work when you can

 homesteading tends to homesteading tends to be very hard on a person, not hard emotionally, but hard physically. I have always said that if your homesteading properly you're going to be working every moment you can. If you're feeling well enough and the weather Isn't So harsh it destroys you, you should be out working. That has been reinforced by recent events when I snapped a rib yesterday. Thankfully my point of view on working paid off. I got several key things done the day before. When I finally got good weather, I worked when I could. And now I can't do much of anything. The internet claims it's a 6 week recovery time, but somewhere near the end of day two I can actually walk around without horrible pain. My advice is to work when you can. and set things up so you don't have to work if you're broken.
Looking at history, there was someone that was interested as to why people in North America had pretty much everything they wanted, this was not the case in England. So they ventured out for a trip trying to figure out why this was happening. When they finally viewed it firsthand, they were really surprised that people in North America worked from sunrise to sunset. The people in England didn't do this. If you you want something, you probably have to work for it. Broken ribs aside, work as much as you can, it's about the only way if you're trying to actually Farm.

Drying Rack

Lots of people need to use food dehydrators if they are dry foods.
You need about 100F, 15% humidity, and light wind. Thankfully that is my outside weather in the summer, so all I needed was a safe clean place to dry things.

So I built a drying rack with a wood frame. Aluminum window screen was stapled on each half.

 

it is hinged in the back, closes tight enough to keep mice and bugs out.
The legs keep it off the ground for good air flow.

Today I filled it with peppermint

the last batch took less than a day to get the leaves paper dry, it filled up a 5 gallon bucket when it was dry.

This time I am going to let it dry in the shade and not in the sun. I think it might end up being better mint tea that way, but I will not know that for a while.

the harvest has left the mint plot looking rather thin,

but it starts to look rather poor every summer when it gets hot enough to kill off the sugar peas.