Fire!

One of the things to consider when living in a remote or rural location is natural disasters and emergencies. 

On 6 June, a fire started near the border of the Bell Ranch. The ranch is a bout 39 miles (63 km) away. Here are some pictures...

www.kob.com/albuquerque-news/crews-battle-wildfire-in-northern-new-mexico/5753920/

It rained a bit yesterday, but it wasn't enough to put out the fire. We ask that you pray for the safety of the firefighters, neighbors, animals, and property of the people. 

Trees

We've been on our homestead for 5 years. It might seem like we haven't accomplished much, but this is because we don't deal with financing. When we have money, we do a project. Al hamdulillah, the journey has been a beautiful one. If we had all of the money at once or bought an established homestead, we wouldn't have appreciated it as much, or neglected the benefits of reflecting on Allah's creation.

One of the most beautiful things is planting trees! Between March 14th and the 21st, we planted 50 trees. We also planted a few flowers. We intend to blanket our property with trees. Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, trees played an integral part of my childhood. There's something special about playing outside all day, and eating cherries from your grandmother's tree that is peaceful. I grew up eating fresh cherries, apples, grapes, blackberries, and mulberries...and I want my grandchildren you one day experience a similar enjoyment.

Here are some pictures of the greenery on our homestead.

We're Back!

As salaamu alaikum wa rahmatullah! We know it's been a long while since we posted any updates. We wanted and planned to, but time gets the best of us. A lot has happened since last year. All of the plots in the 100 acre area have been purchased. Our little community now has 6 Muslim families, al hamdulillah! One of the members is Dr. Khalid Green. Here's the link to his YouTube channel...Khalid Green.

We are now working on a major project...an Islamic boarding school for boys, grades 9-12. We will be sharing more about this project in future posts.

Our number of livestock, trees, and energy effectiveness has improved. We've also started advising others how they can establish their own homesteads.

Please check back on Fridays for new posts. Barak Allahu feekum.

2019, New Year, Old News!

This past year has been a blur of land purchases, appointments, communication, lambs, breeding, calving, tech upgrades, solar refinements and discoveries, changes in plan, health issues, and plenty of everything else - al hamdulillah!

In April, Allah blessed us with four spring lambs to add to our flock: two girls - Marshmallow and Honey Puff, and two boys - Ramazing and Woolly B. Then in June, our Daisy calved and we have a beautiful little calf named Violet. She is 3/4 Jersey, 1/4 Red Angus - a hardier breed that will provide A2A2 milk (casein A2) and yet have a heavier frame, insha'Allah. We also sold our bull, Barbecue (Violet's daddy), as he had done his job and had become an annoyance.

We added 4 solar panels to our main solar set up, then finally got another 15 cu ft chest freezer, ready for our winter slaughtering. We were planning to slaughter Youngbul, our Angus-Simmental steer, during October, but we had such heavy rains (al hamdulillah) during the autumn that we had to postpone it to November.

During Ramadan, our middle daughter was taken severely ill, resulting in numerous doctors and specialist appointments, Emergency Room trips, and a period of hospitalization in the ensuing months.  Al hamdulillah, things are improving, and we are grateful for all the support and du'a.

We were blessed in another amazing way over the summer, masha'Allah. We were approved to get high speed fiber optic internet line to our land, al hamdulillah. Considering that it costs over $40,000 per mile to lay the fiber optic cable, and it was about 1.5 miles of cable that had to be laid to serve us, we feel overwhelming gratitude for Allah's endless provision. We had no installation fees to pay: simply a monthly bill of $50 for up to 100 Mbps, upgradable to $70 for up to 1 Gig, masha'Allah. This internet service has enabled Shariyf to work from home for his online teaching and website management al hamdulillah.

On October 16th, Azalea (our heifer born Feb 14th, '16) calved, giving us an adorable little calf named Jasmine. We now have two cows in milk, and two heifer calves that can be bred from June and October 2019. The plan is to keep Voilet as our next generation A2A2 dairy cow, and sell the others over the coming 18 months, insha'Allah.

When November rolled around, we finally slaughtered Youngbul. Weighing in at around 2,000 lbs, it was a monumental job, subhaan Allah. The actual slaughtering went easy, bi idhn Illah ta'ala, but the skinning, cutting, and hanging were exhausting. The first thing Shariyf said, as he walked in the door after managing to load all the meat in the truckbed to take to our neighbor's walk in cooler, was, "Never again. I'm saving from now for the money to get it professionally processed next time." The girls helped him, but it was a long hard day masha'Allah. Of course, after every difficulty there is ease, and after hanging the meat for 21 days, we butchered into roasts, steaks, cubes, grind, ribs, etc. The meat is the best we have ever tasted; a testimony to raising organic, grass fed and finished beef masha'Allah! We have taken the beef belly and smoked around 20 lbs of our own hickory beef bacon. We look forward to making pastrami, corned beef, and summer sausage soon, insha'Allah.

