Homesteading Community Highlights #8

Good to see you all again, for another better-late-than-never edition of Homesteading Highlights! It has brought me great joy to get a glimpse into your lives each day as I read the incoming posts to the community. I hope you all have found as much inspiration and information here as I have!

That's enough lip service to the readers... let's see what happened over the last two weeks!

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Building, maintenance, and repair

There weren't quite as many building projects posted over the last couple of weeks, but still enough to find a few that stood out. Here's a look at what I liked.

@anttn shared a review of some interesting off grid gear that I thought was worth sharing. Emergency supplies like these can be very handy things to have when our building need maintenance or repair!
@anttn/do-you-have-special-tools-to-protect-you-from-energy-shortages

@viking-ventures shared some plans for spring, along with some video links and other ideas about building and planting raised beds for gardening.
@viking-ventures/planning-for-spring-part-1-homesteading

@gubbatv posted about the latest in her string of problems on the homestead... a backed up septic tank! If you have a septic tank, but know nothing about it, I highly recommend watching this video.
@gubbatv/msbowztu

@kingsleymark let us all know about a practice in Nigeria I had never heard of, a mandatory environmental clean up day. The pic at the top of this section shows some of that work getting done.
@kingsleymark/homesteading-environmental-sanitation-was-today

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Livestock

The livestock section in this edition is all about poultry, but we still managed to find a bit of variety. These are the posts I thought looked the tastiest.

@jmis101 talks about the anxiety that comes with having someone else care for your animals, and seeks some advice about skinny chickens in this short post:
@jmis101/hefty-and-slow-or-light

@flemingfarm shares a very detailed post about processing some turkeys, in this visual journey through homestead chores:
@flemingfarm/turkey-butchering-day-batch-77-finished-pre-eggs-bread-trailer-sore-saturday

@anomadsoul posted about starting small, literally, with a flock of young quails. Their picture graces the top of this section.
@anomadsoul/the-journey-of-homesteading-or

@peterale gives us another wonderful look into the life of a commercial poultry farmer in this post about tending his broiler chickens:
@peterale/why-the-use-of-multivitamin-is-vital-during-heat-period-life-of-a-livestock-farmer

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Planting and Growing

As winter comes to the northern hemisphere, many of us are taking final harvests, and some are planting winter crops. Here a few posts about growing that I thought you would enjoy.

@desiredlady shares a wonderful story about what a little care and help can do for an orange tree:
@desiredlady/a-great-lesson-drive-from

@danokoroafor shows us some outstanding pics and shares some information about growing tomatoes. One of those pics can be seen at the top of this section.
@danokoroafor/my-tomatoes-plant-from-little-seed-to-big-seed

I don't normally self promote, but I thought you might all enjoy this post about growing my best crop of corn ever, then losing it.
@paradoxtma/the-joy-and-sorrow-of

@miztajovial gifted us with some wonderful pictures and a bit of information about cultivating bananas in this delightful post:
@miztajovial/ogede-paranta

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Harvest, Cooking, and Storage

There have been a lot of posts about the rice harvests lately, and the last two weeks were no exception. Here's a couple more rice harvest highlights, plus some others I thought you might like.

@mrnightmare89 gave us some great pics, like the one at the top of this section, as well as some well thought words about the importance of rice.
@mrnightmare89/rice-paddy-under-the-sun

@jimah1k shared about taking time to help with the family soybean harvest in this work of art:
@jimah1k/harvested-soya-beans-from-our-farm

@eminentsam48 gave us all a lesson about the full process of processing cassava into garri in this very informative post:
@eminentsam48/my-homesteading-farmland-ways-of-processing-our-garri-cassava-granular--nigerias-most-consumables

Finishing strong this edition, we double down on the rice harvest as @apunawu shares with us about harvesting rice, after already harvesting rice!
@apunawu/re-harvesting-some-rice-left-after-the-first-harvest

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I hope everyone enjoyed the highlights in this edition! As a reward for reading this far, I'm pleased to let you know that the topic for the next Homesteading Community Contest is going to be... weeds! That's right, weeds, that chore that every gardener faces at some point, and also, that overlooked food that many foragers seek! In the next contest, I'll be asking you to show me your weeds, how you deal with them, and what you do with them. Look for that announcement by the end of the week.

I'm also pleased to announce that OCD is showing some interest in utilizing the 'tipping' feature of Hive. This is a very underutilized tool that Hive has, and is a great way to give rewards to high quality posts that didn't earn much, and have passed the 7 day payout period. I won't bore you with the details of how it all will work, but I hope to be using this in the near future to get rewards to some of you whose posts I just didn't get submitted in time for a big vote.

That's all for this edition, I'll remind you as always that if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, I'm happy to address them in the comments below. Thank you all for reading, posting, voting, and engaging in our Homesteading Community!