One Family's Attempt at going Greenish

BLAH what a long time since I have been here

2009-02-14T21:01:00.002-06:00

I have loads of excuses but it does not matter much I have neglected this blog and I am sorry to those who have been looking forward to listening to me babble on

I have been fairly good at my greenish living not great not super dedicated but more comfortable with the things I have adopted to make them habits

of course for the new year I made resolutions ...I do not recommend them but I make them every year anyways

I have the usual resolutions

loose weight

excersise more

read more to expand my mind

and of course

live greener

I think I learned a lot of things from my endevors over the last year my gardening mostly will be better and more well planned out

I started my seeds the other day ...well some of the seeds

So far I planted

Sage

and Basil

lots of sage and basil

I have goals GRAND goals again this year ...they will be tempered though (for a short period of time LOL) with caution and I will do my best to plan only things that COULD actually happen

Things I want again this year would be

The big garden ..probably not 200 tomatoe plants but definately a big garden

I really want the Passive Solar hot water heater really really bad

I also want us to cut our wood for heat ahead of time using already fallen or already dead trees this can be done fairly easily if I can inspire my boys well enough

I want to have my yard cleaned up nice and get rid of excess clutter outside (we have tons of junk but this is a WHOLE other post)

I also want our water problem fixed (rusty well water we need a certain kind of filter the 2 we ave are not cutting it)

On the good side

I have spent the winter working on decluttering the inside of the house

not as clean as it could be ...but definately a step in the right direction

many of my indoor plants survived which is a great thing the banana tree is growing the lime stick is looking more like a bush with leaves and actually has flower buds on it!!

we stayed pretty warm this year our little wood fireplace did a great job on the super coldest of days we had to use the gas fireplace but it was not too bad

So I will try my best to come up with a few interesting things to post here and there to keep up with my simple goals

It is still deep winter here so the only thing that happens now is starting seeds and garden planning the real work starts when it warms up

sometime the second week of June!!

We have all been sick here

2008-12-15T11:57:00.002-06:00

Along with the baby who came down with a funky staph infection and then gave it to me we have had some issues with the boys school and sports and holiday preparations things have gotten quite behind here.

Also since it is winter time there is not much to talk about gardenings wise
the house plants I brought in the from garden are almost all dead (except the lime tree and bannana tree) they jsut cannot tolerate the dry air with the dramatic temperature changes that happen with wood heat

Our wood stove is going strong and heats the house quite nicely

Our first really serious cold snap is going on right now our current noon time temperature is negative 4 degrees with some nasty wind chills

Our chickens and pigs (the 2 that are left) are surviving alright outside the 2 pigs need to be slaughtered but I have a strange feeling that might have to wait till March because if things keep going this way it will be too cold to do the job outside

The chickens have not started laying eggs yet but they are happy to be inside the shelter of the hen house We have to get a timed light out there for them so they will lay eggs daily (currently not enough light to encourage them to lay)

Thanksgiving went marvelously we had far too much food but it was a great day with tons of leftovers that are now long gone

Nik had his 4th birthday on December 3rd with a small party that weekend

and now we are preparing for Christmas

I wish I had more money right now I found these great Christmas lights that use less energy than the old ones these are huge LED lights but this year they are just out of our budget

Another reason I have not been on here much is

I forgot my password

very embarassing

I am also working on getting cub scouts and boy scouts going strong again in our area

I need to get a new picture taken of our land the leaves on that tree are LONG gone it is now bare with a good 6 inches of snow on the ground

and I never did get around to planting my bulbs

I wonder if I can plant garlic in the spring?? hmmm something new to look into

Gas prices have plummeted

2008-11-22T17:51:00.001-06:00

They are lower now than they have been in 3 years ($1.75 last time I checked earlier today)

The scary thing about the price drop is that people will go back to thier old habits

if they can afford them

along with the drop in gas prices has come a serious un ease about our economy and a fear

I hear it all over when i talk to others

they are afraid to make purchase

they are afraid to get comfortable

in a way this is good because that fear that we could loose it ALL could be the spark that brings about a REAL change

ok that is my thought for the day

oh and the diet is not going well I am terrible at trying to change how I eat and even worse at keeping up with it

I should just keep moving more and wait for the food changes till after the holidays so I do not get depressed everytime I eat

The Snow lay on the ground...

2008-11-20T10:28:00.003-06:00

The wood we collected is not "seasoned" it is too green to burn so it needs to be cut and stacked

our chain saw broke so Dave wants a chain saw for christmas

I have high blood pressure and am super fat (254lbs at last appointment)so I put myself on a strict eating and excersise plan to not only loose some weight but also to lower my BP

which sucks cause I am ..well a picky eater

I do not eat many vegetables ...or fruits ...at all

I am terrible

I know my portion sizes are out of control and I know what a real portion is so I started there by decreasing the size of the food I put on my plate

I already cut out (for the most part) soda instead of having several a day I have one every few days

I need to seriously watch my salt intake most of the foods I do eat are loaded with salt

it is not good for any of us to eat that way so I get to find out new ways to make our favorites

things like Mac and Cheese

my kids LOVE the Velvetta style Mac and cheese

LOVE IT

I checked the sodium in one half cup and it is

1110 g

HOLY CRAP

that is a LOT of salt

42% of your daily intake

so that is my goal for now

How is this green? ..well better food less packaging and all that jazz more local (which is next to impossible with the snow all over)

