I have Sprouts!

So my tomato seeds have started sprouting, I just now have to ensure the in house temp stays warm enough for them to grow properly. My older daughter came come with some info on a free gilt through her ag teacher. I am hoping as they go back to school the little one is still available. Seems it is a heritage breed but has a bad back leg. Shrugs A injured back leg does not mean she would not grow well or even be able to breed depends on how she handles the leg as she grows.

We have to spend part of today working on cutting more firewood as we're behind on it. Weather is ugly temperature wise today but we have to do it. We are also going to start working on our homestead projects as well. One of which is a storage building for hay and straw, our outdoor kitchen as well.

I still have to butcher some roosters in my flock, the Leghorn roosters are beating each other up, granted it's only 2 of the three of them doing it. The two Turken roosters are behaving, so I'm not sure why they are.

Not much else going on.

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

What is it with Young People? (A Rant)

I again am curious as to where the work ethic of the younger generations went. The young man who is one of our intern's over the last few days either would say there was no work he was suppose to do, or that he only wanted to do something relaxing. So to be perfectly frank I ripped him up and down verbally while chopping the wood he was suppose to be chopping that he said was not there. So at Silver's suggestion I am having the young man follow me around all day today to see the work I do all day. So I got him up at 5 am to start on the animal feedings.

Well I did all the work myself with him just standing there arms crossed over his chest the whole time I am going around feeding and watering everyone. I mean geez at least offer to hold the 5 gallons of water for me if nothing else yeah? All that I can say in this case is that thankfully he's not a WOOFER as if he were I'd never use the program again. Maybe when we have more housing I can look into that program and have better luck with help around here.

Next on the list of morning chores after I wake the kids for school will be to go and check the garden and due to timing, I can probably even weed the paths. I have to get some forage for our penned up goats (my dears learned how to unpicket themselves), some forage for the rabbits as well. Oh I also have to go out and use the weedeater to clear some areas for Silver to work on his project for out storm shelter/new well house/cold storage room. I might get to moving some dirt by the bucket right now as our wheel barrow needs a brand new tire the old one is destroyed.

This doesn't even count all the cooking I have to do throughout the day and the dish washing, and house cleaning. Then the constant check on the animals all day. Funny thing is all the intern needed to do daily was take care of my chickens (which includes random checks for eggs) chop fire wood and move dirt to the various spots around the property as well as get us some downed wood that we can use as kindling for the winter. Oh and also bring up the log segments that need chopping to the wood chopping area.

My complaint about the younger generation includes the discussion on what is a proper wake up time. I wake up at 5am every morning the kids go to school so I have an hour of work before they get up to do all the animal feedings then I can do everything that -needs- full light after they get up. This young man has issues waking up in the morning and for the whole time he has been here it has been a trial to get him out of bed in the early morning to work before the heat is too bad. Now there are two.. count them two stupid comments that go with this. First is “I'm tired”, duh you went to bed around midnight of course you are tired. The second is “I lived in Texas I know heat and humidity”. Uh huh, so why do you have an issue then with working in the day time after 10 am? The young man has a answer to that too it is “well I burn easy so I don't like to be out during the day”.

That just falls under the heading of really? We live on a homestead a small farm where there is never ending work. Generally the only breaks we get is in the night and sometimes when it rains (and only for any major project as long as the rain isn't days long). I swear do the younger generation just not think that people work hard all day ever? (btw what I mean by younger generation are teens through to 30 years as from my current experience they do the least work. I am sure there are exceptions to that rule.) I grew up in a middle class family where my dad was a welder and my mom was the daughter of a carpenter. My parents believed if we wanted something we had to work for it. I try to instill that in my kids but they also expect to just do fun things and work isn't important. Granted since going to boot camp as soon as I ask my son something he has jumped up to do it.

We have had 2 young men of the same age here within the last year to assist us and they both pretty much think that the highlight of the day is when they get to go play their games. Now both of these people wanted to come here and explore the woods surrounding our home. Neither have done so (hell the 30yr old hasn't either but shrugs), do the younger generation also have an issue with following through on something they say they will do too?

Well I better end my rant here as I have in a few minutes to go back to working, which maybe the issue is the younger ones think that word is a swear word?

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

Snow Days ...Gods When Will it End...?

Firstly.. Sorry to not have written anything in a while. Life in general has been hectic here.

Now about Snow days... the first year we were hear we had sooo much fun with them. Seemed like every other week the school would cancel days on end. Well in the last 2 months aside from the normal time off they have had an additional 2 and a half weeks off. ...and last week it got ridiculous. The last couple days they had off there was no snow on the ground and one of them was a day it rained all day. I jokingly said on Facebook that it wasn't a snow day it was a “rain day”.

It was so bad that back on Monday I joked about the fact they'll call school off on account of heat... as it was in the 50's in January. The intense cold did give us a minor problem. Our pipes froze, just one segment and it was the important one. The outside pipe leading to the house from the well. So instead of waiting for thaw we just went out and bought some PEX pipe and re ran it.

On the pigs we were going to get... Seems they died in the cold we had along with the goats these people owned. Now my only problem with this is that we own 1 goat. She lives in a shelter made of tarps, concrete board and some rolled roofing. Theirs had a post beam structure and 3 goats in total. I'd think the three goats would be able to keep each other warm. While the only help my goat had was hock deep straw and my daughter's blanket. Shrugs

We got our van which was out of commission working again. Spent over $300 on the repairs till we replaced the right thing. Funny thing is everything we replaced needed it, but wasn't the problem till we got to the final one. It was the MAP sensor something that costs $40. Well at least we now have a new...

