Saturday morning we woke up to our share of the winter storm we had been warned about. Sure, it's a bit of a pain, but look how beautiful it is!
I had to shovel a path from the stairs to the gate to even get it open,then from the gate to the car, and to the garage and chicken coop. Behind that blue tarp is the front of the chicken's run. and from there down the whole 45 feet to the coop,it had drifted to well over 2 feet deep. I got the hens fed and watered, gathered eggs, then started digging out the car. In some areas in the drive, it was between 1 and 2 feet deep, but at the top,thanks to snowplows, it was over 3 feet. I shoveled most of it,and a good spot to turn around, but left the areas that weren't as bad. That little Pontiac is awd and goes through the snow like a champ.
We took off about an hour after I was done, to visit Lisa's mother and do some shopping. The roads were still a bit snow covered and slow rolling, but we made it just fine. She asked us to stop and get her some nutrition drinks on the way, and while we were there, I stocked up on 2 packs of safety razor blades, 88 cent sale dish liquid, 3/$4 pain relivers & aspirin. We went to her moms place for a few hours, had a great visit, and headed out for more shopping.
One large grocery chain had a lot of 10/$10, 5/$5, and buy1/get1 sales on things we normaly eat and store, so we filled the cart with those and headed to the next one. There we picked up more good sale items to use and store, but were dissapointed that they quit carrying washing soda. They had everything else we use to make our laundry detergent, but not the soda. We got the Fels Naptha,Borax,and Castile soap, but now we have to find someone else who carries the soda. When we find it,we'll just get4-6 and not have to worry about it for about a year.
After we left there, we had to stop at the drug store for Lisa's prescription,and pick up a few small sale items we needed there too. While Lisa looked through the sale makeup, I went to the area that has bandages and first aid to price check a few things we were low on. I noticed a lot of clearance signs, and picked up a bunch of bandages,iodine, lighted pointed tweezers,and small 81 piece first aid kits at 75% off! The tweezers rang up at $1.25, the kits at $1.50, and the bandages at $1.00. I restocked and added to our first aid supplies for under $10 total. They also had batteries 40% off, so I got two 8 packs each AA and AAA. First aid and batteries are some of the things I *really* hate being low on, so I was happy to spend a few extra dollars at sale and clearance prices to restock my cabinets. We had one last trip to the pet store for dog food, where we decided that when I get paid for some side work this week, we'll buy 2 more, and keep a constant rotation of 3 going at all times. One open in the bin, and 2 behind it in full bags. With money being so tight the past year, some weeks buying dog food was hard at $30 a bag. Now that I have a little extra cash coming in, we'll set up the 3 bag rotation so if things get tight again, we'll at least have the other 2 to fall back on. We store and rotate everything for us, so why not dog food. It makes perfect sense. We got the food, came home, put it all away,and relaxed for the rest of the evening. We got to see Lisa's mom, and restock a lot of things we needed and/or were low on,so it was a good day. I checked back today to see if there were any more of those first aid kits,but they only had one...ahh well. I picked it up and will give it to the kids since I doubt they have anything at all at home.

We've been talking a lot about the diet change, and both of us are on board and doing fine with it. We talked about saving to join a local gym, and someone at Lisa's work offered her a treadmill for free. We picked it up Friday after she got off work, and I wanted to stop at goodwill just to look around. In the back sporting goods area, there was a $10 exercise bike,(cheap because it was missing a bolt in the seat), and a $15 rowing machine. Lisa had enough of their little stamps to give us a 30% discount, so we ended up getting both for $17.50. We flew home, unloaded the treadmill,and went back for the other 2. We ended up rearranging the living room to set it all up in since the basement ceiling is too low for me to use the tradmill. The ceiling is only 6'9. I'm 6'3 and the treadmill adds another 3". That only left me with 3" of headspace, so anything over a walk would be out of the question. It all fit just fine in one end of the living room, and we've been using all 3 this weekend. I'll keep watching goodwill for weights since I see them there once in a while,and we will be all set on our own home gym. We can both now exercise together in the comfort of our own house, save the money required for a 2 year membership, and be able to use it anytime we want. I'm gonna like this. Diet change and exercise together all the way. Lisa is already feeling great, and as of last Thursday hit the mark of losing 50 lbs!!!! She's done such an amazing job that she has inspired me to do the same. I'm not really overweight, but I am out of shape a bit thanks to being off work so long. So with changing our diets and exercising together, it will be another fun journey here at the W house....amd we do love our journey's.