I am looking at Sparks people and joined there they have recipies with the break downs of nutritional values on them that is a really cool FREE resource

being green is not so easy

2008-11-17T10:04:00.002-06:00

Summer is WAY over we are now (at least in my area) back to winter weather

it is cold and snowy with freezing temps and well being green in this is not easy

We need heat ..well we have it we use fallen trees for our wood stove and when it is really cold we use the gas fireplace to take the chill off and we bake a lot and of course wear lots of warm clothes

the water pipes leading from the well into the house are above ground (a serious design flaw) and they tend to freeze at night so some mornings when it is cold we wake up to no water till we thaw that pipe

in order to get the pipe to not freeze we will leave the water running at night so the pipe does not freeze

THAT is not very green

I want to save water and I have been working on it I remind myself to not leave the water running while we brush our teeth (my boys are better at this than I am)

we conserve when we flush (most of the time)

not all of us shower every day and those who do take shorter showers

we use cold water to wash our clothes

we use the dishwasher for dishes (uses less water than I could hand washing) and well we do our best

and what more could be asked of us

I am getting lazy about this are'nt I??

2008-11-12T23:11:00.002-06:00

I have not been on here in a long time because of so many things going on
It is full fledged crafting season around here I make things as gifts for Christmas and for fun when I am not gardening

I also do not really feel like I have much to say that fits my topic I mean I cannot really talk about gardening anymore because the garden is gone ..and even with the indoor plants which have been getting attacked by several different varieties of pests I have little gardening to do ... this has led to a bit of sadness on my part I miss it ..I feel like I did not do enough but it was a good start.

I guess I could talk about some seasonal things happening here

Alex is still trying to get G Force going at the school .he finds himself very busy though with the school play and the assorted sports he is in

Amd then We have Cub Scouts going on for my Zach I am the Den leader for the tigers and wolfs(combined den it is a small pack) I am working with my little guys to make things and of course to Do a Good Turn (Do a good deed every day) So I am busy with my little guys getting things ready for that

Of course I have been getting other things ready for the holidays and I should do a post about getting ready for Thanksgiving I love Thanksgiving more than any other holiday (until another holiday comes along at Christmas I love Christmas too)

I have a few crafts on the burner now

First I am making a rag rug out of old blue jeans

I am also working on some draft dogers long tubes of fabric stuffed with old socks to lay in front of doors

I bought some clear glass and plastic Christmas ornaments to paint with glow in the dark paint to hang outside

and we are researching a new hot water heater as well as some on demand water heaters for two tubs and kitchen sink

We need more wood cut

AND

I have been doing the ultimate post garden Green activity

DE CLUTTERING

laugh if you will but we have so much stuff I need to get rid of it

I have made a couple trips to Good Will

I have sold some things on E-bay (right now I have a lawn tractor on there and it SOLD I am so excited mommy now has some money for Christmas!)

I have made a nice little notebook to keep track of what I am doing and plans I have for Christmas and Thanksgiving It helps keep track of things like gift ideas Christmas card list menu plans grocery lists gifts for assorted people and places to buy them things i see on ads etc really handy this is the 3rd year I have done this and every year I do it better and it makes the holidays less insane

The holiday time for me is VERY busy

we have

Thanksgiving

Then Niks Birthday (he will be 4 on December 3rd)

Then Mine and Dave's wedding anniversary (December 16Th will mark 13 years married)

and Then Christmas eve with my hubby and kids

Christmas Day with my in laws (who drive 3 hours here and leave the same day! to drive home to their dogs)

and THEN

this year

My friend from Texas is driving up here with her family to stay for a week or so for a visit this will be the first time she and I have met face to face we have been buddies for 4 years LOL

I have been working hard with the kids and cleaning

and I have been dealing with some problems

Quentin cannot drink cows milk ..or soy milk (we have tried) he gets horrible diarrhea from them so I still nurse him regularly (I cannot pump milk it does not work for me)

I it turns out have lactose intolerance as well I get so sick if I have milk without taking a Lactaid pill

So that is what I have been doing here lately

On Fridays my girlfriend and I go out on a play date with our 3 kids who are home we go to lunch and go grocery shopping AND we make a stop at Good Will to drop off boxes from our houses to declutter things

we encourage each other to get things organized and cleaned up it helps to have a partner in it!!

I am so sick of this !!

2008-10-30T15:11:00.002-05:00

First off I am ill (I have a cold) and so are my kids

but that is not what I am sick of

I am sick of this Election nonsense!

I am sick of the phone calls from people on both sides begging me to volunteer or hang signs in my yard. I live on a rural highway maybe 20 cars pass my house a day and most of them are my neighbors going back and forth! I mean COME ON PEOPLE

I am really sick of the phone calls from automated machines with someone bad mouthing one candidate or another telling me who to vote for

if you like abortion rights vote for ____

if you think abortion is murder vote for ____

if you want middle class mid west values represented for you vote for____

I really find it funny that come election time every damn yahoo who wants to win the popularity pagent thinks he is middle class with midwestern values

what a CROCK

I am lower middle class and I can tell you this

because I am lower middle class I do not have the TIME to run for office

I am too damn busy trying to keep everything going in the direction it needs to

SO

to all those running for office

you want my vote??

sure you can have it

just come rebuild my garage

or clean my yard

or put up a fence I can't afford to

RESHINGLE MY DAMN ROOF!!!

get me some windows that will keep out the drafts (they do not even have to be new I am not that picky!)

get me a high efficeincy fridge that does not leak water out of the bottom

build me a good mobile chicken tractor that will keep what is left of my hens alive through winter

you want my vote do those things and I will then

look at your record

consider what you have done

and then perhaps you can have it

untill then

STOP CALLING MY HOUSE !!!!

