Writing about the homesteading lifestyle

__By Rennie Phillips__

Beautiful weather last week. Nights down into the 50s and days in the upper 70s to lower 80s. And then Thursday's rain made it about perfect. Really can't beat these kinds of days.

A little history

We moved to Scott City back in 1986, and I started to write for the old Jimplicute, which was the local paper in Scott City. My column has changed a little through the years, but I've always written about topics that interest me. These include gardening, fishing, hunting, cooking and homesteading, which is a new word for a lifestyle we enjoy. We grow or raise most of our food on our place, which is close to Scott City.

Our pets

All our animals are pets, whether it be our 2-year-old steers or bottle-baby calves or cats or dog. No matter what we do outside, our cats go along. We have two baby calves that we are currently feeding on the bottle. Both of them are growing and nibbling on grain along with a bottle of milk twice a day, which they truly get excited over.

Gardening

With the days getting shorter, all the plants in our gardens know fall is here and winter is coming. Some of the plants such as kale or collards or chard like the fall and cooler nights and days, while okra or tomatoes don't appreciate the 50-degree nights. Plants such as turnips just love the fall and onset of winter. We have been pulling some of our purple-top turnips and enjoying them raw with a touch of Lawry's seasoning salt. Then we cut up a bunch and fried them like potatoes. Fried turnips are downright delicious.

Fall fishing

Spring is a great time of the year to fish. Most crappie fishermen love to fish the spawn in the spring. But for me, I honestly would rather fish in the fall. Fish in the fall seem to be frantically trying to put on some extra meat to take into the winter and colder weather. As a result, they are on a kind of feeding frenzy.

You can use either artificial bait like plastic worms for bass or small jigs for the crappie and bluegill. My favorite baits are natural baits. I like minnows for bass and crappie. Crickets top my list for bluegill or even crappie. Worms will work for bass and bluegill. Some of the best bass fishing I have ever experienced was using night crawlers suspended below a slip bobber. Leave a couple inches of worm dangle from the hook. A bass simply can not resist a night crawler presented like this.

You can catch crappie in almost any depth of water. It can range from a few feet on down to 20 feet deep or deeper with standing timber. The crappie will suspend down where they are comfortable given the temperature of the water and the water clarity.

Bluegill can be caught in water that ranges from a few feet deep on down. My favorite way of fishing for bluegill is to cast into shallow water using a slip bobber, then slowly real the bobber rig into deeper water, letting the hook and bait fall each time. Crickets work especially well.

I broke away a week ago and found some crappie around sunken trees in about 8 or 9 feet of water. They were suspended down about four feet or so. I was using slip bobbers and minnows, which is my favorite bait for fall fishing.