Winter Fun

You know the fun thing about living in an area where you get to fully experience winter in all it's glory? We'll if you don't let me tell you how much fun it can be.

This morning it was a balmy 12F outside at 4:30am this morning. ...and why did I know this? Well, I woke at about hat time wide awake ,checked the time realized I needed to wake in 30 minutes anyway to get moving so I could have some tea in me and have fed at least some of the beasties before I wake my girls for school. I figured with that much time till I was to get up anyway and I was wide awake I might as well get up. Granted... the ice cold eye balls kinda told me I had to get up because we just experienced the. “Oh my Gods the wood burner went out and the house cooled”. Now over half of our overnight piece of wood was still in the burner. Seems it didn't like the wood enough to keep burning, go figure right?

It is always fun to have those mornings where you see the icicles hanging off your eyes and nose because at some point the wood burner went out and your head is the only part of you outside of the warm blankets. So you need to do the mad dash from bed to the wood burner to get it re-lit. Hoping the wood, and burner agree with your decision to make them work again. You know how inanimate objects get when cold.. they never like to work right.

It's almost scary when the outside temps though colder than your home feel warmer to you (me heading out to feed the dogs who as soon as they saw me decided to wake up and make noise till they got fed). While feeding the dogs I poke my head in my goat house, I see my two ladies doing fine, but don't see the buckling. Then he decides to say hello so because he didn't get up I figured it was safe enough for me to not feed them till the sun decided to wake up .

..have I mentioned yet how much fun it is to get 2 teen-aged girls to collect firewood when they don't feel the need to? I can't even get them to look at the fire when they are near it. I am hoping some day they'll learn. Fun parts about winter though are the soups/stews/chili/hot chocolate that gets made all the way through it.

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Side note here, I have not been posting on here due to the fact that we've been having some issues here with Silver's health. Over a year ago Silver wound up getting a unhealing wound on one of his toes (he diabetic). The VA doctor sent him to a specialist who spent the better part of 5 months trying to get it healed. During this process he was given an antibiotic that caused him heart problems... Enough “problems” that we wound up going to the ER numerous times. Thankfully 2 months after the prescription the doctors figured it might be a good idea to not use the drug on him anymore and the heart problems slowed. However I do have to keep an eye on him in regards to that. His toe did finally heal after over a year of being open.

Hope your year has had higher points...

Be Well, Be Safe, Blessed Be...

My plans, Future and close future

The other evening I watched some video's on Turtle Island Preserve. I think that place is amazing, personally I would love to live like that with 99% of “modern amenities” gone from my life. I sit and think on it a bit and you know what aside from needing a well here most of my power usage is the kids watching tv or our fridge/freezer running. We also have electric stoves and water heater. Now when we first got here we heated our water on a simple wood cook stove and only had power in a little box of 4 outlets. (granted this was 4 months after we got here)

I would not mind going back to not using power for the most part and being outside in the shade when working on things that do not require me out in the sunlight. Part of this will be getting my outdoor kitchen built... -soon-. This will be a big plus for us as I could get most of our meals cooked there instead of in the house and heating the house up. Not to mention outside I wouldn't really need to much in the way of artificial light. What little we might need we have discovered solar garden lights work nice. This would mean more wood chopping, but to me that isn't a real big deal really. I can easily cut enough wood in a day for just cooking. It's doing the wood chopping for our winter heat that is a bit tedious.

Our new building that me and Silver are living out of is getting a sawdust toilet, so I will be back to having to take it out and finding a good place to compost it. I cannot use it like the humanure book suggests in my veggie beds as Silver is on a good deal of medications (blood sugar and thyroid), however I could use it to mulch my non-edible flower beds.

When we get around to building other home structures on the property they will be tucked into the woods (in the hopes of something like an eco village small scaled), however I am thinking of making them all sawdust toilets, so I need to plan a good composting spot for all of that.