We were able to help fellow Muslims buy land, and find & transport mobile homes to the area so they can begin their homesteading journey. We call the area Andalucia! To date, 3 other families have purchased land for their homesteads. The Muslims are in possession of 151 acres. Of course it will take time for the community to grow, but we're off to a good start, al hamdulillah!

Where have we been?

As salaamu alaikum. I'm sure some of you wondered what happened to us? Well, the simple answer is: life. We've started so many project...and few are finished. We are reorganizing and planning to post at least once a month. The computer with all of our pictures just died! So, we lost almost a year's worth of homesteading pictures. During the next few weeks, we will take new pictures to catch everyone up. Unfortunately, you won't be able to see the step by step pictures of some projects. Please share our blog with friends and family, and rejoin us on our homesteading journey! Barak Allahu feekum.

Remote Amusements

People may ask what our children do, as they are on the farm with no outside friends, television, video games, or iPads. Well, aside from milking the cow, taking care of the animals and chickens, Islamic studies and homeschooling, and chores, they have several other interests.

They all are into jigsaw puzzles at the moment. 100 piece puzzles of dump trucks for our 5 year old and 1000 piece scenes for our older girls. They all like building things with Lego, wooden log cabin sets, train sets, and the like.They also love playing games like I Spy Eagle Eye, Spot It, Rock On, Wild Craft, Scrabble, Rush Hour, Tangram, Bananagrams, Catan, Qur'an and Hadith Challenge, etc.

They all love arts and crafts. They draw, paint, knit,  crochet,  sew, make bead jewelry, latch hook rugs, and are venturing into quilting insha'Allah. They make lip balms, soaps, lotions and potions for hair and skin.

They love cooking, especially making large batches of organic cookies, crackers, caramel popcorn, pizza, and cakes...so they can eat them. 

They also love to read copious amounts of books, widely ranging from autobiographies to animal care and beyond. They enjoy harvesting interesting plants, fruits, and veggies from the land and identifying different wildlife.

They ride fat tire bikes and have mini dirt bikes.

They swing, trapeze, see saw, walk, run, and play. They have a dugout and are building a stone house.

Masha'Allah, they never have enough time to do all they want to, but al hamdulillah, they are never bored.

September to the beginning of November

We started out September with intentions to slaughter a steer (named September, LOL) for Eid ul Adha. Those plans changed when we couldn't catch him within the days of tashreeq. We slaughtered a lamb instead and put 61 lbs of meat in our freezer, al hamdulillah.

We finally lassoed September sixteen days later and embarked on the slaughtering, aging, and butchering of the largest animal we'd ever dealt with. Considering  he was quite small, only weighing around 1,000 lbs (453.6 kg), it was a practice run for when we slaughter Youngbul next year, when he will weigh around 2,000 lbs (907 kg), insha'Allah. Al hamdulillah, we managed it and filled our 14 cubic foot freezer with around 500 lbs (226.8 kg) of our own organic, grass-fed, zabiha beef.

It was also a month of gradual harvesting, bringing in quantities of tomatoes, hot peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, melons, corn, etc. We made batches of green tomato chutney, tomato and chili jam, sweet relish, sauerkraut, dill pickles, sun dried tomatoes, strawberry jam, and more. Al hamdulillahi Rabbil aal ameen.

Preserving also extended to our dairy, as we had up to a gallon of raw cream each day. We shook it into butter, froze some, and made jars and jars of clarified butter and ghee for shelf stable storage. We also rendered tallow and suet from the lamb and steer we slaughtered, al hamdulillah.

Early October brought freezing weather, so we gathered up our little pumpkins, dug up our peanuts, and started harvesting our potatoes. Garlic was planted out and most of the garden was cleaned up and prepped for a long winter's rest.

By the end of October we finished replacing the nine old windows in our mobile home with new thermal pane ones. This has made a huge difference to the insulation of our home, alhamdulillah.

We added two more solar panels to our array to beef up the system prior to winter. We now have 500 watts serving our main battery bank, powering our freezer, fridge, and other general needs. We have 200 watts powering our living room battery bank, which is only used for charging phones, powering computers and lights, etc. We also moved the bank of panels out 100 ft (30.48 m) to an area in the garden to enable them to get uninterrupted sunlight all day, all seasons.

Early November we brought Daisy and Azalea back over to the animal corral. This makes milking much faster in the  colder months and they have a barn for shelter in harsh weather. We also bought a new ram, who we've named Cyril the Magnificent, to service our four ewes.

We had a special order to bake a cake for a wedding celebration - a triple layered vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream and strawberries. Al hamdulillah, it was enjoyed by all and we received a lovely thank you note.

Stay tuned for an upcoming comparison between us and other homesteaders out there...