Family Memories (2) Taxidermy

Over the next several weeks we will be running two series simultaneously. Tuesdays will be Family Memories. There may be guest posts from various members of my family. This will be a way for us to share our experiences and lessons learned. Many of these may be short.

On Thursdays we will be running a series on Getting  Prepared for Beginners. These posts will have reasons to be prepared and helpful tips to get to a more self-reliant point.

I counted my wife's post God Gave Me a Carter as the first post in the Family Memories series. So here we go.

As I have stated many times before my grandfather was responsible for many of the skills I have developed. One day while I was visiting him he asked me if I was interested in taxidermy. I told him, "Sure". He gave me a complete set of books on taxidermy.

I threw myself into the books. Read everyone of them. Not only did he give me the books, he gave me a large box off wood wool, wire, several sets of eyes, and a catalog for ordering more supplies.

This was in the summertime as I recall so no hunting season was open. So a fishin' I did go. It only took me trying two fish to realize that either I was not artistic enough or I would have to apprentice with someone to do fish.

My next attempt was a bird. I was trying to come up with something to work with. At first I was hunting with my BB gun. I thought the small projectile would do less damage to the skin of the bird and make it easier to mount. I shot at crows, blackbirds, and starlings. I think all my BBs were doing was stinging the birds and making them fly off, so I finally resorted to my 410 shotgun with number 8 shot.

I finally took a red winged black bird. They are very pretty and I thought could make a nice mount. So there I was- bird on the table, book in hand, and tools and supplies laid out before me. 

You have to skin things differently when you are trying to save the hide. If I had been planning to eat that bird it might have taken me one minute to skin it. I was trying to make a lasting display of that bird. About 30 minutes later I had the bird skinned. I only tore the hide once and considering how thin their skin is I was pleased.

Trying to do taxidermy without a mold is an art. I worked with the wire and the wood wool for probably an hour. The body looked fine. I just couldn't get the legs to look right. I worked with it off and on for a couple of days before I found an abandoned nest. I placed the bird in the nest and I thought "not a professional job but good enough for a first". I kept the red winged black bird for a couple of years. It really wasn't a bad job.

Next I tried a snake skin, but used the wrong chemical and turned it green. I have made leather with the knowledge I gained from those books and have done a couple of nice squirrels using the molds. The molds make it a thousand times easier. I even made a couple of coyote skin rugs over the years.

Am a great at this skill? Oh heck no. Do I still cherish this skill? Absolutely. Just because you aren't great at something does not mean it has no value. Like I said I can make leather and furs. Will I ever do taxidermy again? Yup, I probably will. Will it be a business? Oh no. But every skill you learn makes you better.

Learn a new skill and it will help you to have
Rural Dreams and Homestead Wishes 

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Farming on "New Ground"

The term new ground refers to an area that has not been previously cultivated or has not been cultivated in several years. New ground can be former pasture, brush land, timberland, or even non chemically treated lawn. New ground had major benefits as well as some serious challenges. We will cover both.

If you talk to any old timers they may tell you about new ground that has been in cultivation for years. What they really mean is it is the newest ground they have.

Benefits of New Ground

Most of the time new ground has not been contaminated by chemicals. As I said before this may not be true if turning a section of lawn into garden space. The chemicals approved for use on lawns are way more harsh than most approved for food production.

Most times new ground will be extremely fertile. Leaves or grass clippings are often left to decompose wherever they fall. This of course increases the organic content in the soil, which invites earthworms and a whole host of beneficial microbes.

New ground can be very mellow. It may not have ever been impacted by tillers or heavy equipment. Mellow ground is easily worked, holds water well (needs less irrigation), and is just easier for your plants' roots to get around in.

New ground has most likely not been contaminated with diseases. New ground normally has a wide range of biodiversity which inhibits many vegetable diseases and helps control many pests.

Challenges of New Ground

New ground is very labor and time intensive. Getting my area to the point is is now has taken me 10 months. This has been me working on it a little at a time, an hour here and 6 hours there. All but about 5 hours were done completely by hand. A buddy of mine brought his tractor over for half a day. Everything else was done by hand.

Weeding new ground in the first year is a beast. It does not matter what the ground was before, there are bound to be hundreds of seeds and roots waiting to grow in the middle of your vegetable patch. This can be a constant fight, and can turn into a battle of the bramble if you will.