Fuel pump

Fuel filter

Distributor cap

ECM

Spark Plugs

Spark Plug Cables

..so we know if something else happens they won't be those.

My son gets to go on his first maneuvers with the National Guard next weekend, hope he enjoys it. Right now all we are currently doing is making plans for the building we are going to do. The house is low on the list, have so many other things we need doing first. Well house, outdoor kitchen, layer house/yard, goat house/yard, pig pen (as we are planning on trying for some other pot bellied s).

Well That's it for Now.

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

Good News Tuesday!

We had an interesting morning this morning. Well first with the wonderful ..-balmy- temps(in the 20's). I sent the kids off to school bundled up aside from of course the creature known as the teenage boy. What is it about them that makes them thing it's macho/manly/whatever to go about when a penguin won't in just a sweatshirt and pants? Well, as long as the school doesn't phone me to complain about it I'm happy.

We had some good news this morning. The company who financed our building had sent us a late notice, for our last payment on it. Now we thought we had paid it, guess not. Anywho, Silver calls the company up this morning to tell them sorry we'll get it out on the first with the required late fee included. Company had no problem with this, the call lasted maybe 5 minutes. Not ten minutes after that the company calls us back saying that after they looked up our account and did some math.

They owe us $12.

WOW!

Nice huh? Here we thought we were behind and come to find out we are paid off. Good for us!

Hopefully the rest of the day will continue on this trend.

Hope your day goes so well!

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

Busy Weekend Ahead.

We spent most of the week relaxing as the kids have been visiting their grandmother.  So we had been hoping to get a ton of work done, but then it got hot, so due to no kids we'd sleep late then it would be too hot to do any work outside shrugs it happens. Yesterday we spent about half the day helping out Queensized Tink and her family with a building project.

I managed to pick some broccoli out of the garden this morning which we will be eating with our dinner tonight.  We have been getting strawberries and I've been drying a good portion of them.  I am also putting some away to make jam with once I have enough.  My Elderberry should be blooming soon and I'm hoping  that they don't do like last year and die after blooming.  Now the broccoli I picked today made me smile as last year we had one "make it" and it only got as big as my thumbnail.  This morning I got 4 big florets one the size of my fist with wise.

Our tomatoes are coming along nicely and I'm starting to get some tomatoes on the plants, my peppers will be "popping" soon.  As like my tomatoes and all my cabbages they are growing huge.  They are also covered in flowers.  The new rosemary plants we potted with my onions and hot peppers is trying to take over the pot.  Our other rosemary does not grow as happily, so that's really good.

The roses are getting ready to bloom as are the dahlia's I have planted.  Pity though that they will probably bloom this weekend  while we aren't home.  See we have to go pick up the kids Saturday night.. and will be back very late Sunday.  So knowing my luck they will both bloom Sunday morning.

I have also started gathering off of my "old fashioned" day lilies the buds so I can dry those for putting into soups and stews this winter. I have a recipe for making paste that I'll post when I have a chance that takes dried tomatoes and shows you how to make tomato paste from it.  It sounds much easier than the "cook down" method.  The person who wrote the book that it is in in stated that the point of making paste is removing enough water to make it thick so if you start from dried you only have to add enough to thicken it.

Well, I'm heading out now as we have some prep work for our trip and for our shopping trip tomorrow.  Everyone have a great weekend!

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

Early Morning Bread

So I'm sitting here this morning baking bread and I figured I'd at least mention what I'm doing different to it.  I am using my sourdough dinner roll recipe, and I'm going to stuff them before baking.  Well, all but one that is.  My son the picky eater is getting a plain one.  The stuffed ones are going to be stuffed with some   fine diced lean pork, bell pepper,onion, and cheese.  I have precooked the pork to be safe at the second rising so that when I form the rolls I can do the stuffing.  Also that perhaps the meat will be slightly cool then.

Dinner Roll recipe follows...

Sponge:

1C sourdough starter

1 1/2 C white flour

1C warm water

Place your starter in a at least 2 quart bowl,  add flour and water and mix.  Cover to prevent flies or anything else from getting into it and set in a warmish place for 8hrs or overnight.  Before working the second part return 1C from this to your starter.

Rolls:

1 1/2 C of the sponge (remember you put back 1C)

1 T sugar

1/2 t salt

2 T melted butter

1 egg beaten

1 3/4 C flour

First make sure your ingredients are at room temperature.  Then (I use the same bowl that the sponge grew in), make sure your sponge is in a warm bowl and add to it the salt,sugar, and melted butter and mix in; I use a tablespoon to do this.   Then add in the beaten egg and mix it in well.  Then you add in 1 cup of the flour and mix until it kinda forms into a single piece of dough.  Then turn out onto a floured (3/4 C ) board and knead until smooth and elastic.  Then place in a warm bowl (I grease it first) and cover with a towel for at most 2 hours or until it is doubled in bulk.  (fyi... easy way to tell is to take your first 2 fingers and try to make a depression and if it leave a depression it's double)  Then punch it down and let rise again for an hour and a half.  Then you put it on your board and shape it into the size rolls you wish, place on a greased baking sheet and let rise again for about 30 minutes.  Then bake in a preheated oven (400 degrees) for 20 minutes or until browned.

