dishwasher to screw into so that it is sturdy. No problem they can be screwed into the bottom of the counter... I put my new dishwasher to be set into place. That's where my next "surprise" happened. The copper tubing was too long so I had to not-so-gently bend it so I could push the washer back. The wires as I said weren't long enough to go into the main housing for them, and the ground... non-existent. After I sorted all of that out, the install was the monotonous checks, and the side flanges causing me issues because the side panels were real so they kept popping out.

Then came time to screw it in to the bottom of my countertop. It is an MDF countertop and the other one wasn't screwed in, well it had been but the screws apparently fell out because the holes were a complete mess and with YEARS of neglect (remember I have been in this house at least 4 years myself), I could not secure my dishwasher. More cursing later I just decided to get it in and figure that out later.

Dishwasher installed and washing it's first load.

Two loads later, there was a plastic burning smell. I found out that that the wires arced in the caps and melted one of the caps. But I smelled it early enough on that it just put a small hole in the caps. I had my father come over, he lengthened the wires, grounded my dishwasher to my copper sink pipes, and made sure the wires were more then secure but completely waterproof. Problem solved. Now to work on not being able to attach my dishwasher to my countertops.

I decided on the most invasive route after trying duct tape, wood glue and trying different spots to drill. My kid tipped the dishwasher towards her one day and that was the final straw. I took a drill bit and drilled through the top of the counter top. Then I got a bolt (so it was flat on the bottom and wouldn't scratch my dishwasher top. I added a washer and bolt to the bottom and there you have it, it was completely secured to my countertop. However because I used bolts a bit was sticking up that was sharp and in the way. I tried wood glue molded in shake straws on top of them, that didn't work. So my mom found these resin beads that were brown. I took a drill bit and hollowed out the back (which was flat) until they fit. I used a dry erase maker on the top of the bolt to see where I needed to take some more off so it would sit level. I added wood glue and here is the result.

So if you are thinking of replacing an OLD dishwasher, look at attachment sites and look at wiring. My house was built in the 50s and pretty much my wiring is original. We live in a rural area so the person who put in my old dishwasher wasn't so "professional." If you find wiring problems call an electrician friend in to help. I could have done everything my father did to the wiring but it was nice not have to do it (if you catch my drift). So good luck and Happy Homesteading!

Ceaberry's Homesteading: Life hack -- Easy Fire Starters

Do you have left over candles? I burn quite a few scented candles because of life on a farm sometimes the fresh smell is a relief of the homesteading life smell. I burn candles when the power goes out and living in the northeast United States, it tends to go out quite a bit and often at night. 

So I looked up how I could reuse this small amount of wax. Fire starters. We have a wood stove which our only source of heat for the winter. We go on cook outs during the summer, and we burn brush through out the year. Little fire starters seemed like a great idea of a life hack. It needs: a medium in which to hold the wax (I used a paper egg carton), wax, and dryer lint.

I started by boiling water in my electric kettle, you can also warm a pot of water to boiling and set the candle holders in the pot. I put the water in a pot and set the candles in it, I used the empty containers to melt the candles I burn for power outages. The other way is to pour boiling water in the containers and wait for the wax to float to the top and harden (what I have pictured below but it was way too messy so I went with the previously described method).

Prepare the holder with dryer lint. Yes, I wash a lot of jeans if you couldn't tell.

I poured the scented wax into some of the mold spaces.

Then I filled the rest of them with my power outage wax leftovers.

Then I cut them apart by going along the grooves on the underside. I store them in Ziplock bags.

There you have it! Easy and simple to make and uses up some leftover stuff around the house. They work great to start a grill campfire. Hopefully they can help this winter with the wood stove.

Ceaberry's Homesteading: Gardening Life Hack -- Seedling starters

Quick post, I used egg cartons cut in half to make seedling starters. I poked holes in the bottom of each egg cup and added soil. I used it to start sprouts for my chickens (I used soil to keep down the bugs) and the water collects in the bottom or you can use it as a bottom waterer. The flap from the top fits into the base making it pretty snug.