One more post for the day

2008-10-22T08:54:00.002-05:00

Thank you to Linda I got the book in the mail The Big Green Purse and I have started reading it in between everything else LOL

Thanks a lot for it!!

Homemade Halloween Costumes

2008-10-22T08:40:00.004-05:00

As you may have guessed being broke and being ..well cheap I am not into buying expensive cheaply made costumes for my kids for Halloween.

For me part of the fun of Halloween is helping them come up with a unique costume and them tailoring it with the child to make something adorable and of course WARM
(we have been trick or treating in the snow)

I was once upon a time heavily involved in theater so I can do stage make-up fairly well and I have made costumes out of rags and out of bed sheets for many things

I happen to have a large scrap collection of bits of assorted fabrics that I buy from the scrap bin at local craft shops in the hope of using them some day
So here is a list and pics of the costumes finished so far

Nik is going as a Noble Renaissance style knight

QT is going as a recycled Lion this costume was made originally for Alex when he was a toddler each boy has worn this outfit at one time or another

Zach is going to be a mummy in a sarcophagus!! (no pic yet once finished I will add pics and how to's)

Tim is going to be a Lion Tamer(no pics but a very easy costume made out of things from around the house)

Alex is going as a vampire slayer (super simple he is doing it himself!)

One thing I would love to do if anyone has any costume they want to make and they need ideas to make it inexpensively I would be happy to give them directions

Time to change my title pic again

2008-10-22T08:24:00.002-05:00

The leaves on that tree are all gone already. The boys have been working half heartedly to chop some wood (we are oh so organized when it comes to this I tried to get them to do it before it gets cold but something else always comes up)

I harvested the celery patch yesterday and washed the stalks and chopped them up the last batch of celery leaves are dehydrating for spice and the chopped stalks are waiting for me to blanche them so they can go into the dehydrator for use through out the year

As I was snipping the celery into chunks I was thinking about what some others might think of this

"Are you wacked you can run to Walmart to buy celery!"

very true and it is cheap and less labor intensive than growing my own and chopping it up into bits and I really do not use celery very much very often so even dehydrated it might not all get used

but cheapness is not the point

and avoiding labor ..HAH I am one of those people who can take an easy job and make it REALLY hard

the point of all the garden work was to try to do my best to live off of what we have made ourselves

and man that is NO easy proposition

We have started up our large freezer again and for very good reason

The meat birds have been slaughtered and are in there right now

and 2 of the pigs have also been butchered

WE had our friends over for both chores and we all enjoyed the process and of course the day spent together was fun for all ..and a lot of work

but now we have 2 pigs in the freezer I am debating which cut of meat I will do up first I have to pick one and get it out and then marinade it

we have to rebuild our cold smoker (home made) so we can smoke bacon and hams

My friend and I even choose which ham we will be making for Easter dinner, we spend holidays with this family they are truly a blast and very dear friends. I mean it is not many people you can ask to give up a weekend to get nasty dirty and kill birds with you!!

The indoor plants are doing well now if I can find a way to keep the kitten out of them the kitten may survive the winter .. she dumped the pot that I had started the lettuce in I am not happy..she has also walked through the baby spinach effectively ruining it

Alex and Tim are now finished with football so they will be able to be home more often in the afternoons to help out around here which means more things will get done

I cannot tell you how happy I am about that. Dave works many long hours 34 miles away from home so having my big boys home helps out a LOT

Lots to get done this week

2008-10-13T08:12:00.002-05:00

I have so much t o do I almost do not know where to start !

Dave is taking some time off (Wednesday through Sunday) so we can get some things wrapped up here for the season

We slaughtered our meat birds this Sunday and they are all wrapped up and in the freezer I think we have a few more to catch and slaughter

This week we need to fix the chicken yard so they stop escaping and catch the birds cut their flight feathers and get them in the chicken yard I think they will be happier to be in there now that the big meat birds are gone (well most of them)

Then putting the garden to bed or parts of it and picking things up around the property (the kids never seem to get that done)

and fixing windows and putting up the plastic around them for a few reasons

1) it helps with heating costs and keeps the drafts out

2) it keeps the lady bugs who are trying to find a winter home out of our house

we have those Asian lady bugs all over our property and when the sun shines on the south face of the house the lady bugs swarm and get in all the little cracks

I found a few non toxic ways to get rid of them

vacuuming I take the vacuum and clean the windows and ceiling and corners of the house as best as I can

We keep the windows closed tight even on the warm days and the doors too you would be amazed at the small spaces those bugs can get in
along with keeping the windows and doors closed we have to close up any cracks in the windows and doors I do this with very thick sheets of plastic and duct tape. I have seen these bugs squeeze their way UNDER poorly sealed tape so I am careful to get as much of it around the windows as possible

and finally I found these great white traps that are used for catching larger bugs these things can hold a mouse on it and are similar to fly paper only stronger

I hang that up by the light and at night watch the bugs get stuck to it a very satisfying feeling I must say!!

Why do I get so hyper about lady bugs??

well we get them so bad here that we will have them crawling in our bed ..flying around the Christmas tree ..and generally annoying us all winter long

so the best thing is to prevent them from getting in

if the swarm gets really bad once the windows are sealed on the outside I will use barn spray to get them away from the windows. I do not like using barn spray it is horribly toxic and just nasty stuff ..

so busy week

oh and making tomato sauce from the ripening tomatoes!