When you have wonderful, fertile new ground, you will want to at least keep it as healthy as it was and hopefully make it healthier. Direct sunlight to soil can kill the top levels of beneficial insects and microbes. Many plants take nutrients from the soil. The answers are simple mulching, composting, rotational planting, and if needed organic fertilizers. I will provide links for each of these topics, as this is beyond the scope of this post.

My New Ground

My new ground started out covered in privet and honey suckle. It took me nearly a year to get it to the point where I could plant anything in it at all. I cut even with the ground anything I couldn't pull up. Burned all of the brush that was too large to go through my chipper. Raked everything I could and am constantly pulling what feels like thousands of honey suckle and wild blackberry roots.

I am out in the garden everyday hoeing to stop any weeds from getting too far. As the plants I want get bigger I will be putting down cardboard and mulching with a mixture of pine shavings, wheat straw that was at the bottom of the chicken brooder area, and compost. This will go a long way to stopping the weed invasion, will prevent moisture loss, and will breakdown and actually improve the soil.

By taking in this new ground I increased my food production area by a little over 3 times. I am hoping to provide updates in the months to come.

For more information related to this topic you can read the following articles.
The Lowdown on Compost
Chinese Privet Homestead Hero or Villain
My Experiments with Hugelkultur and No Till
Lasagna Gardening
Instant Garden

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This post shared on the following blog hops: Simple Saturday Blog Hop

Getting Prepared for Beginners Series (1) Why Prepare

With all of the buzz going around lately there are a lot of people that have been introduced to the term prepper in the last couple of years. Like anything else that people deem out of the ordinary, there has been an effort to paint anyone who prepares or preps as being weird. The truth of the matter is most people who prep are only returning to the habits of their grandparents or in some cases their great grandparents.

Our ancestors knew that hard times would come. They did not have all of the conveniences that we have today. 24 hour grocery stores are a very new creation. They would have never thought to go to the store and only bought enough for one day let alone one meal. I have been guilty of doing just that.

The television show Doomsday Preppers has both helped and harmed the preparedness community. Even if the people they feature on that show are actually stable, they are painted to be lunatics. I tried to watch this show, but never made it through a complete episode. The only person I remember being featured on this show was supposed to be preparing for a polar shift. Basically this is where the world turns upside down suddenly. The north pole becomes the south pole. All of the sudden I will be living in South America. Um, okay, sure. 

If you focus on trying to get ready for some massive event it is easy to get overwhelmed. My advice is to prepare for smaller more common events. Here are my reasons to start getting prepared.

April 27, 2011 a massive tornado out break killed 238 people in Alabama alone. This storm also destroyed almost everything I owned. Had I not stayed the night at my girlfriend's house (now my wife), I would have likely been counted among the dead. The first few days after the storm were tough. No one had power, even if their homes were untouched. Everyone was trying to get a generator, food, and water. Those whose homes were destroyed were seeking shelter. None of the banks were open. You could not get cash and your debit cards didn't work. Some people were without power for weeks. 

2014 saw two snow storms in Alabama. I know many of my northern friends thought what we call a snow storm to be a typical day. Try to imagine not having any of the equipment or infrastructure to handle this type of event and yet still having to deal with it. During the last snow storm we were stuck in our small community for 3 days. The local grocery and local department store was closed. Unless you had snow chains you were not going to make it to anywhere that was open. You had to deal with what you had on hand for 3 days. We were only without power for about 6 hours. Six hours that could have been very cold without a backup source of heat.

Tornadoes, snow storms, hurricanes, wild fires, power outages, are just some of the possible reasons it makes sense to be prepared. These reasons change depending on where you live. Make a list of the most likely things you would need to be prepared for and leave them in the comments section of this post. Next week we will cover the mindset of getting prepared.

I hope this series helps you have...
Rural Dreams and Homestead Wishes

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More Posts in this series:

#1 Why Prepare

#2 The Preparedness Mindset

#3 Priorities List

#4 Getting to My Family

#5 The Backpack

#6 Food Storage

#7 Basic Energy

#8 Water
#9 Security
#10 Medical
#11 Travel and Communications
#12 Fuel Storage
#13 Keep It Quiet aka OPSEC
#14 Building Community and Helping Others
#15 Skill Development (Home)
#16 Don't Fear the Reaper

#17 A Case for Long-Term Preparedness

This post shared on the following Blog Hops: The HomeAcre Hop, Front Porch Friday, Simple Saturday Blog Hop