Shopping and inventory

On Saturday, we spent the day together going to a few new stores too look around and eventually hit the local Sams Club since I got paid for some side work. We visited a natural foods co-op, where I found stevia and got a small box of 50 packets. I've been using it since in my iced tea and am getting very used to the taste. At first, I noticed a bit of an aftertaste, but now after a few days, I don't notice it at all. It takes a LOT less stevia to get the same sweetness that you do from sugar. Articles I have read state that stevia is between 10-20x as sweet as sugar in it's refined and powdered form. It can be used just like sugar or any artificial sweetener, and is calorie free, and perfectly safe versus the manmade artificials. We plan to switch to it and honey as much as possible, which will mean finding it in reasonably priced bulk bags rather than tiny packets.

The trip to Sams almost completely restocked the bulk items in the pantry. We got 50lbs of flour, bread flour, sugar, and 25lbs of brown sugar. We were hoping to find whole wheat flour and brown rice, but they don't carry either. We'll just find another source. Other than a case of TP, everything else was just plain groceries. Later this week when I get some more cash, we'll hit the local grocery stores for the items we have circled in the ad flyers. There are quite a few buy1/get one, 10/$10 and 5/$5 sales that we will take advantage of and continue to restock the pantries. We also need to restock the shelves of cleaning supplies, and supplies to make our laundry detergent. I plan on getting (minimum) 2 each of Fels Naptha, Zoat, washing soda, and Borax, which are the four ingredients for the laundry detergent.

Beyond food and cleaning supplies, we got a good look at the medicine cabinet and bathroom cupboard on Sunday. There are things that we are low on or out of that we shouldn't be. Some things should ALWAYS be here, but somehow right now they just aren't.The kitchen items will be mainly spices and additives, though some will be things that we can't or don't grow for ourselves. Lisa had our usual Sunday dinner guests stop and get her Advil because we were out, and that made us go take a long overdue inventory. We'll be getting a minimum of 2 each of pain relievers, cough medicine, antihystamines, decongestants,feminine products, shampoo, and first aid type of supplies like peroxide, iodine, and more bandages. I hate the fact that we are low or out of these things, and despise the thought that if our friends weren't coming over, I would have driven to the store just to get one item. That's one of our main motivations for storing/prepping. It's not so much for emergencies and such as it is convienence. I'd rather have everything we need here at home than have to worry about going to the store for something as simple as Advil. This Saturday we will be taking an inventory of everything in the house, comparing it to the inventory sheets we have neglected, and make out a shopping list.

In keeping with our wanting to preserve food, and our desire to now eat healthier, we have decided to save for a semi-expensive purchase. We've talked long and hard about it, and after some reading, watching videos, and listening to a TSP podcase, we are going to buy an Excalibur dehydrator. We already have 2 of the smaller ones, one with a fan and one without, but neither have the size or the options that the Excalibur does. They have a temperature setting, timer, and have the fan in the back rather than in the bottom like one of our round ones. (the fan in the bottom pushes/pulls the water through several layers to the top, where the Excalibur pushed it straight out the front) We dehydrated a lot over the last year, and planned on doing more. It's just more feesable with an Excalibur. We did mushrooms, onions, apples, bananas, and a few peppers. This year we want to do more for several reasons. Dehydrating retains more nutrients in food over freezing or canning, storing in bags takes up less space than canning jars, and we can dehydrate fruits and vegetables for snacks rather than buy something out of the box from the store. Though I'm not keen on the idea of using more plastic bags to store things in after they've been dehydrated, we'll use ziplock style bags that can be washed and re-used. They're around $250, but have a great waranty, and will be something we use enough to pay for itself rather quickly.

