Long Over Due Update!

I know I have not written anything in some time on here, partly due to money issues and partly due to just being busy. At this time we have 2 interns staying with us, both are here either because they want to learn about how we live or because they want to live like this and wanted an easy way to get a start. One of them is our current mode of transportation as our van is officially dead. We are planning on turning it into storage and using the oh so comfy seats in the house (honestly they are -very- comfortable). The same one who has the vehicle is also working at a town job 4 days a week to help out a bit and to assist in getting them out of the debt issues they have.

As for what is directly going on here, well first our money situation is starting to turn itself around (btw my dear friend whom we got the water tanks from payback is coming to you in a couple weeks fingers crossed). We acquired some more goats, an adult and 4 babies.. 3 of them however did not make it. It's a learning experience as one died due tot he fact that it seemed to have been sick when we picked it up. The other 2 shrugs I am not sure what got them though I suspect bloat got one of them. However we have our started herd of milk/meat goats.

We also got a new -small- flock of just hens, they aren't producing the amount of eggs I wish they were but again, it's building and the point is to make it till spring when we buy a new flock. I have 2 rabbits at the moment for our meat production. (Oh for those of you who whine about “don't hurt the cute bunny!” Let me tell you that -cute- bunny has teeth and claws and can hurt you and have you ever seen a cow that is raised on a farm and has good feed, plenty of land to graze one? They are adorable, so if you think the cute bunny shouldn't be hurt .. don't eat the cute cow). I have contact with someone local who is going to sell me a good breeding stock on bunnies so that for us is a big plus.

Our garden this year has been doing 100X's better than we have had before due to my new garden beds. I even pickled some cucumbers the other day. I am still trying to get enough tomatoes to can so I can do sauces and have chili fixings for all winter. I managed to pull 1 melon so far out of my garden, I think I still need to tinker a bit to get good big melons from my beds.

Our second intern is a young man, who has spent most of his life living in the city playing video games and living the life of the average city kid these days. He's been chopping and hauling wood for about 3 weeks now interspersed with some dirt hauling. He is -just- starting to gain some muscle on his arms. Yes, we are still working on our winter wood. We got a chain saw this spring that after 2 days of work died, and when we took it back we needed the refund for bills so the new chainsaw got put on the back burner till we could afford it. We just got a new one and we are trying to get enough wood put up for this winter. We have 2 buildings to heat this year, so we have 2 wood burners to feed all winter.

The kids head back to school tomorrow morning, so they are excited; as are we as we get quiet then. We'll even get more work done as we won't be chasing them around to get the jobs they need done completed. Oh for those of you who know me on FB, I really don't go in there anymore unless there is something I feel is important enough to get out to -everybody-, I am not even sending links to this blog there anymore. For me FB has become a bit of a joke and I just don't see the point in it anymore.

I cannot guarantee I will keep things major-ly up to date as we have tons of things going on around here and I had a free moment and someone locally asked I update the blog as they feel what we are doing would interest a good deal of people out there. I am honestly not sure how true that is as from the bit of lurking I do have time for online I don't see much activity of this kind out there anymore. It is like homesteading in the woods -was- a fad that is now over with. I might be wrong, but I don't see much in the way of people being interested in it at this point.

Example, we had another person here for about 3 months. Boy, was it a failure; this young man thought that life here would be a breeze. As whenever he was online we tended to be as well to chat with him. What you don't wind up seeing is this young man stays up till 3 am and doesn't wake up till about noon. By noon we have our morning chores done and in the spring we don't work 100% of the day any more than the rest of the year. However there are times we come very close to it. He moved down here supposedly to assist us and as he needed a place to live. He after a couple of times flatly refused to do any work as quote”my back hurts too much for that”. Now anyone who reads this blog knows that my partner Silver is disabled, he has a bad knee and suffers from RA horribly. Some days he can't even get out of bed it can be so bad. So we have a 19 yr old young man who can barely lift a shovel to move some dirt because his back hurts. However when we suggested he see a doctor he refused to do that. So after a while of that and him wasting our food we sent him away.