I really wonder if I could do it

2008-10-08T11:16:00.002-05:00

I seriously question this especially at the end of our garden could I really help my family survive if we were to live self sufficiently

IT is frightening to me here in northern WI because I know that for much of the year there is no hope of growing anything outside at all

Our animals many of them have escaped the pigs ..no they are still there till we slaughter

but the chickens have tore holes in the poultry netting around their chicken yard and many of them are out either in the woods next to the house or in our yard ..one tried to break into the front window last night freaked the kids out (it was still light outside so I chased it back toward the chicken house)

obviously we would need a better solution for the chickens

we are down to roughly 25 meat birds and about 24 egg birds (and two roosters for the egg birds) considering we started out with 71 I say that sucks but we lost some to disease (a couple chicks) several to some animal and then others took off and a couple we lost to cannibalism.

It would be a brutal existence and really brings those old books to a better light

we do not know just how great we have it here food in such abundance that many stuff ourselves to death (myself included I am very overweight) we know that if worse came to worse we would not "starve" in the real sense of the word

One of the hardest things I have had in my attempts to learn to live more off of what we have and can get ourselves here is how much do we need?

I went to an organic gardening talk some months back and the woman there said that for a family of 4 you would need 80 tomato plants to supply for them the sauces and things the average family would go through

but what about MY family??

we eat something with tomatoes in it at least 3 times a week be it ketchup or spaghetti or salsa

and how much of other things? how much meat? how much lettuce? how much spinach how many onions and let's not even get started on

potatoes!!

(we are of Irish descent after all and potatoes are eaten with almost every meal!)

how many pounds of flour?

I collected only a few pounds of berries in all of my berry picking excursions(granted Dave and the kids ate a LOT of berries before I got to wash and freeze them)

When I think of this I wonder how I could do it all and then I remember

In the little house on the prairie books (I love those so much but I use them because they are a great example of life before supermarkets and McDonald's that many people know) The Ingalls family DID not do the work alone

one family member was not doing everything by themselves as a hobby while the others stood back and watched or played or went to school or football or work

their work was survival

they built their hen house to withstand everything so none of their chickens were killed

they planted their garden and preserved everything they could

they hunted

they used the animals they raised right down to the pigs tail

Many look back on those days and those lives as idyllic

WRONG so many dangers existed then death was an everyday part of life loss of a child loss of an adult to accident or infection was VERY real

I would not want to go back to that time of uncertainty

Imagine being there now with my garden attempts I have a house full of green tomatoes because I had a frost I have a handful of onions

no peas set aside (they did not do well)
only a few jars of pickles (I did not plant enough or put up enough cucumbers )

only a few pounds of fruit
very few dried herbs (for medicinal purposes)

really makes my attempts seem futile LOL

But it is a start like I told the kids it is a learning garden and with this year of learning we will do better next years garden will with a little luck of the weather produce even more and since we all have been educated in doing things like

canning (and now we have all we need on hand to can as food is produced)

blanching (there has to be a trick to it besides what the pamphlet tells me)

dehydrating (finally a dehydrator in the house)

we have the garden beds established and Dave is all for getting it prepped this fall so that soon as the ground warms we will be able to plant

All of these things will make a difference

not to mention remembering to start the pepper plants before the tomatoes I really am gonna drill that in my head all winter long PEPPERS first

Soooooo now what ?

2008-10-06T23:03:00.002-05:00

The plants that I could save are all in

I have some celery that needs to be dealt with ..severely

I have a nice new food dehydrator that I took for a test dehydrate the other day on some lovely celery leaves it made them PERFECT I crumbled them up and used them in soup I was so excited the smell that filled the house was awesome

now I have more celery to blanch and leaves to work with

but first I have to FIND my kitchen counters

ALL THOSE TOMATOES have taken over not only have them taken over they seem to have grown in number and they are very intimidating

so (I have been ill) I have taken my time and have sorted through the tomatoes a bit at a time

ones that are too small go into a bucket for the pigs same thing with the ones that are bruised or show signs of having freeze burns on them and ones that have just plain smashed under the weight of their brother tomatoes in the baskets!!

I have many things to cope with here to get things ready for sauces and such and ripening the green tomatoes in paper bags I have several bags of tomatoes for Dave to take to work with him because I really have no use for that many jelly bean tomatoes !!

(several lunch bags full of them)

we had one squash on our lone squash plant

I have no idea if it was ripe but the plant itself was damaged by frost

Zach happily devored his corn from his corn plants and we learned several lessons about our efforts

first aside from our planting schedule needs to better fit the growing needs of the plants (again note to self till I get it through my thick head Tomatoes are NOT the first plant to start!)

watering inconsisitent watering was really an issue especially for the corn the corn needed to be planted earlier AND watered on a better schedule

WE actually got some potatoes out of our tires not nearly as many as we had hoped but hey an experiment is an experiment

we might even luck out and have thes plants we brought inside survive the kitten who seems to have a death wish!!

she does not understand I have no issue sending a kitty to the humane society for the sake of my plants!!!

Sad pictures of the frost devastation

2008-10-03T11:19:00.003-05:00

OK OK so I am exaggerating a bit..but it is the end of the road for the tomatoes they have had it

some of them will not even be able to be artificially ripened because they froze but the majority of the tomato crop will be salvaged and brought in ripened and over the course of the next week or so made into sauce or paste and I will be buying a dehydrator to dry some of the smaller ones. and for a few gazillion other things that I can use a dehydrator for .

