Cedar Writes

Category: Naturalist

  • Livestock Resources for Further Research

    Livestock Resources for Further Research

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    Cedar Sanderson
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    Another guest post by my mother, Kathleen Sanderson, in follow-up to the post at Mad Genius Club about livestock in space. This is also useful information if you are planning on keeping small stock while stuck on our current mudball.  There seems to be quite a bit of interest in the animals that colonists might…

  • Childhood Memories

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    cedarlili
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    To begin with, I was a military brat from the tender age of four days. We rarely lived anywhere for a full year until the year I was ten, when Dad left the military, and we moved to Alaska. Added to that my parents’ preference for rural life and I don’t remember living in a…

  • Night Creatures: Tracks, Spiders, and Bats

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    cedarlili
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    The following was written for a library program where the participants were ranging in age from babies to 4th grade. I wanted to present it here with some pictures I’ve taken over the years. Enjoy, and pass it on to kids you know… Perhaps they will take the time to read some morning stories of…

  • Blackberries

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    cedarlili
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    As we were picking berries yesterday, I realized we have about three species of blackberries, possibly more. One is properly called a Dewberry, and I was calling it brambleberry. We picked all three happily yesterday, the final weigh-in was about 5 pounds of blackberries. We also harvested late blueberries and chokecherries, but someone asked about…

  • Excitement and Raspberries

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    cedarlili
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    It’s been an interesting day… very quiet at the moment, as the kids are off at a friend’s party. But about 10 am, Dad came in and announced that the guy with the excavator was coming this afternoon to clean the farm lane, the pad for the second greenhouse, and the pad for the shops.…

  • Milkweed Blooms

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    cedarlili
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    I’m always happy when the milkweed starts blooming. Yes, I know it’s a weed, but its the food plant of the Monarch butterfly caterpillar, and if that weren’t enough, it smells so good. I’ve been toying with trying to extract the essential oil from the flowers and bottling that scent for year-round enjoyment. I tried…

  • Books on the Farm

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    cedarlili
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    It’s been chilly and rainy, so not much is happening on the farm. Critters need fed, herbs are growing, but the tomatoes aren’t ripening yet and the raspberries are holding off, too. Dad and I both tend to do one thing during down times… we read. A lot. My parents gave me a love of…

  • Farm Pretties

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    cedarlili
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    It has been rainy, chilly, busy, and I have been sick. We had a first-time doe kit out last night and she didn’t stay with the bunnies so we lost the litter. Sad, but at least we know that the junior buck is viable. We’ll breed her again in a few days, but if she…

  • Strawberry Jam

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    cedarlili
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    I went out for another hour this morning and picked strawberries with Johann. Actually, he chased butterflies and I picked. I seem to be averaging a cup of berries in an hour. When I came back in and took a look at my berries we had 6 cups total, 5 when mashed up a little.…

  • Wild Strawberries

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    cedarlili
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    Our pasture is half wild, come up to brush and brambles over the last twenty years. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. True, we plan to reclaim at least part of it to field so we can grow our own grain, but a good amount of it will be kept just as it…

  • Planting the Garden and Distractions

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    cedarlili
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    I’ve been working on getting the garden planted. I had a ton of melon and squash starts to get in, finished those today. I planted cucumbers, golden and blue Hubbard squash, watermelon sugar baby, Melons Jenny Lind, Crenshaw, Sweet Granite, Pixie, Charentais, and one that Johann lost the label to. I put in butternut squash…

  • Walking in the Woods

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    cedarlili
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    Serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia) is one of the first berries to ripen, in mid June, because it is one of the first to bloom. Distantly related to apples and roses, the Serviceberry trees look like puffy white clouds as you drive down the road in early May. I have several here on the Farm, and I…