Starting tomorrow I am going to be starting the work on expanding my vegetable garden. Hopefully I will get some actual help on the project verses someone who just sits there and stares blankly at me while I am just trying to get the work done all the while asking ever minute what they should be doing. I swear some younger people don't know how to take ques on how to do things by just watching others.

Silver made a chicken feeder the other day. He took a plastic pan about the size of one of those large rubber feed bowls and attached it to a 5 gallon bucket he drilled holes in for the feed to flow out of. It works well and I have been able to gauge better how much they are eating now. This batch of chickens just got their first straw bale to tear apart. Now they got it 3 days ago and they are still tearing it up.

We have a minor hangup on building the rabbittry, Silver's toe has opened back up again and the podiatrist has him on a major antibiotic and has his foot in a “boot” to prevent pressure on his toe. Good for the toe but bad for projects that need to be done by this time next week. Especially since the meds sometimes knock him out if he's really not feeling well. Hopefully in the next few days we can get to work on it. This weekend we won't be able to do any building as we're due some rain then (YEAH RAIN!), think it falls under the heading of -FINALLY- we get some rain here that might last more than an hour (yesterday). The dogwood trees here are dieing due to heat and lack of rain. I hope they produce next year.

Unfortunately due to that bad rain deficit, my elderberry trees gave up. I hope they make it to next year. We'll see though, they were going to be major covered with berries too!

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

Family Problems

Fun times, fun times indeed...   My grandmother last year was initially diagnosed with throat cancer.   Now this came on as a surprise to her supposedly.  However since the tumor at the times was very large I don't think it came on suddenly.  I believe she just ignored it.  Half of her throat was gone when the disease was "discovered"  it had spread badly enough that it had gotten into her mouth.  She was on a feeding tube and medicines for months.  

Then out of the blue my one aunt told my mother that my grandmother was cured of it.  Not remission, which as far as I knew is all that can happen with cancer; except in very rare cases.  Also my grandmother is worse than a chain smoker and drinks her breakfast, so... eeehhhh... I don't think it was "cured".

My proof...?

I got a call last night from my mom saying she is going to be in the area next week as my grandmother is now dieing of her throat cancer that my aunt told the family she was cured of.  Seems when my grandmother left the hospital, got her feeding tube removed she went right back to smoking.

I guess the one "upside" of this is at least it's as smoking cancer.. and not some other kind; and I don't smoke. Yes I realize that cancer of any kind is not good, but this is my effort of finding an upside to anything.

That's it for now... sighs

BE Well. Be Safe,  and Blessed Be...

Life can be funny sometimes

Well so we have my weekly update now, first comment of the day.

Jobs in this area just don't exist, for you to be off foodstamps if you are on them.  Due tot he fact that right now we do get food stamps I am required as I am not disabled to get a job. When I figured out the requirements for the job I need to have to make the FS office happy I need to have a job that pays $7.50 hr for 40hrs a week.  The minimum wage in this state is in the $6 range, and the manufacturing jobs in this area all seem to need people who can lift on a regular basis more than I can.  So what are we suppose to do...?

Well according to the company that takes care of the job searches I -MUST-  apply to 3 jobs a week, in either a) three different locations, or b) three different jobs in the same location.  I live in a rural area, I have no home internet and I don't have the money to fill my gas tank all the time to get around to do it.  They don't care and... they will not help you get gas if you do not already have work.  How are you suppose to get a job if you can't get anywhere?

Even more fun... one of the major comments in Pres Obama's campaign this last year is that he wants to make sure hat everyone can go to a 4-year college to get degree's so that more manufacturing jobs can open up.  I'm sorry, but who wants to spend a boat load of money going to a 4-year school to get a job in manufacturing?  It really is a waste of your education, all you need for even a CNC machine is a tech school, there is no need for a 4-year degree to work manufacturing.

...or am I the only one seeing this?

Anywho my son seems to have gotten a stomach bug and I need to run home now that I also got my job search done as well.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be