Now with the new bigger dehydrator and diet change in mind, garden plans will change yet again. We won't only be growing more to eat fresh, but we'll be growing more to store, and more to dehydrate. This will mean MORE potato's, more onions, more peppers, and adding other vetetables to the list for the dehydrator for basic food ingredients. Some fruits we want to dehydrate we simply can't grow here, but we will watch for those things on sale at the store or at local markets. We'll of course add more and save plenty to can, but we're taking everything into condsideration and planning from there. So, once again, the garden grows as we take another step in our journey to a better life. Something new always seems to happen every year, just like every year we seem to umnplug ourselves from something unnecessary. We are constantly growing here, whether it be personally or in our homesteading goals. Each new step gives us new experiences, new knowledge, and less reliance on the machine. I love our adventures, I wouldn't trade this life together for anything.

Victim of Changes (old Judas Priest song, but the title kinda fits!)

The past 2 weeks I have managed to do a bit of side work and earn a little extra cash. It couldn't have come at a better time since things were starting to get so tight that it hurt. Tonight we'll take some of the money and restock the pantry since the flour and sugar are getting low. We've also decided to stock whole grain flour and make more with it, so we'll be looking for that in bulk as well.
The idea behind the whole wheat is another diet change for both of us. As some readers may know, Lisa has changed her entire diet, taken up bellydancing, and has lost 47 pounds over the last 6-7 months.(how awesome is that?!) With her change of diet, the grocery shopping has changed, and I have decided to change with it/her. We don't eat hardly anything people would consider junk food, but still we are both going to work towards a more healthy diet. We'll slowly work away from white flour and use whole grain. We'll eat more fruits and nuts, and will turn down the sugar machine. Lisa already uses more honey for sweetener for herself, but since I don't care for it in iced tea, I plan to start using stevia. I have no plans on watching and measuring everything I eat like she has been doing, but I will be cutting down my portion sizes. I've always been a big eater, but it's time to slow things down a bit...I really don't need 2 sandwiches in my lunch or eat 3 turkey burgers at dinner. I'll just slow down.
Now with the plans on diet change will come changes to the garden as well. We'll be planing more greens this year, and a better variety of green vegetables. (brussel sprouts, asparagus,etc.)With that will come a slight garden expansion, probably just another 5 feet, taking it to 45x95. We also want to plant more things for making soup, like carrots and celery, so the expansion will definitly be necessary since we are going to double what we planted last year in onions and potatos.
We also want to plant more fruits, mainly blueberries and strawberries. Since my motto is "less to mow-more to eat", I have no problem with this at all. I think maybe rather than make 2 new strawberry beds in the spring, I'll go ahead and make 4. We'll look around for good prices on blueberry bushes too, since as of now we only have one. I'll also go ahead and thin out the blackberries and extend them another 10-12 feet to the property line. With more production, we'll have more to eat fresh, and more for jams and jellies. It's a win-win situation. I'm going to prune 1 or 2 of the old trees next door too, just to see if they'll produce better fruit. Again, more food.
I'd love to be able to grow more meat birds this year, but we're just plain out of room. With the run for the layers now reaching 50 feet long, there is just nowhere to put them. My uncle had always said we could put some at his place, but that means buying materials for a coop and run, and I have no idea if that money will be there. And I can't rely on getting freebies like I did last year, I think that was just pure luck. I will be getting more rabbits to breed, but for now the idea of meat birds is up in the air.
So again yet more changes here at home, but all are good ones. We'll both be eating better and will be exercising more often. We've even talked about getting a couple inexpensive bicycles and doing some trail riding on weekends. It will be hard working, doing all the garden work, exercising, and making time for bike riding, but we'll make it happen. Again, without the idiot box as a distraction, we have more free time in the evenings to do these things, plus work on more food storage.
Some people thought we were nuts for storing food, but after seeing how we are able to eat even during this layoff, they are beginning to understand. Of course it doesn't mean our friends will do their own storage program, but at least they get it now. With having so much on hand and doing careful shopping, the past year has been fairly easy on the checkbook in the food department. We have friends over every Sunday for dinner now, and since neither of them are working, they can't understand how we can eat so well. We tell them about food storage, but we always get that goofy look. I may have mentioned it in a previous entry, but all we hear from them was that her mother was one of those "Y2K crazies", and that it took them forever to get rid of what she had stored. I told them if they'd used and rotated what she had stored, they would possibly still have food on hand, but they want no part of it. They'd rather go once a week and get canned soup, mac n' cheese, and ramen noodled....no thanks. They don't get it at all, but other people we know have, and maybe a few of you readers will see that storing food isn't just for the typical SHTF scnerio that so many "prep" for. It's saved us a lot of money, and a lot of grief. Think about it folks. This can happen to anyone.
For now I'll leave on a bit of humor as I wander outside to warm the car and feed the chickens-
Some people are like Slinky's. They aren't good for anything, but they are fun to watch if you push them down the stairs.
(and I know a LOT of Slinky's!!!)