Here are the black beans that I planted the leaves do not look too bad I picked one bean pod and the beans inside are not fully black more like a dark purple. I have never planted these or had them fresh (I love black refried beans and have made them from dried beans) so if anyone has any info on beans please share your expertise with me!

This is one of Zach's HUGE snake gourds this one is over 4 feet long as you can see the plants themselves have had it so Zach and I will be harvesting these this afternoon he will be heartbroken that growing time is over for his amazing gourds.

This is a shot to give prospective on how large these gourds are you can see in the background one of our water heaters for yet another project left undone as well as the corn growing next to the long gourd . Those things are amazing!!

This is one of the late start sweet bell pepper plants I had. again this is a learning year (how I look at it) so I will definitely grow peppers again but next year I will start them earlier and plant them in a good hot location all things considered this one did pretty well and once the sun warms it I will inspect it again to see if I can save the plant to at least let the one pepper mature

and the saddest of all the sign of dead tomato plants they are everywhere (remember over 200 of them) so time to pull them up pick off any good tomatoes and bring them in and dream of another summer!

Frost Update

2008-10-03T09:53:00.002-05:00

I was out there for a look around and most of the leaves on the plants are black and drooped on the ground turning to mush I picked some tomatoes and the plants were just falling apart in my hands the cell structure has been destroyed by frost

I was careful to avoid any plants that had not been warmed up by sun yet

I need to find out more about black beans I have a plant I put in the dirt it has the bean pods on it but I have no clue how to tell if they are ripe without tearing it up and opening up the pods

anyone with knowledge on that I would love advice on them they do not appear damaged by frost

there is so much to save I really do not think I can do it all

THe older boys are at school

Dave is at work and won't be home till late

the 2 oldest boys have a football game this evening so they won't be home till really late and we are going to go watch them.

I have the two little ones

and I have been ill lately (we think it might Thyroid problems I am going to the doctor Tuesday) so I don't have the energy to do it all like I used to..I just do not want all this work to go to waste.

All that work and now it all HAS to be taken care of in one day

one already busy busy day

makes me want a nap ..

That is probably the end of the garden

2008-10-03T08:43:00.002-05:00

Sadly frost hit pretty bad last night without any warning from weather service
I checked our local weather before going to bed and no warnings

This morning I work up to an icy crust on the plants after the sun has had a chance to warm them a bit I will go out and assess the damage and start collecting whatever can be saved

I will bring my camera and update then

Some more pictures

2008-10-02T11:22:00.003-05:00

I can't resist once I get going I just gotta share more so here are some more recent pictures from around here
First we have my favorite wild flower Black Eyed Susans

Next we have some of our escapee chickens we have roughly 20 some chickens who decided they do not like the confines of the safe chicken yard so they are now free ranging they come back to the house every night I think the size of the meat birds(white ones) would cause any fox to run in terror

And now QT just being a sweet pea eating a cucumber nothing more soothing for a teething toddler than a nice cool cuke!!

Finally this was taken a while ago when the berries were ripe but they are just too pretty to not share I still have a whole bunch in the freezer waiting for me to make them into jam ..someday I will have the energy!

Picture TIME!!

2008-10-02T08:49:00.004-05:00

I know you have all been waiting with baited breath and so here are some pics I took over the last few days

First off here is a pic of a salad we made for dinner last night the flowers are nastursiums (boys love them) the cucumbers are also from our garden as are the tomatoes the lettuce and spinach are from the store

Of course a salad like this is going to get picked at ! while waiting for others to get home Zach could not resist the cucumbers

The other day I was making my tomato sauce and decided to take some pictures to share because someone asked for my recipie for a different kind of sauce. I BTW make a chunky sauce
I start with the tomatoes I just think they are so darn pretty ! and I like to show off

you cut them into quarters remove the seeds and dice them into nice sized chunks

I have on the stove my pan with some olive oil onions and garlic simmering I then add diced tomatoes to this and let them simmer and stir as needed

I also add some basil and black pepper to the mess on the stove and some water to thin it out and cook till it is the right consistency
for me the right consistency is a relative term meaning cook it till you like it do not forget a cooks perogative is to sample the sauce lots and lots
with fresh good roma tomatoes (they are the meatiest for sauce and easy to grow) you won't need sugar to cut the acid because there is none and trust me with vine ripened tomatoes they are super sweet. I know the picture only shows one tomato simmering so please cut up a bunch. Do not blame me if you try to make tomato sauce out of one tomato and can't feed a big family for us I use roughly 10 romas and then whatever other little tomatoes are ripe. That still does not make a full pan of sauce only half a sauce pan (we have a million jelly bean tomatoes it is a PITA but they need to get used somehow I am still hoping for that food dehydrator)

and there you have my tomato sauce the onions from our garden tomatoes also and basil the only thing I did not grow in there was the olive oil(hard to get oilive trees to grow in Northern WI) and the garlic (need to get some bulbs for that this year!!)

700 BILLION Are you outta you Fing MIND??

2008-09-30T12:17:00.002-05:00

OK OK I know this is a bit late in coming but I had to take some time to try to WRAP my feeble mind around this

and I still have to say WTF???

Seven HUNDRED BILLION that is so much

and where is it coming from? where is this money?

