September - October 2018

Grit

Rural American Know-How

Grit2 min read
Cultivating In The Cold
The cicadas have been thrumming in the trees lately, and that sound always makes me think of fall. And thinking about fall gets me geared up for off-season gardening. While other gardeners are putting their plots to bed, I’m happily growing crops tha
Grit2 min readCooking, Food & Wine
Terrific Turtles
Share your visual perspective with the GRIT community. Post your photos at Facebook.com/GritMagazine, or tag us on Instagram (@grit1882). We chose several images you see here from those platforms, and you can find more within the blogging community o
Grit2 min read
WIT & WISDOM
With a little planning, you can create a fall garden that rivals the bright new leaves and flowers of spring. To choose plants for a fall garden, visit a nursery and ask questions: Does the plant have colorful berries for winter interest? Will it att
Grit6 min read
Business By Horseback
I began subscribing to GRIT this past year because of my father, Robert Lee Franklin. He passed away this past November at the age of 89. One of the ways he earned money when he was a young boy was by selling GRIT newspapers in Rankin County, Mississ
Grit3 min readAgriculture
Cultivating History
There’s a quiet farming village in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where time stands still. Here, life is a bit slower. Geese lead goslings past bank barns while oxen and draft horses graze in meadows edged in snake-rail fencing. Men in coveralls and
Grit5 min readCooking, Food & Wine
Home-rendered Recipes
If you look at pictures of pigs from more than half a century ago, you’ll see that most of them look a lot fatter than today’s commercial animals. That’s because the pork industry took a big hit when the medical community targeted fat in the mid-20th
Grit2 min readCooking, Food & Wine
Gritty’s Tips
One of the reasons we switched from raising Tamworths to American Guinea hogs is that the latter are a lard breed. Although they’re about half the size of Tamworths at harvest, we end up with three or four times as much lard. A 100-pound American Gui
Grit5 min readCooking, Food & Wine
Beyond The Black-eyed Pea
Cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata), also known as Southern peas or field peas, are a versatile crop — so versatile, they could be considered the vegetable version of a Swiss army knife. They can produce nutritious greens, snap beans, shell beans, and even d
Grit5 min readBotany
COPPICING TREES for Sustainable Firewood
Of all the forestry techniques available to woodland owners, few methods are as underutilized as coppicing. Coppicing is a reproduction method wherein a tree is cut back periodically to stimulate new growth through dormant buds on the living stump, o
Grit7 min read
Craft A Leather Belt
Whether you need a place to hang the rodeo buckle you won, or you just want to hold up your pants, a good leather belt is a handy thing to have. Fortunately, a good-looking, long-lasting leather belt is an easy project, even for those with little lea
Grit11 min read
Calving with Confidence
Whether you have one cow or a thousand, calving season is one of the most anticipated times of the year. Watching your cows round out, developing huge bellies as the time gets closer, is exciting. Like that proverbial watched pot, it seems the event
Grit7 min readEarth Sciences
Be a Weather Watcher
For those of us who are really into the weather, it’s not enough to say it’s warm outside or it rained yesterday. We want to know how warm it was or how much rain fell. Besides satisfying our meteorological curiosity, measuring the weather puts us mo
Grit7 min read
HISTORICAL Honey Mead
Mead has been a passion of mine ever since my husband and I started our homestead in the beautiful rolling hills of New York’s Finger Lakes region. Another of my passions is medieval history, and while these two might seem worlds apart, learning how
Grit7 min read
From Homeless to Homestead
You’ve decided it’s time to get a dog for your homestead. You know what you expect your new dog to do for you, be it companionship, security, herding, or vermin control; and, most likely, you know what breed of dog you want. But before you start look
Grit7 min read
Get Crackin’
Crouched behind a tree as walnuts whizzed through the air, their fleshy green husks exploding on impact, my 11-year-old self quickly gathered up a dozen or so. With the sound of friends’ laughter drawing closer, I knew it was now or never. I stepped
Grit8 min readCooking, Food & Wine
Cooking SMALL GAME
Game birds have always held a high place at the table, whether it’s a hunter’s prize of roast grouse or the annual Thanksgiving turkey. Pheasants, quail, rabbits, doves, grouse, and more are singular species with grand culinary traditions that offer
Grit4 min read
Lather Up Your Leather
Not just for cleaning saddles, saddle soap is specifically meant for cleaning and preserving all sorts of leather. Without occasional maintenance, leather will crack and warp as it dries out — whereas well-kept horse tack, knife sheaths, boots, leath
Grit7 min read
Grit
MOTHER EARTH NEWS FAIR Best-Seller! A gift for anyone ready to get in the soil. This handmade, multipurpose tool makes digging, weeding, hoeing, and trenching faster and easier than ever. Dig through rocks, cut through plant material, and remove unwa
Grit5 min read
BENDIGO SHAFTER A Louis L’Amour Western
Where the wagons stopped, we built our homes, making the cabins tight against the winter’s coming. Here in this place, we would build our town; here, we would create something new. We would space our buildings, lay out our streets, and dig wells to p

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