100 followers!

I really don't have anything special to add today, wish I did. I just came on to check for new comments and saw that I now have 100 followers!!!!!! Thanks everyone for finding my random babble interesting!!!!!!! (off to get a cake now lol)

Sometimes while reading online forums, emails, blogs, comments here, or even talking to Lisa and friends, I get reminded that I am not the "normal" husband or guy. At times it makes me laugh, and at others makes me wonder what other men really do at home.

A *huge* amount of comments I get are about sports. I've never watched a game of anything in my life, it's simply never interested me. This always gets reactions, especially from guys. It's either that dog head cocked sideways look, or comments like "what kind of man are you". I've tried watching football, and frankly, never got the game or the big interest in it. You wanna throw me a ball and then knock me on my ass to get it back? Here, I'll save ya the trouble...handing back. It's been the same with baseball. YOU hit a ball with a stick as hard as you can and expect ME to go chase it? I don't think so. Golf by far, to me, is the worst of the worst. You take a little crooked stick, hit a tiny ball as hard as you can, then walk after it?? Ummm....we have a name for that, it's called FETCH. You find your little ball! yay! You win! Ok wait..what? You're going to hit it again? WTH!?! I'll never get it.

I know I've made quite a few posts in the last year about things I have done around the house since I have been layed off, but I've always done things around here. Sure, it was never this much since, of course, I was working 40 hours a week, but I've always helped. There is just no reason NOT to. Even with just the two of us now, dishes and laundry can pile up, things still need dusted and the sweeper still needs ran. Sharing the housework leaves more leisure time for both of us, and now with me being home and Lisa working, I do as much as possible so she can come home and relax. She did the same thing when I was working and she was able to stay home, so there's no reason that I can't return the favor. I like helping, and I like keeping busy. Now that it's winter and I am stuck inside, I still do my best to keep busy.

For a very short time, in my early 20's, I was more of the "typical guy" as most see it, but it didn't last and it wasn't me. I went out drinking or to the strip clubs with friends, but that got repetive and boring fast. I realized that the time and money could be spent on better things. Rather than spend that $50 at the bar, I could put it towards a new rifle scope. Rather than get in at 3am and sleep till noon. I could go to bed early and be on the lake with dad at 5am. Guys I knew would take their vacation at beaches, or at races, or at a resort somewhere, while I spent a week at a friends cabin on 300 acres 9 miles from the nearest town, spending my time walking around or shooting the .22's all day. They came home with sunburns,hangovers, and empty pockets while I came home with lifelong memories of seeing black bears, paper targets I could show off, and a great sense of relaxation that I couldn't get anywhere else.

With me being so different than most men, its not surprising that I have very few guy friends. Sure, some are work buddies, some are old hunting buddies, and some are music oriented friends, but NONE of them share my interest in homesteading, gardening, self sufficiency, or cooking...not a one. The only friend I have who shares most of my interests is Tammie, who I met through the local homesteading group she runs. Yea...a woman and not a guy. While guys wanna talk about the latest football game, Tammie is more than happy to spend 2 hours talking about heirloom vegetables or being self sufficient.