I took economics a LONG LONG time ago so maybe someone smarter than I am can explain to me in stupid people terms and SLOWLY

our country is in debt

well I as a citizen am overextended in debt as well and my credit sucks

the banks screwed up and now are bankrupt so they need money so that the stock market does not get all hyper and play with numbers which are acutally money and causes the dollar to have value or not and

after that my eyes glaze over and I think to myself

we are really screwed

I have been reading things on it (with the handy dictionary open in another window for reference) everything from blogs to news stories to message board opinions etc etc

some say it is the end of _____ and we are headed into a depression the likes of which the world has never seen

well in one way WOooHOOO nothing like complete meltdown to change the world (check a history book for changes that happened after the last depression)

As a broke in debt American I can say simply this

I have nothing to really loose

so long as I can keep paying my mortgage I am OK

but what if this meltdown does worse things you know to like say the electric grid or worse yet PHONE LINES!!!

I do not have enough information printed from the internet to survive I am still learning to make these things and like to refer to directions

and who would I talk to ..my kids???

OK that is enough of my rant on the economy those are my thoughts on it for now I am sure it will change

I am not for bailing out banks much like I dont see anyone cutting me and my family any slack for our poor judgement in financial areas I get no sympathy etc for screwing up and the government is not looking to bail my butt out

I say take the large amount of money and spread it out amoung those who are 18 or older

or for every American citizen

I will invest my share in

seeds

and books

Heirloom seeds and books on survival

but ask me tomorrow I might change my mind

I have been missed here LOL

2008-09-26T22:14:00.002-05:00

Amanadoo I am sorry so much going on here

OK my garden is doing VERY well still the snake goards (crazy kooky things I thought were merely decorative but if I have the right kind of snake goards then they are edible) these things are almost 4 feet long HUGE goards (I hav epics I just need time to download them)

The tomatoes are amazing I have been making sauce and making sauce and picking tomatoes no canning yet cause I want to have enough of it all together to actually can in one large batch

the Chickens NEED to go away soon the meat birds are enormous and keep escaping for more food so they are basically free range birds now instead of in a chicken yard which will make them tasiter but they are PITA to catch

We want them finished up in the next two weekends (if Dave can get some time off we slaughter ourselves)

THe pigs will be getting done soon as it cools off in October (we hit 80 degrees here today very unusual) so we still have them and they need to be dealt with as well I should post some pics of them too

We actually harvested some corn today I never thought we would get any but 2 ears is better than none so far that is all that is ripe

I was in the garden today I had a thought that would make an entire post but it fits here so this is what I my deep thought was

I was harvesting tomatoes checking each one by hand to see if they would fall off into my hand showing me they are ripe enough to pick or that they just need to come in

my thought was this

the tomatoes we have in the store are picked before they are ripe even the "vine ripened" ones are they are shipped green and ripen in boxes and then are put out to be bought

same thing goes for the stuff in our store bought canned goods

SO how much waste is there from this I mean thing about it what a waste the tomatoes are not allowed to grow to thier full potencial they are not given the chance to get big and red and swollen and juicy AND sweet the romas I made into sauce are so sweet there is no need to cut the sour taste or bitterness or acid with sugar. I was looking under my plants I harvest over the course of a few weeks so think of those commercial tomatoes being harvested all at once and of the waste plants do not grow that way

there is no acid to these tomatoes they are just sweet and make a lovely sauce (I have pics of my sauce method too)

truly it has been an interesting time

My oldest and second son are involved in football my 3rd son is in cub scouts and I am one of the leaders
So we have been busy busy busy

I hope to post more tomorrow like the pics and everything so be patient I am here ...kinda LOL

This really annoyed me

2008-09-23T08:33:00.002-05:00

we were having a lovely evening home when the phone rang after 8pm ...that never happens

so I answer it and it turns out to be some person collecting information for my high school's directory so do I have a few minutes to verify this information I said SURE

Name ____

yes
address ___
yes

Any degrees you wish to share with your former classmates

I said

"I have a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Health Care Administration"

silence

she then said

Anything else?

No one was enough for me thanks!

then she gets into the family listing
"I have you listed as married to David"
yes
any children
yes and I list their names Alexander Timothy Zachary Nikolaus and Quentin

her comment Wow 5 boys no girls?
no
and your occupation ?

Mom
very well
housewife

NO sweetie I am not a housewife I am not married to my house I am a Mom that is my job you don't have enough room to list everything I do so just put down Mom and anyone who is smart enough to understand will get it and anyone else I don't care enough to speak to!

grrrrrrrr

I should be above this. I really should. I have never had a "career" I went from dating to being a mom very quickly I have spent my life and my work has been my children . I have done well I am giving the world 5 terrific young men

3 who are already proving to the world how amazing they are. 2 more are still in production due for release to society as soon as they are more prepared for school.

Why does this annoy me so much

because I work literally from the time I wake up till I go to bed at night
anyone else have a career like that?
I don't get a coffee break my coffee break is taken while I am cleaning up after a meal

I make meals at home from scratch I don't serve convenience foods etc for my kids those things are treats

my house is NOT spotless it is in controlled chaos at all times if I let up for even a day that control is LOST

I care for the animals I care for the garden I make things to sell I clean and straighten and color and change diapers and wipe things down and sweep and pull the kitten off the baby and let the dog out a million times a day not to mention the whole schedule keeper thing that most people would hire a secretary to handle the various messes we have going on

I do more in one day than many people do in a week in their "career"

it annoys me because I know I am NOT the only mom who busts her ass (and trust me I don't work too hard)

it annoys me because this is not the only vital "career" that is ignored by our society and devalued because it is seemingly so common

This job takes creativity to do it well it takes perseverance and patience and an ability to multitask like no other and if you don't believe that come over when the toddler has diarrhea and watch a small child go from having only 4 limbs to having 20 just to reach that stuff that made mommy say OH YUCK THAT IS NASTY!! which in boy language is "I must touch this immediately because it has to be cool!"

ever try helping a 4Th grader with their math while making dinner?

how about helping a neighbor kid with their homework while a bird flies through the pane glass window shattering it around you? (happened last week a grouse flew through the window but that is another story!)