I have in the last few days bought a few new plants.  a watermelon, a cantaloupe, and a lavender.  I planted them and didn't water them as we were suppose to get rain.  Well the next morning I had to water them, as it did not rain.  We bought some cherries for $4 a bag at the store.. one for eating and one whole one for drying.  I love cherries and I want some for the winter. Maybe I'll make some oatmeal cherry cookies this winter.

The kids go and visit my mom for a week starting Saturday, so me and Silver will be having a nice quiet week then.  Maybe we can "recharge"  as I think the teenager is designed to make a parent's life stressful.  Well, I have to get back to my bread for breakfast.  Everyone have a great day!

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

Planting too Soon?

Well this morning after cleaning up some and getting half my laundry out on the line, I noticed that my plants not in the ground were looking a bit sad.  Sad as in drooping badly, they weren't dry, or missing sun either.  OK, well one was droopy .. three others seemed to be wilting but not drooping.

So we rushed to finish off the tomato tubs and get everybody in the ground.  Interestingly even though I only had 2 pots of basil they wound up having 7 plants in those two pots.  I am hoping they do well considering I did split them.  The mammoth Jalapeno's are in with some of my onions and my one egg plant is with my lettuce as I've yet to have them grow for me and I want to keep a good eye on it.  My sweet peppers are in the box we got 2 years ago.  Which I think I said before we are retiring the box at the end of this year and we'll move the soil to a good spot.

I still have some seeds to plant.  Three of them are three types of non-edible gourds that I am hoping to make into useful things.  My cucumbers, sunflowers, and a straight necked summer squash.  I also have to get my tiger's eye beans in the ground once I figure out where I'm putting them.

We've been having net issues for almost 2 weeks and today it just got fixed, about an hour ago.  The service guy thinks it may have just been nudged loose during a high wind and only needed a quick adjustment.  We have a meeting at the kids' school in a short while then we get to stick around as the girls have a concert tonight and we don't want to waste gas.

Thought of something interesting while hanging the laundry today .. due to the fact that a young buck has decided he likes to eat across the street.  I've heard vegetarians say that you shouldn't eat meat because the animals are beautiful.. or cute.   OK, flowers and some plants are very beautiful.. yet you eat them...  Interesting thought is it not?

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

Bulb Planting Day

Yep I'm going out today to plant some flower bulbs, the ones we ordered months ago showed up early this week.  Due to the rain we were suppose to get (we only got rain 1 day) we decided to wait till today to plant them.  I do not know if they will grow today or in a year.  My cabbages and other planting seem to have taken and this morning I'll have to see if they got too cold last night due to frost.  Which is amazing due to the fact we were in the high 70's the other day.

I have jumped off the "no-poo" bandwagon, Ok not jump I dived head first off of it.  I have discovered that I have one BIG issue with going no-poo.  My hair is very dry and very thick, the issue I'd have is that it would take me a couple hours to comb through my tangled knotted hair after "washing" it.  The first time was not bad, but it got steadily worse.  So a couple days ago while in tears and barely combed through the rat's nest that my hair became I gave up and went and used shampoo and conditioner.

Now I will say if I ever needed to live washing my hair in this manner I could do it... however I'd have to cut my hair VERY short to make it easy to comb through.  Actually I did like how my hair felt while I was off shampoo(s), it felt so much better  I would recommend trying it and seeing if it works for you.  Now trying it means for at least a month.  You may be surprised.

Now I want to mention something about the "school lunch thing".

My local news is still covering how kids are still hungry after coming home from school.  Now I have a few comments in reference to this.  Most kids are not use to eating "healthy" foods.  Also most kids are not use to eating a serving size.  Which is generally much smaller than what you get in a fast food place.  This really is a home problem, however... if the kids are suppose to be properly fed at school. Well, then they need to be satisfied.  i know one BIG issue is kids would rather have chips and candy rather than fruit and cold veggies.  Now my kids will do fruit and cold veggies, however they are still coming home hungry.  Well my son is anyway.  His problem is he is a picky eater, which is his own problem.  If he doesn't want to eat enough to be full it's on him, because he refuses to eat some of the entrees they serve.

Now the reason for the change in the school lunch system is because the First Lady is trying to fight childhood obesity.  Good, however there are other ways to combat this.  The biggest one would be to increase Phys Ed, and making it more physical.  Now I say this because I know when we lived in NY my kids had a few weeks of stacking cups.  Now I know it's now considered a  hand-eye coordination sport, however it's not very physically challenging.  When I was in grammar school... many years ago... the first one I was in make the kids run a track for 10 minutes daily.  Now put that on top of sports.  That would help.  Also saying that recess suffices to exercise kids.  Watch what goes on during recess and I'm sure you'll see a lot of kids just hanging out.

So this in my opinion this is being handled wrong.  I hope someone figures this out and maybe changes something that will work better.

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

Is It Spring Yet?

I WANT Spring so badly as I'm so sick of MUD.  Tons of MUD.  I HATE MUD... I REALLY HATE MUD.  Know why?  It is because the MUD we have is clay, it's THICK and HEAVY and if it gets on your foot wear it feels like you dded another 50lbs to your feet.  So I am tired of MUD. Sad thing is in Spring we normally get tons of rain so that means... you guessed it more MUD.

I also think the idea of daylight savings time is so outdated that it really should not exist.  Now when I went to school we were taught that it was started so that farmers would have more daylight hours to work their farms.  Well, now-a-days it's kinda un-nessicary for the need to have the farmers working in daylight as tractors,combines, etc all have headlights that could bring in a 747. Also I know that Amish farmers generally don't use the concept of daylight savings time, so who really benefits from it?