I guess I'll never fit in with most guys, and I'm fine with that. I don't want to waste 3 hours of my day yelling at guys on tv throwing around a ball. I'd rather spend my time learning something, or taking on new challenges. I guess in 10 years when some other guy can spew off figures from super bowl 2010, I can talk about how I taught myself to tan hides and can chicken soup. lol

Confessions of a house-hubby

While the past 11 months have been hard financially, I have to admit I've become a bit used to being home and taking care of things. Sure, like anyone else, I get a lazy day here and there and don't do anything, but I try my best to stay productive and busy.

I did a lot of canning last summer and fall, more than I ever have before. I've gotten used to doing dishes, running the sweeper, doing laundry, and all the other things that need done. i've made (and canned) soup and chili this year, and learned to cook beyond the few simple things I knew a year ago. With it being winter now, and being stuck inside for the most part, I've decided to take on some new ventures in my house-hubby duties and skills. I made cereal!

Thats right, I made cereal, lol. Monday morning I wanted some cereal, and low and behold, we didn't have any. I remembered Lisa making a few different kinds a few years ago, and figured that I would go ahead and give it a try. I found a recipe online, and modified it a bit to suit my (our) taste. The one I decided to try called for wheat bran and oat germ something or another, so I eliminated a few thing, and added a few things. Lisa and I have both eaten some, and Lisa has taken to eating it crumbled in yogurt.

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup veg. oil
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl, and mix in 7 cups of quick oats till all the oats are soaked in the mixture. Preheat oven to 275. Pour on large cookie sheet, and bake for 60 minutes, stirring every 15. The recipe online said 45 minutes, but I kept it going until it was dryer, so I imagine oven time will vary.
After it cooled, I added sunflower seeds and raisins without measuring, just for added flavor and goodies. (lol no stars, moons or clovers were handy) You don't have to add those, or you could add anything you'd like-nuts, etc. I dehydrated a bunch of apple slices coated in cinnamon-sugar to add, but Lisa decided these were better as snacks rather than add them to the cereal....maybe next time.


Lisa and my friend Tammie have been having quite the time with me and my house-hubby adventures, along with my mom. They laugh at me, kicking around apron jokes and saying that Tammie and I's weekly coffee meet is a chance to vent about our husbands and our "monthly's". Yea, yea, laugh away girls, I don't mind. For now I'm just gonna grab the cat, get some chocolate and tea, and go finish my newest Harlequin novel.

Continuing on my thoughts...

The other day, I made a post about now the need/want for money took people away from the farms and homes to the factories. Today I'm going to ramble a bit about how this has affected generations of people afterwards. I do love getting on my rants, lol.

The earliest of factory workers came straight from farms for the most part. They left farming for an earned wage to buy their goods, rather than grow, raise, or otherwise provide things for themselves or their families. I'm sure that some of them saw it as an opportunnity to make a better living, just as some saw it as a way to avoid the possible 12 hours of hard labor involved in farming, but no matter the reason, they left. Some chose to live in an apartment or worker homes, and others continuted to live on the family land yet not doing much with it. The steady job provided them with a steady income, and the income provided them with their needs to survive. By doing the same chore over and over at a job, they had the means to provide for themselves. Some worked up to 12 hours a day, stamping out some metal part or assembling something or another, to earn that pay.

At the time, with the man of the house being gone at a job, the things around the farm, house, or homestead that entailed hard labor were left to the women and children, or usually just byassed. This in turn left the need to buy even more things for them. The father and/or husband wasn't home to repair the clotheslines, or plow the gardens, or feed the horses. It wasn't many years before this turned into drying racks (later dryers), buying canned vegetables, and trading the horses for a motor vehicle, which for a price, could be "fed" gasoline by your local station attendant. Slowly the need for more money grew and grew, while the knowledge and desire to do for themselves was lost.

Now jump forward to present time and see how this switch of lifestyle has affected us today. People can go to the grocery store and buy anything they want without the need to grow it or raise it for themselves. The choices at the store are endless. You can buy basic bread, and all the way to fully prepared and frozen meals in a box. Frozen, microwavable, instant, dried, prepackaged anything you can imagine, and make it with the touch of a button. We have to look far beyond what we are used to in todays world to realize what these things have done to us. People always say that these things are "convienent" and "easy", but it's far more than that. We have lost the most basic of skills to provide for ourselves when we rely on the grocery store and the packages and boxes.