I work in a war zone!!

I get paid plenty by my kids I don't need compensation but I also do not need some condescending Chickie poo on the phone wearing a walmart head set acting like I sit on my butt all day eating bon bons!!

I got off the phone with the woman after turning down her offer of this miraculous book that would put me in touch with my old high school buddies for a mere $100.00 split into two easy payments of 49.95 plus shipping and handling of course
and Dear Dave who was sitting across the room from me looking oh so proud that I did not blow at the dear telemarketer (you see I only said please list occupation as MOM not housewife)

He was beaming in my younger days I would have let the young lady have it with both barrels

oh well I am getting weak in my old age the battle will have to be taken up by the next generation of mom's who will learn as I have that it is a thankless job in many ways but it is a job well worth the work sweat tears lack of sleep and wrinkles and grey hairs

it is a job that i would not trade for any big time "career"

I have been given a gift my kids and it is my job to mold these young boys into the men who will run the world of the future. It is my job to teach them enough of the past to know who they are and who they came from. It is my job to fill them with hope and foster their creativity so they can go out and MAKE the world they place they dream of
and now I will get off my soap box because it was just something that annoyed me and after all the work I do I can't stand to see my job demeaned by anyone and I do not want politicians to just pay it lip service either!

I just want to say this so the working mom group does not get all pissed at me

IF you are a working mom I know you bust your ass too this is not a post about which is better working mom or SAHM this is a post about being a MOM

I feel all mom's are working moms paycheck or non paycheck moms we all struggle with the same things we all are supposed to have the perfect clean house well behaved kids we all deal with the same kinds of things if you feed your kids convenience foods and are OK with that cool they are YOUR kids. My point is not what I do for my kids (I am no saint when it comes to motherhood trust me!) my point is how society looks at motherhood and pays it lip service and does not see the work that goes into the job.

All about this cool Nike Program

2008-09-18T12:36:00.005-05:00

This is the site to go to

http://letmeplay.com/reuseashoe/

Basically they take athletic shoes without metal (so no cleats or dress shoes) they can be in any condition so long as they are dry (do not send something soaking wet)

they grind them up and turn them into a resurfacing material for playgrounds or basketball courts

BRILLIANT

what a terrific way to reuse shoes

NOW here is the KICKER

(pardon the pun)

what if you are not living in an area where they have a pick up place??

well you have 2 options

start a shoe drive to get together shoes to send in from your community

then Nike will pick them up!! (you have to meet their requirement of a minimum number of shoes

OR

you can mail your shoes to their center

SO if you have some spare money and a bunch of shoes or if you have a community group that is willing to collect a WHOLE BUNCH of shoes to send in

So this is a neat option to clean out your closets

NOW if you are like me and you have a HUGE box of shoes and DO NOT have the money to send them perhaps you live near ...or know someone who does..a shoe drop off place

I happen to know someone who DOES live near a shoe drop off and she actually volunteers where the drop off zone is so it is NOT out of her way

I will be giving my dear mother in law who is a fairly environmentally conscientious person who would gladly indulge her grandsons obsession and take a box of dirty stinky tennis shoes to the drop off zone

I should probably ask her first before volunteering her but I know her well enough to know she would be happy to do this for Zach and she is very supportive and proud of him and his efforts in saving the planet !

Reuse it!!

2008-09-18T12:36:00.002-05:00

This will be a kinda complaining kinda I am so proud of that kid post

I am talking of course about Zach

This boy is for lack of a better word obsessed with saving the planet he loves that we are gardening..he loves that we make do with things we have and do as much as we can ..within our limits to save energy

but sometimes this child can take things too far ..even for me

I LOVE to reuse things I always have . the cheapskate in me hates to throw away something that MIGHT be useful

scraps of ribbon and fabric containers etc

but after a while you start to accumulate SO MUCH that you really have to declutter in order to find ..well a flat surface to put things

Right now our mudroom (the room by the back door) stores our off season jackets and shoes as well as a large garbage can full of styrofoam (that I am still trying to figure out what to do with it I am leaning toward mixing it with potting soil but most of the stuff we buy already has it in there)

then we also have our large recycling bins and the cardboard some of which ends up in the burn barrel (yes we burn it)

We have a bin with newspaper and corragated carboard for gardening and then the bags of shreaded paper

we have a bin for alluminum one for tin cans and glass and plastic

This room also holds a full sized freezer and a shelving unit and a fridge freezer combo

this "big" room is a mess

the newest additive to this MESS

is

a bag of holey socks

yes a walmart bag of holey socks

WHY??

well Zach said when I was about to toss the holey socks into the trash

MOM!!! You CAN'T just throw those away!!

Ok he is like me he did not just say this is was actually VERY loud and very dramatic and he was then saying things like
"those will sit and ROT FOREVER!!"

OK I said he was smart but really now it would not take forever for these cheapo socks to rot!!