Kids that's who.  Now think on this... Kids that have to walk any distance to either get to school or their bus stop during the early morning will have more light during fall back than if the time was at normal.  Ok, well I can see a point there... BUT... again I must comment on modern society here.  There are tons of flashlights out there on the market that people can use to see with at early morning hours, so the kids can still be safe.

How many people wind up late for work right after "time change" and use it as an excuse?  Doesn't seem that it is nessicary at all does it? I certainly don't see a point to it.  As it is there are places in the US that do not even use it anyway.  Some are farming communities, strange huh?

Well, I'll get off my soap box now... and talk about here.

Well, aside from my 3 sweet peppers all my tray starts have died.  I have replanted the tomatoes and egg plants, but I'm worried I may have to buy some plants this year.  If so there is a small local nursery here that a nice farmer owns, his plants are always good.  I bought flowers from him the first year here.

Now that the snow is melted and the days are warm enough to dry the mud some, the pond has lost some water.  No worries though as it is still over 1/2 full.  Tuesday I am going out to gather cat tail roots for it, I am also planning on planting the taters then.  My flowers are all coming up and I think I may have a couple more day lilies this year than last year.  I still have to come up with some amendments for the apple trees that are coming sometime this month they are suppose to be shipped Monday.  So we'll see.

That's it for now.

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

Snow Day version 2

As in yesterday the kids had a snow day.  We had a reasonable amount of snow finally for this winter, and due to the rain that fell before the snow...
  As you can now see the pond is now full!  YEAH!  Now if it just stays full we'll be doing very well.  The fun part we had yesterday was that the top was all slush. so just to see we were tossing snow balls onto the top of the pond and it would hit the slush leaving a dent in the slush which under it would fill with liquid water.
Do you see all that wonderful snow??    It was a fun storm that is for sure as it had started us off with rain Monday afternoon.  Then in the evening, and I was watching it happen.  We got large fluffy snow flakes that as I watched were "sticking" to the ground.
 ...and as for my comment about watching it.  I was standing at the door making sure the dogs didn't run off while they went out to go do their business; which took less than five minutes.  So I saw the snow starting to fall and "stick" in that time frame.
 At 4 am yesterday morning we got the message that the kids would be off of school for the day.  Which after I opened the door yesterday morning I understood why buses here wouldn't be able to pick up the kids.  As I know the buses here do not use chains they would not have done the dirt roads here yesterday.
 So this morning looking at all the school closings lists the kids were semi disappointed that they were going to school today.  I guess the school determined that the roads were used enough so their would be grooves in the snow on the dirt roads.  I am not sure how much the school bus the kids are on traverse the dirt roads around here.
 This morning the weather person told us due to what the storm is doing we may have snow for the next few days, on and off.  Well I know this will help our "rainfall totals" so that's good.  Though we may wind up with a bit of flooding when it all melts.  Good thing we live on a hill.
 We lost our internet for a portion of yesterday as after the snow storm the dish was coated with snow.  So Silver had to go out and clean it off carefully, and that did it.  Though  for some reason at some point last night it went out again.  Maybe one of these days I'll get to pintrist and put in all the pics I have to put in there.
 Well I have to run the kids around to get them moving a bit more this morning.  Have a great day.

 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

The "M" Word

Well it's a lovely warm day, and considering what was on the ground that means MUD... the dreaded "M" word. I really, really love mud... don't you? Especially since it's all clay mud which as it sticks to your shoes adds 50lbs to your foot.. or at least feels that way.
 Today we went out and put the rebar stakes into the MUDDY ground.
  The ground is just squishy enough to make it easy to get into the ground, I almost wish we had the ground rods to put into the ground, they would be very easy to get into the ground right now.
 While we were doing the pounding my son who doesn't currently attend a church got to stand in the middle of the mud circle and hold our 100ft tape to make sure we had the right length from the center.
 We also had to measure the distance between each one which needed to be 6ft 8in between each one.  The rebar "arches" need to be slightly off of where we put our stakes so that there is an opening in the center of the top of the dome. traditionally this is where a chimney is put.  We are going to put glass block windows, vents and a whole house fan in a small  addition above the top of the dome in the center.  Silver is planning to find a way to run the chimney up it as well, but we need to figure out the logistics of it first. The ground stakes have to be in the ground 2 foot so the 5 ft rebar stakes need to only have 3ft above the ground.  So after placing all the stakes Silver went back around and pounded them into the ground till they reached the correct depth.    
       We only had issue in one spot:
  I am not sure if you can see it, but this one here is stuck in a frozen block of clay, so once we have enough above freezing days we should be able to go back and fix this one.
 Well it figures we'd have one that would not be able to be at the proper depth.  We should have really gone out and fixed some of the mud piles before the bad weather came through.. but you know what they say about hindsight.
 I'll also have you know that as I am writing this.. all that snow you see in the picture?  Yeah... it's gone, not there... just the MUD!  
   So when we finished putting the stakes in we spent some time looking for the orange "tape" to mark where the stakes are as they are a tad hard to see against the browns. It is much easier to see the outline with the tape on the rebar.  also this is taken at the place where our door for the house will be put.  The nice thing about it is that the door will open to just across from our soon to be outdoor kitchen.  I think that is very convenient.
 As you can see from this picture there is much more mud than snow now, at this point we had the kids moving the rebar from up front to the house ring as Silver is going to start making the arches.
 The arches is what  the second floor is suppose to be connected to so that it is more secure, I'm not sure if we are going to do it that way as yet and Silver is thinking we may only need to make half of a second floor based on how much space there is in the interior.
 As for the start of the arches...
  First, after we set out three pieces of rebar of course.  We needed to bend the rebar, Silver discovered after trying to use his "bending" tool that it wasn't going to work very well.  That is because when he first tried to bend it the tool bent.
 So as you can see he went and got out the pipe wrenches and used them with me standing on one end of the rebar while he hand bent them.  The one downside I have to say for the birdcage dome site is that they do not mention how they bent their rebar.  So we had to figure it out ourselves.
 So we had to bend two of three pieces, the two end pieces.  The center piece gets bent when you attach them together.  We discovered it's much easier to bend with the help of two children in addition to me standing on the rebar.
 So after the bending comes tying the rebar together.
  We are using rebar ties to connect them together, now we have seen people using zip ties.  While they will hold a great deal, I think using the metal rebar ties will be 100% better as then they will be part of the concrete with the rebar.
 Silver is planning on using a couple of zip ties then we put the arches up and need to temporarily secure them to the rebar stakes while we get the others in place.  Then will go around and use the metal ties to finish securing them.
 Incidentally we did not put this one in place as we have discovered we need to have a ladder or a scaffolding in place to do that as we need someone at the top to hold it in place while it is secured. As it is flimsy while being strong.  I know once they are all in place they will be much more secure, jut one by itself would not be.
 We only put one arch together so as to get the "idea" of how to do it for the first time.  Notice in the picture... no snow at all and all the MUD on Silver's shoes?  That was after he scraped the MUD off.  The kids finished bringing back all the rebar, after some issue over figuring out how to navigate over the trench while carrying the rebar.  We found one random plank to place across it, and it's kinda working.
 One child of course fell into the trench and had a fit over getting muddy, I guess a 13yr old doesn't think MUD is fun anymore.  Well at least she had changed into the jeans she didn't want to wear before it happened so the pants she prefers are saved for school.  So now we are all sitting around the house MUDDY waiting turns to bathe the MUD off.  I'll be last as I have to go back out in it to get the laundry down.  Then it's on to start cooking our dinner tonight.  which will be a beef roast mashed taters and peas.  YUM!
 So I hope everyone enjoys their start of MUD season... I know I am... rolls eyes