I had at one time a person who looked at my blog and told me that what we do there had to be a lie because no one could live like that or do that much “stuff” in one day. It bothers me that (this person was under 30 btw) people younger than me think life is just about sitting in their chairs infront of a screen all day and walking to the car to go to work is hard exercise. Where has the work ethic of people gone?

Well that is about ti from here right now, hope everyone is well and healthy.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Flour-Less Chocolate Cake

Yes you read the title... flour-less, no flour.  It's a protein shot, granted it is a little on the rich side and some people probably would have fits over what the ingredients are.
 Here is the cake unfrosted:
 
Here are the ingredients:
 6 whole eggs
 20 oz of chocolate chips(bitter-sweet)
 1T of vanilla extract
 1/2 lb of butter

 Yes!  That is all there is in this cake.  What you do is you first get your eggs to room temperature, fresh eggs are the best of course.  Whip them to stiff peaks, and yes it's possible; it just takes time.  While that is whipping melt the chocolate chips and butter together, I have to say this is probably the only thing we use a microwave for.  Add the vanilla to the chip/butter mixture and mix it all till that is smooth.  Fold the chocolate mixture into the eggs carefully.  Then pour into a spring-form pan and bake at 350 degrees (pre-heated) until the surface cracks.  Cool thoughly before eating or frosting, it does tend to be crumbly and a tad rich.

 This is the cake frosted with real butter creme:
  Yes, there is only frosting on the top as we are running out of butter.  Silver who is a trained chef and once worked at a resort that served this cake un-frosted at $8 a small slice.  You know those kinds of slices, you see them in TV shows when someone goes to a fancy restaurant and their plate for dessert is at least three times the size of the cake.

 Please also note there is no ADDED  sugar to this either, so it's fairly safe for a diabetic who is eating properly.  But please, do not take my word for it other than the fact that Silver is a diabetic, and he eats this cake.    

   I hope you all try this cake out it's heavanly!

USDA to let Chicken producers self inspect

I read this and almost choked on my cup of tea this morning:

http://news.yahoo.com/usda-let-industry-self-inspect-chicken-191142649--abc-news-topstories.html

Seems the USDA is planning to let the chicken industry selfinspect their own chickens, some how I don't think the money they are "saving" ($85 million over 3 years) is going to be a good thing.  I imagine that all of the bad that currently comes from the factory chicken production will continue to get worse, and it will be due to lax inspection statuses.

I hope at least some of the chicken producers wind up "being big" and do things properly.  However I suggest people start only buying free range eggs and meat unless you grow them yourself.   As if you grow them yourself you are responsible if you hurt yourself, so you tend to make sure you know what is and isn't going on with your meat.

Keep your eyes open folks, and watch what you eat...

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Record Keeping

I was filling out my record keeping info this morning when I thought that I should make some kind of statement on it. First I will say I am the worlds WORST record keeper. I have a tendency to forget to write things down, however I know with how I am living I can't be forgetting to do it.

I have a couple odd notebooks hear there and everywhere, I also have an accounting journal. I have one notebook just for my “daily” info, i.e. weather, eggs (when produces/size/how many), seedlings sprouted, food harvested (non-egg). I read in a book once that it's important to write down the weather or anything “out of the ordinary” so if anything seems “odd” in your accounting you can figure out why.

I have also made sure that our bills and receipts are stored in one location that we cannot lose. We have a lovely binder that stores each bill in it's own place (aside from the non- “regular bills) I keep the feed receipt and receipts from my seed purchases in one. The idea behind this is at the end of each month (we have money once a month) I add up our “harvested food (eggs included) and then keeping current store prices in mind I subtract my cost in. Then I let myself know how much we “made” by not buying the finished product.

Last month we made around $30 in our egg production, by not having to buy any eggs. All I did was add up the eggs I gathers over the month, broke them down into dozens and then multiplied by “going” store price for basic eggs (I wasn't even going with “organic”, or “free range”) and then subtract any feed I have bought for them. I am hoping this year we might be able to start making our own feed if things go well, then our “made” money will be higher.

just in case you didn't understand the way I stated it... no I don't sell my eggs. I am basing this on money I didn't spend buying eggs

… just wanted to clarify on that one. I hope that if you are homesteading (no matter how) you remember to keep the “books” in order, you might be surprised.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Our First Egg!

