November - December 2018

Grit

Rural American Know-How

Grit2 min readCooking, Food & Wine
Modern-day Farming
My brother texted the other day from the livestock sale barn. He’d hauled a load of cattle to the barn, so beef was on his mind, and because it was Customer Appreciation Day, there was a smoker at the barn, too. Lunch was a free steak with all the fi
Grit2 min read
WIT & WISDOM
Many gardeners are planting wildflowers as a beautiful, low-maintenance alternative to a lawn, or in areas that are difficult to mow. Wildflowers provide waves of color and sweet fragrances, and are a haven for butterflies, bees, hummingbirds, and so
Grit2 min readCooking, Food & Wine
Catching Up with Our Social Circle
Farming and raising livestock often means eating animals you raise. Learn what separates pets from meat on the farm. (www.Grit.com/Eating-Animals-Raised) Penny Jashinsky: We had a Hereford bull named Ferdinand who loved to be scratched. We ended up h
Grit5 min read
Mail Call
My infatuation with mushrooms began when I was teenager (“Finding Morel Mushrooms,” March/April 2018). A local farmer shared some of his mushrooms with us after a hunting excursion, and it was love at first taste. I didn’t know it then, but that was
Grit2 min read
Country Store
Editorial director Hank Will has always had a place for Kershaw’s folding knives in his kit. Among the several models Hank uses, he finds the Link, with its SpeedSafe assisted opening, perfect for cutting the twine off large round hay bales while he’
Grit5 min readAgriculture
Profiting From Off-season Farmland
Farming comes with myriad financial risks, from violent weather that destroys crops to unexpected drops in wholesale prices. For farmers looking to mitigate some of those losses, leasing their farmland for guided hunts can bring in additional income.
Grit4 min read
Winter Squash: Autumn’s Gift To The Gardener
An impressively long storage life and seemingly endless uses are just a couple of reasons winter squash is a great crop to have around come cool weather. Pumpkins grab most of the attention each fall, but all types of winter squash are invaluable to
Grit2 min readCooking, Food & Wine
Squash to Sample
ACORN: Acorns have a nutty flavor. They don’t store as long as other winter squash and are best eaten within a month or two of being harvested. BANANA: Large and long, banana is one of the sweeter types of winter squash. It stores well, usually lasti
Grit5 min readCooking, Food & Wine
Warming Winter Squash
There are plenty of things to love about fall, and one of them is harvesting winter squash from the garden — or getting them from your local farmers market — and then creating delicious dishes for your family. You can choose from multiple types, such
Grit4 min read
Soothing SOAK
When we first moved onto our land, we had grand plans for immediately building our home. At first, we thought we’d have a basic structure up in just a couple of months, but we quickly realized we weren’t ready to start construction. We decided we mig
Grit2 min read
The Build In A Nutshell
STAVES. Clear, tight-grain wood is ideal for a hot tub, but it’s often pricey. We used No. 2 cedar because it was locally available at a reasonable cost — but we did have to spend some time cutting out the clear pieces and avoiding knots. Our staves
Grit7 min read
Growing A Small-scale Business
My family began produce farming several years ago. We were so excited to share our beans, tomatoes, corn, and melons with our local community. What we quickly learned is that it’s much easier to grow produce than to sell it. We had a window of only a
Grit6 min readCooking, Food & Wine
GROW A WINTER Market Garden
Running a profitable market garden in winter can be challenging. In my area, the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwest Virginia, winter subjects us to everything from subzero temperatures at night to sudden daytime pops of heat that will make spinach bol
Grit3 min read
Gritty’s Tips
After a hoop house, the best kind of cold-weather insurance is genetic: Choose cultivars and species that will grow in winter. This is the season for root crops and leafy greens, so that means tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and the like are all out of
Grit5 min read
Running the TRAPLINE
All of us have a little trapping in us, even if it’s limited to setting mousetraps in our kitchens to relocate or exterminate pests. I imagine if you look back in your own family history, you’ll find trappers who made a living off of, or supplemented
Grit1 min read
Trapping, Then and Now
People have trapped animals for food and fur since at least the beginning of recorded history. A century ago, nearly every farm kid spent the winter trapping fur. Many a farm kept afloat and paid mercantile bills with furs, which were as good as cash
Grit6 min read
American Badgers: Four-legged Excavators
The American badger (Taxidea taxus) is one of the largest members of the weasel family (Mustelidae) in North America, second only to the wolverine, and it’s one of nine species of badgers found worldwide. Its relatives include the Eurasian badger, ho
Grit10 min read
Make A Leather Trapper’s Hat
Now that I’ve shown you how to turn a deer hide into leather (November/December 2017), the next step is to take that leather and create something useful. In this article, I’ll show you how to make a practical, comfortable trapper’s hat. You’ll need o
Grit9 min readCooking, Food & Wine
Edible Invasives
A cornucopia of edible wild plants is growing under our noses. Despite the appealing qualities of these feral foods, most of them have been forgotten, overlooked, or dismissed as useless. Some are simply invisible. The plants featured here are wild f
Grit6 min readEarth Sciences
Weather Folklore Fact or Fiction?
Long before meteorologists existed, people forecasted the weather based on observations of daily conditions and the subsequent weather. Many of these forecasting methods became ingrained in our culture as “weather lore.” Today, we can examine these s
Grit6 min read
A Shorthorn RENAISSANCE
One of the unsung heroes of heritage livestock farming is Norris Albaugh. He has dedicated his life to bringing back an important historic cattle breed — the Native Milking Shorthorn. I had the great pleasure of meeting Norris in 2011 in my role as s
Grit8 min read
Recommended Products for Wiser Living
Perfect for drying herbs, fruit, jerky, and more, the Weston 10-Tray Digital Dehydrator is an 830-watt countertop food dehydrator with a digital thermostat up to 155 degrees Fahrenheit. With 1,600 square inches of drying space and 10 nonstick trays,

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