 Be Well BE Safe and Blessed BE...

Storm is HERE

Well I was woken up at 4am to be informed that yes, the kids would not have school today.  looks out window  EEhh... I don't think they'd make it down the hill to the bus stop anyway with all that ice and freezing rain anyway.  My daughter as the school hadn't posted it last night like 50+ other schools in our area woke me at 6am to ask about school.    I told her there would be no school so she went back to bed.  However I couldn't, so I got up and fed the dogs and cats; and the fire needed tending.  So now here me and Silver are watching the radar, listening to the weather woman.  

We are hoping the ice won't be too bad, Silver already commented that due to the amount of it we won't be driving any where in the next couple of days due to the ice on our van.  It should thaw on Saturday though as we are suppose to hit 50 again.  Our other concern with the ice (aside from power outage that is) is the possibility of trees/branches coming down from weight.  I know it happened in the last ice storm years ago, so it is a concern.

So now I have kids home and quote "bored" as there is "nothing to do".  I don't remember being so bored as a kid as I could not find something to do.  I guess it has to do with all the electronic devices out there as the kids seem to think if they aren't gaming on something when they can't go outside that there is "nothing" to do.  Considering how many books I "chewed" through as a kid you'd think my kids would do the same.  I'm not saying I don't have a reader... my reader however reads only one set of books over and over again.  shugs  I don't understand it, but I guess that just makes me old.

Well, I need to go help Silver with the breakfast we are making the kids. So, stay warm and dry everyone!

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

Storm A-Coming

Well it looks like this will be another day without working outside as a ice storm is headed this way.  Last time there was an ice storm in this area a few years before we moved here there was wide spread power outages, some lasting a couple of weeks.  So in a few hours we are going to be setting up some emergency water as with having a well means if there is no power you have no water.

The first thing we did this morning (well after feeding everybody of course) was to go out and cover our wood pile, just to ensure that we will have usable dry wood that isn't frozen solid.  I'm going to have my son dig out the hatchet for just in case when he gets home from school.  We got the wood pile covered with one of the tarps we bought to keep cement dry, as when we start buying it we will be buying in small amounts till we have enough to work on the house with.

We're making up a "vat" of chili which will be good if the power goes out as we could set it on the wood burner to keep hot  for us to eat as needed.  The only concern I will have if the power goes out will be the water issue as we don't have enough things to store water in for emergencies right now.  I'm going to be using my sugar bucket as there is no sugar in it right now.

With the possibilities this brings, it has one more.  That one is that the kids may not have school tomorrow, which would be annoying as they had Monday off of school for President's day.  From what it appears as I sit here watching the radar for the last couple of hours the storm seems to be moving a tad faster than the weather men said it would and I believe it will be here in the next couple of hours.  Which doesn't bother me aside from wondering how easily the kids will be coming home.  As the school calls off days when there is a tiny bit of snow, as they do not think the buses can handle the dirt roads in the bad weather.  So it makes me wonder.

I know when we lived in New York there was not as much trouble getting the kids to or from school in bad weather.  Those buses had chains that are always on the bus, they just descend when needed and attach tot he tires then.  When not needed they detach and go back into their "holding" area.  These buses here don't have them, so I wonder if it starts to get bad will they call home requesting parents pick up their kids up or will they close early after watching the radar and send them via bus?