Yes I would first like to point out that our internet is momentarily on, but as the phone company said 8th at end of business day; we are guessing it will go at any time.



Now on to today's BIG news:

This is our very first egg! I found it this morning when I decided on a whim to go check out the yard, thinking that the girls aren't looking very closely and found it in the yard not the coop. Under the outdoor roost. It is a medium sized egg so we are figuring it came from the Polish Crested hen or maybe the Barred rock hens we have. So I am setting up a schedule with the kiddo's on a "chicken check" a couple times a day just to ensure that we will get all the eggs that the hens produce. ...also because I don't want them eating them, they didn't seem to notice this one when I went in to get it.



As for the root cellar... it looks like we will be waiting a bit to dig in it as it is 1/4 full of water from the rain we got and we are due more rain today... Yep, we need it... but this morning on the way to the hen house I commented to Silver that with the fog and light it looked like early spring outside. Being that it is still the "dog days" of summer that's an odd occurrance to me.

That's it for now as I want to get this in before our net does go down.

Be Well, Be Safe and Blessed Be...

A fun day

Yes these are eggs, and what is fun about them? Well... i'd say how we got them is the fun part. A few days before the New Year me Silver and the kids were out paying bills and doing laundry (normal pay day stuff) and we saw a sign for eggs for sale. Around here that isn't all that interesting how ever these people were selling them at $.60 a dozen. Now going price around here is about $1.00 a dozen so today when we went out for the last few bills and some minor shopping we noticed that the sign was still up. On the way home we stopped there.

Now I am not sure if these people are Mennonite or Amish, but I do know they are one of the two; so i knew that the chickens the eggs came from would be well cared for. When we stopped and asked if they still had any eggs for sale the young man said "Oh yes we have plenty of eggs for sale". So i decided to ask if he had enough for 3 dozen and he replied "is that all you need?" I would have bought more, but we only bought 3 dozen as we did not know how many eggs they would have on their farm.

We stood there for a bit with Silver chatting with the young man and we found out that they supply some of the eggs that Cackle Hatchery uses for their sales. We were also told by the young man that if we would like some adult chickens who already lay we could buy their hens off them in July for $3 per hen. It seems for the benefit of making sure the eggs laid are the best they only take them from the first year of laying.

So seeing as how it would take about that long or longer for chicks in the spring to grow to laying size this should work out well for us, and the year after we can get some chicks to add to the flock. We are also thinking of returning in a day or so to buy more eggs :D I like fresh eggs!

On another note... Silver was looking online and found something interesting sees there is a Christian group out there that thinks the "Rapture" will occur on May 21st of this year, and the man's reasoning is that the bible does not have a zero year and because God considers one day to be 1000 years and that god told Noah that the world would have 7 days till He would end the world in fire.

This made me think a minute... what about the Mayan calendar? Does it have a zero year? If not does that mean everyone is wrong about when the calendar ends? Is it this year? Has anyone asked this question before? It really is an interesting point, our calendar is based on there being a zero year; but not all civilization has the same calendar. JUst a curiosisty I thought I'd point out.

A couple of days ago two of our dogs got into I think a skunk... Silver and I had let them out before we were to go to bed just like every night and three of them would not come back in. So because we were not going to stay up forever we went to bed and waited for the youngest to bark for us to let them in. Well when I got up... half asleep mind you... and let them in I got hit with this smell as the pack of 3 dogs came running in. About 5 minutes later while I was in the bathroom my mind made the connection... skunk! So back out they went, today we have gotten the two smelly ones cleaned up; we had to get some peroxide. It does work, and it works fast. I am hoping the two dogs appreciate the "inside" time now as they spent 3-4 days outside in the cold.

Well thats it for now

Be Well and Blessed Be...