I'm not necessarily talking about raising your own chickens or growing a garden, I'm talking about skills. Many people try the frozen meatballs or canned soup and say "this sure isn't like grandma used to make", all the while continuing to buy the same soup or meatballs over and over rather than try grandmas recipe that is collecting dust in a closet somewhere. It's easier to buy them, and a huge majority simply CAN'T make them, and that is the reason for this post.

So many people now can't make even the simplest of foods. I personally know people who can't make soup even if I was to lay all the ingredients out in front of them and the recipe tattooed on their arm. I know some that have tried to make various things, and have given up after one failed attempt. My mother is one of them. She has tried to make bread many, many times, but never kneads it enough. It's a simple fix, but she chooses to go to the store and buy bread like most americans do. My grandmother used to make the most amazing pastries-kifli, struedel, and baklava, all rolled so thin and perfect you could almost see through it. She baked liked that until she passed away at 82, simply because she loved doing it, and because she refused to buy a factory produced poor substitute for home made. Grandma W passed away with no one to carry on her traditiions or baking skills. Everyone else chose the easy way out via the grocery store.

It's not just cooking skills I am talking about, its day to day skills that our ancestors lived by. I don't expect everyone to have the ability to make a log cabin or house, or hand make furniture and make all the quilts for the beds made from timbers and feathers. It's the most basic of things that we have lost. I know grown men who cannot read a tape measure or hang a picture on the wall.( I was once given an apprentice that I had to teach how to read a tape. Don't they teach people how to use a ruler anymore? Afterall, it is just a 25 foot ruler!! ) I know people who can't cook without a microwave and a box. I know people who have no idea how to check the oil or air pressure in their own car or truck. I know people who will throw away a perfectly good shirt just because they can't replace a simple button.

Maybe I was just born in the wrong century, I dunno, but I can't help but sometimes look around at people and wonder what happened. The early settlers built their homes by hand 100%, and today people pay someone to replace a simple light switch. Has the desire for a paycheck and buying what we need made us all lazy and somewhat uneducated? Sure, Mr so-and-so may have a bachelors degree in physics, but he can't start his own lawnmower or replace a toilet seat. It's far easier to buy it or pay someone to do it for you than learn to do it for yourself. People can write a computer program, yet can't do the simplest of things in their own homes. We've taken the education for skills and shifted it from skills to survive to skills to earn more money. Every generation loses more and more basic skills, making them more and more dependant on the machine. We all live in a giant hampster wheel, and very few choose to learn how to jump off, or for that matter, are taught how to jump off.
.

To me, the worst of those two, are the ones who don't WANT to learn. They're so used to the instant gratification just buy it society that we live in, that they can't comprehend actually doing something for themselves. The idea of making bread, raising a simple tomato plant, or fixing your own sink are just silly, afterall, you can just buy that stuff or hire a plumber. Slowly but surely, generation after generation, skills and knowledge have been lost. From the earliest settlers ability to build a cabin and survive bitter cold new england winters to my grandmothers baking, the skills, crafts, and trades of our ancestors are slowly being lost and forgotten. Imagine what will be lost when our grandchilren or great grandchildren are our age. Everything they will need will be given to them with the touch of a button or the swipe of a credit card, without ever having to lift a finger.

Over and over in my blog posts I tend to touch on modern civilization, whether it was one of my early ones about men getting lazy, or about frozen foods, or about modern "conviences" and gadgets. I tend to always get the same thoughts in my head, and they always end up here as an entry. Some make sense to those of you who choose to read it, and obviously, by the lack of comments to some, don't. I just tend to go off on our things at home sometimes to just put out my views and opinions on the modern world we live in, and as is well obvious by most of my comments, I simply don't like it. Like I said earlier in this post, perhaps I was just born in the wrong time or century, I despise many things that we all live with today and talk about them a lot. I hate our reliance on electricity, I hate our reliance on the dollar, I hate the fact that so many sit around with nothing but won't lift a finger to fend for themselves, and at times I'm scared to death of where we are heading.

For now I'll stop running off at the mouth and work on another post, this time actually revolving around things happening at home...maybe lol.