Well I have to go out and check on the chickens before this gets here, have a good day all and stay warm!

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

Snow Day

..well not really, but the kids thought that it would be. It was so funny when the news people even said on the news after the kids got up, “Alright everyone time to get up and get ready for school”. The kids just groaned about that.
We had a bit of good news at about noon today...
  Our delivery of rebar was going to show up today! It was nice to see the work on it didn't take too long to get done with. Oddly, we were the only delivery, so I'm guessing we had the only one that required the flat bed today.      

     I think this loading, unloading device is really cool it's a forklift that latches into the truck.
                           
 Here's Silver setting some wood down for the rebar to set on until we can use it.      

           After the truck left Silver rushed to get out a cutting tool to start cutting some of the rebar for the “stakes” he needs to start the framework of the dome.
                 
 He even pointed them to make them easier to go into the ground.              
 30 minutes later this is what is left of the 4, 20fter's he was cutting up.
  Now he's disappointed as we have to wait till after the track hoe is here and done, so he's practically crawling the walls wanting to get the work done. It only took 2 days for the delivery to get here from 25 miles away. It was the truck's fault.. granted I imagine a horse drawn wagon would have gotten them here faster.    

           Hope everyone has had a good day, and is staying warm!

 Be Well, BE Safe, and Blessed Be...

BBBRRRRR... It's cold outside!

Lovely early Monday morning for those of you in the US!  

I got the kids up this morning and found out some of the local schools are closed due to the temps it is 15 F outside right now which is about -15 C   I imagine those schools are having either heating issues or had pipes burst, as my kids still have school, they aren't happy about it; but that is life.  I remember the one time I figured I'd get off of school when I was in middle school, we had; had thunder snow the night before.  When we discovered we still had school the next day I found out that the snow was up to my hips.

I'm just kinda amazed that the schools are open today as 2 winters ago they closed school when we had about 4 inches of snow on our car bumper.  I just hope they stay warm enough, they all have nice coats for cold.  My son is just the type that thinks 40's is good shorts and no coat weather.

I had to take the chickens some boiling water this morning to thaw their water and I will probably have to do it again in a couple of hours.  I'm trying them out on wild bird seed at this moment as we ran out of chicken feed on a day that the feed store was closed.  I'll let you know if I notice any changes in their egg production.  I am planning on eventually to do my own animal feed.  It might start this year as I'm going to try growing Amaranth this year and if we get a good crop of it I'm going to try it on the chickens first.

For all of you in the North... Stay warm!  ..and those in the south stay cool!

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

Happy After Christmas!

Hey folks! Hope those who celebrate Christmas had a good one. ..and those who don't had a nice day off.

It was a very long day for me as two of my three children have elected to be Christian I make sure the holiday that is big is theirs. That said my brother-in-law was suppose to have my nephew call my kids to talk to them on Christmas day. The young man misses them as he hasn't seen them since my youngest was 8(?) I think. Well... it didn't happen and my kids wound up very disappointed as they really wanted to talk to him. It bother's me when people who are family and make a promise to some kids don't keep it.

Anywho... Silver thought the turkey that I made should have been on the cover of a magazine, though I guess I should have taken a picture of it. Thing is he told me after dinner, so I had no idea till it was to late to get a picture of it.

Last week I started up a linkdin(sp?) account, I have not done much with it as yet though. Those of you who know me on facebook can find a link to it there. I am considering setting up an extra page on the blogger blog as a kids page for the kids to write on while they have a break at school. AS I know my son has commented that he gets at least some time once a week on the computers there as free time. So we'll see if I get a chance to set it up in the next couple of weeks.

I have found already the seeds that I want to order from Baker Creek, and once I send some orders out I'll list them here for everyone to see. Oh, something interesting; my tea trees are still in full leaf I wonder if that is because they are from Russia by the Black Sea? We'll see how they are come spring.

That's it for now folks!

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

HAPPY YULE!!!!

Sometimes life can be very interesting in a week and sometimes nothing happens at all..
or rather nothing of note happens. …
this week isn't one of those quiet ones...
 Last Saturday when I posted I was doing so while we were out grocery shopping, on a very nice warm day, but the day after was even warmer. So warm that me and Silver were able to eat breakfast outside at our outdoor table without coats on. Halfway through December in our climate that's just weird... We did enjoyed it immensely however. Later that day we spent watching a stump burn out in a fire ring we borrowed from Queen Sized Tink and her family. We haven't had a camp fire in a while and it was nice to have.

 I have a couple cute pictures of the last batch of kittens we had that I finally got around to tinkering with. Merlin and Lady have had their moments of oddity just like our other cats. The first is of Lady on the food dehydrator:
 
 Then little Merlin in the pot from making my spaghetti, I thought it looked like he was searching for food.
 I also have a picture I took in October of the pond we're digging out full of water. I have tried out a new recipe, it is for sourdough pretzels; they were very good so try it out:
 Sponge:
 1C sourdough starter
 1 ½ C white flour
 1C warm water
 Remove the starter from your refrigerator and stir it well. Take out one cup and place it in a warm bowl of 2 quart or larger capacity. Return your starter to the refrigerator. Add the warm water and stir until well mixed. Slowly add the white flour stirring continuously to blend the flour in well. You want the mixture to be smooth, you may use an egg beater or an electric mixer. Cover and set in a warm place to proof, this can be 8-12 hours. I let mine go overnight.

 Pretzels:
 1 ½ C sponge
 1 C HOT water
 2 T butter
 3 T sugar
 2 t salt
 5 ½ C flour
 1 egg yolk
 2 T thick cream or evaporated milk
 The first thing you wish to do is stir up your sponge and return 1 cup of it to your starter, replenishing it. Then with the rest of your ingredients at room temperature, you can start your prep. Add the 2 T butter, 3 T sugar, and 2 t salt to the 1 C of hot water stir and cool till lukewarm. Put the sponge in a warm bowl (btw I just use the bowl I proofed in), add the water mix to it and stir in. Add 4 cups of the flour, ½ a cup at a time stirring after each addition. This will get very stiff! Turn out onto a floured board and knead in approximately 1 ½ cups more of the flour. The dough will be very stiff. Place in a greased bowl, turn over and cover. Let set for 2 hours to proof (please note it DOES NOT SAY until doubled). On a board that has been scraped clean of flour break off pieces of dough about the size of a large egg. Roll each piece out with your palms of your hands until it is about 18 inches long and ½ inch in diameter. Twist into the shape of a pretzel. Place on a greased cookie sheet. Brush them with a mixture of the egg yolk and the cream. Cover and place in a warm 85 degree spot for 30 minutes for proofing. Then brush with the yolk/cream mixture again and sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 15 minutes.
 I can tell you it was a very good batch of pretzels, Silver commented that they were better than any we have bought in any store.
 Last night was Yule for those of you who celebrate it, and Silver and I attempted to stay up all night with a fire lit in the same fire ring from Tink. We set up piles of wood for the night and even a kitchen for some foods were were going to cook over the fire.
  The only problem we encountered was that we were too tired to keep it going come midnight. So what we did do was bring the wood that was burning into the house and put it into the wood stove and set it up to keep burning all night. This morning it was still burning and all that was needed was to set a couple extra pieces on the fire to get a good flame going.

 I would like to take a moment to mention something that has been in the news for well over a week now.

(*steps on soapbox*) The shooting disaster at the Connecticut school, personally I think it was a horrible tragedy. I also believe in gun rights, HOWEVER... I do have an issue with people who buy assault rifles or large magazines and say they have them for hunting. If you need that many bullets to shoot a food animal then there is a problem with you.

Also that being said … if guns are taken away the only ones who will have them are cops and crooks... BECAUSE crooks don't care how they get the weapons in the first place so removing the legal way of getting them doesn't stop crimes. The crooks will still get the weapons if they want them.

 I hate to say it but in this day and age, if someone wants to commit a violent crime they -WILL-, if they don't care what happens to them after the fact legality won't prevent it. This is something that those who are in power either don't care about or forget “conveniently”.

 I do hope that person who killed those kids who never had a chance to live burns in what ever version of HELL they believe in. I also hope people don't forget that some of those kids killed might have siblings that need hearts and hands reaching out to help them. The other kids that -survived- this tragedy will have a horrible emotional scar that they will carry for a very long time just due to the fact of how old they are.

 Now here is something else to think on about this crime. In many countries around the world this happens daily... and no one notices or seems to care. It happens in an American school and the world stares at it. We need to stop this WORLDWIDE... not just here.(*steps off soapbox*)

 http://youtu.be/fDTKypXUwoI

I hope everyone had a good Yule and that all have a Merry Christmas, or whatever holiday you have.

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

Update!

As everyone knows we have been offline for quite sometime now. WE still will be for a bit as we are doing some bill catch up for the trip the kids took to see their grandmother. Once those are caught up we will be getting our internet back. Hopefully, before winter; if not it will be near winter.

As for updating everyone... We have all of the wood we think we need for the winter cut and stacked. I have one batch of my blackberry jam made up and one batch of melon jam made up. Once I can manage some more jelly jars I'll have much more blackberry jam made. WE didn't manage to get any peaches to can this year and all the wild grapes kinda died on us.

Our tomatoes have been producing fairly well due to the drought conditions. I imagine we'd have gotten more if we weren't under drought conditions. I have 3 of my own melons getting ready to ripen soon. Our main garden area has been a bit of a wash though as the 4-legged lawn mowers ate everything but the brussels sprouts. They even ate the leaves on the Elderberry trees! WE have discovered the luffa gourd plant is a very prolific one. I, not knowing how well it would grow; planted 3 at each of the “climbing points” for the plants. Well the plant is trying to climb everything now and we have to keep moving it daily. It looks like a tree! Silver says it grows at least 3 inches a day. It has tons of flowers on it and we have a few of the gourds growing at this point. The problem we had been having though was that the local ants love the plant but hate the flowers on it. So they have been cutting them off.

The kids are now back in school and I wound up with a few irritating things due to this. I discovered for my son to be in shop class I -HAVE TO- have some kind of accident insurance on him. ...when I took shop when I was a kid the school systems didn't require it. Seems our local school doesn't have the money to clean their gym floor daily or wax it more than once a year so, we have to buy shoes for the kids just to wear in gym and no place else. What fun when you have a son who wears size 14 mens shoes...

I guess I just don't understand how this is a necessity as if they have a bunch of sport programs that require money why not spend a bit less on the teams and more on the upkeep of the school? ...that would make much more sense to me.

WE are enjoying the leftovers from Issac since Thursday night, and enjoying the rain it has been giving us even though it is much less than they originally stated we would get. I almost wish we had gotten the projected 8 inches even if it flooded places, as it would have helped our rain total for the year to date.

Well that's about it for now, I am hoping to be able to post more soon … just a matter if we can get near internet the few times we go out.

Be careful out there...

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

I'm a mean parent part 2

I guess I'm still a mean parent, and if you don't know what I mean by that take a look here:

http://rivenfae-wolfwoods.blogspot.com/2011/02/im-mean-parent.html

I wrote once about how my kids think I'm this horribly mean parent because I make them work. Well, they still think I'm mean; and now I am because I'm not listening to them when they get hurt. Well... I don't constitute a little cut on your big toe, and it is little no bigger than the head of a pin; as warranting needing to rest. Nor do I think.. but mom my back itches as medically necessary of rest, or sneezing a lot for that matter.

With that said, I seem to have a nice cold going on. I have been having very congested mornings where I'm sneezing every ten minutes, my throat feels like one of the cats crawled down it and shredded it's way back up. I also am not sleeping well because I have been winding up so congested by the middle of the night.

Guess what...?

I went out and watered the garden, harvested Lambs Quarters for breakfast, fed the dogs and cats, made 2 different breakfasts, dug in the pond, washed laundry, and then washed dishes, oh.. and before this post I wrote 2 posts per blog I keep. But dang, ...I must not understand that when I'm mildly ill I'm suppose to complain gripe and moan about how hard it is to work. Thereby making the work take twice as long.

What I have noticed is that most kids who spent any of their time growing up in the city especially in the public school system where kids are taught to feel entitled to almost everything. They seem to have trouble with the concept of doing some hard work. They don't seem to care about the “what if's” that might lie down the line as they are too focused on the here and now.

...and it's my job to be a mean parent to teach them otherwise...

First major kid work day!

Since the kids have been off of school since the afternoon of the 14th they have been going to ... bible school ... the last week.  Well now they are officially on our work time now, and today they are getting their first full day of work since they started school.  We are also putting them on a "withdrawal diet", as they'd been eating food from the school which of course is all prepackaged.. and then I learn as par for the course they'd get soda's from teachers.  They'd come home very crabby from this and so we are taking the processed crud out of their diets  this whole week.

We started the morning off with some pond digging, the one good thing about the dry weather we've had is it's making it much easier to dig the pond.  Our pick is cutting through the dirt much faster now, the only thing holding us up now is my eldest daughter who takes 10 minutes to shovel the dirt that we cut out in a couple of minutes.  We only got 5 wheel barrows full done before the time allotted for that chore ran out.

After our lunch break we are going to dig out the chicken yard some more, this will be assisted by my youngest as my son helped with the pond.  So the older 2 kids will be on puppy watch while me and my youngest works on the chicken yard.  Silver's been out clearing more with the weedeater, and I'm hoping this fall we'll get all the brush out of our clearing and we can start setting up for  new garden beds in late fall.

I have some pictures to show you now that I had to take with our phone as our camera still has no batteries, so if the quality isn't that great sorry:

This is one of the buckets we are going to use for our tomato plants, as you can see the bottom has a big crack in it.  We got 5 of these about 2 years ago from the MFA here for $5 each.  They had contained some kind of feed for livestock, they sell the broken ones for a song to anyone who wants them.

This is one of the buckets after I have put in three of my tomato plants and a dill plant.  I read last year that dill will keep horn worms off of tomatoes, so we will try it.  The soil for these pots is, chicken manure, our clay soil, perlite, and oyster shell.

This tire pot has 2 basil plants and a stevia in it.  Yes, I'm using tires; they are our old tires from the van.  I am hoping that it works out well for growing things in, I've heard recently a large amount of people using used tires for all kinds of things so; I figured what the hay.

This one has marjoram, oregano, thyme, and peppermint in it. Now these pots have the same mix as the tomato one, except I did not put in any oyster shell.  As I am using the oyster shell to prevent blossom end rot on the tomatoes.  TI worked last year when placed on top of the soil, so I'm trying it mixed into it.

This is one of the volunteer squash plants, if you can see it; they are getting ready to flower.  I am guessing it's a summer squash type, but I am not sure which kind of summer squash it is.

This is one of the four wintergreen plants that I bought and planted.  As you can see it has new growth on it, I am hoping they all take well to the ground.

This is part of our bush beans that I planted, they seem to love the space they are in as they are growing very fast and lush.  I am hoping that they flower out soon, and I'm hoping to get lots of beans as my favorite thing in the garden is to go out and pick beans right from the plant and snack on them.

This is the Darkstar summer squash that I planted, every single seed had sprouted, I am hoping they grow well past this point, as I'm looking forward to having some nice squash stir fry's for lunch in mid summer.

This is the one lonely sweet pepper that we got from the ones I started, all the rest of our peppers are hot ones.  So I put the sweet out into the garden and when I get more soil set up I am going to be potting the hot peppers.

This is 3 of our now 5 Brussel sprouts, they are having some minor cabbage worm issues but otherwise they seem to be fine.

This is one little bit of the wild blackberry plants growing in  our clearing.  I wanted to show everyone how many berries are appearing on the plants this year, which is like double that there were last year.  I just hope they get good sized by picking time.

I'm hoping this is an actual wild grape, I need to locate the book I have that shows the difference in the leaves between the grape and the other plant (I can't recall if it's moon berry, or moon weed).  They seem to be producing a lot so far.

This is the wild rose that I have been "training" into a piece of fence.  It is going to have a ton of flowers this year!  I can't wait to see them.

Well I need to get off here and heat up lunch, we're having beef soup from last night.  Then I get to go out and drag my girls to help me muck out the chicken yard, so we can mix up more soil later.

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