I said great so what am I supposed to DO with old holey socks??

he said

Sock Puppets

I said WHO wants 35 sock puppets??

....ummmm we can come up with something that will reuse the socks AND make something useful

So I sat down and thought about it

the kid slays me I swear!

SO two ideas I came up with for reusing these things are

draft dodgers

I make them usually out of old towels I roll them up sew them into a tube and stick them in front of drafty doors or windows saves energy and keeps me from feeling like I wasting things

I could use the socks as the stuffing of a tube made from fancier fabric and sew them up and stick them in front of the doors

I think this might become some weirdo Etsy thing that will probably NOT sell but what the heck it will get the boy off my back about it

My other idea was

making a non disposable "swiffer" style floor cloth from the socks

it will require two socks cute them open to fit the sweeper thing and sew them together I bet this would make a great wet wipe for the floor too

now I just need a few minutes to actually sit down to sew all this stuff

but right now the large LARGE piles of shoes that are in assorted disrepair are calling my name

hmmm guess I better look online to see if any schools in our area are taking part in the Nike recycling program thing where Nike takes the shoes (tennis shoes only) and recycles the shoes to make the rubber mats that go underneath playground equiptment

heavy sigh LOL

It has been a busy week

2008-09-15T11:18:00.002-05:00

With the coming of the frost we had to get some things in order aside from covering and uncovering the plants for those two nights with frost we had to them get all the wet sheets etc inside the house and get them washed

Things here are hectic with the big boys in school they do not get home till about 4pm on the bus then it is snack time etc

Alex and Tim are busy on the high school football team so that means they do not get home till after 7pm we then eat dinner together as a family (it is my excuse to not have dinner ready earlier I am really bad at getting food on the table at a normal dinner hour)

Dave is not usually home till after 6:30pm so evenings are hectic with homework picking people up at the assorted times they need to be gotten ..animal care in the late afternoon etc

SO here is what I have gotten done so far this week

I brought in the potted plants that need to be kept indoors in cool weather I can take them outside to the deck for bright light during the day till the weather gets too bad but most of the time I am too lazy for that LOL

I have stared the process of transplanting them into larger pots with fresh potting soil..this met with histerical laughter from Dear Dave because ..well his comment was "dirt is dirt"

No dear Dirt is the stuff outside potting soil is a special mix of lightweight humus soil a touch of vermiculite and some lovely bits of styrofoam to break it all up nicely so it drains well

his eyes glazed over when I said "No dear blah blah blah" that is what he heard till I said get me a big bag of organic potting soil POTTING SOIL not gardening soil

yeah yeah I know...

So far I have transplanted and brought inside

a pot with 4 strawberry plants (still producing the kids are thrilled) a large pot of Peppermint (I can't bear to part with it over the winter) A pot with munstead lavender that I started from seed (so proud of myself) and a pot of french lavender that actually has some lovely flowers on it one of the many pots of basil

Still to be transplanted will be the large pot full of assorted kitchen herbs (basil rosemary thyme flat leaf parsley sage and I think there is some oregano in there) and the lime stick which now looks like a bush

I have a few house plants that are happy to be in fresh dirt and new pots and are thriving in my one lone south facing window

Another neat thing I did this week was with the WORMS

The worm bin has been moved outside to get rid of the fruit flies in it it contracted those nasty pests because Alex put some banana in there and did not cover it with the damp newspaper so they got in

it looks like the fruit flies are gone from there now I just have to get them out of my kitchen another few days will do the trick

ANYWAYS

I was checking out the worm bin and because we had a bunch of rain I turned on the drain and sure enough there was WORM TEA I harvested 4 water bottles of worm tea for a total of 80 ozs!! cool!!

Dave has been on a shopping spree he has decided that we do not have enough trees

so he has been buying fruit trees it is his goal for us to have an orchard of assorted fruit trees

we now have

some apricots plums apple trees and a cherry tree

VERY nifty

I hope they all live

Other than that we have been working on cleaning up the yard and getting things ready for when fall Dave plans on taking time off at the end of the month to get some things done around here I am hoping to get a chance to get outside to get some more berries picked (can't take the little ones) and we have wood to get chopped and split and a wood pile to fix up and a ton of other things to get underway for winter

not to mention making all that tomatoe sauce

I am still on the lookout for a good food dehydrator we did not get our solar one made as we had hoped so I will opt for a counter top model for now just so I can get done what I need to get done

OH and the kids book

Little Glass Bottle the first book in the kids can series that Zach and Tim are writing is all set for me to get it out to a publisher so I have been spending what little spare time I can checking into that kind of stuff

we gave a copy to Zach's teacher from last year and she LOVES it she took the copy and put it on the reading shelf and the kids in the class love the story too (3rd graders)

Zach is very excited at this prospect and so he and Tim have started work on Book 2 LOL

FROST

2008-09-09T08:33:00.002-05:00

I told you we have a short growing season LOL

yesterday afternoon I was puttering around on the computer when my weather bug started blinking at me I looked out the window to clear skies so I was wondering why weather bug would be blinking and beeping at me. The darn thing started to get annoying so I clicked on it.

FROST WARNING !!!!

crap

frost

200 tomato plants cucumber plants pepper plants that actually are showing signs of peppers on them

and we are getting FROST

IO have all those beautiful green tomatoes that are just begging for another couple weeks of warmish weather just so they can vine ripen and be tasty and flavorful

and we are getting frost

grrrrrrrrrr

so I text Dear Dave and tell him he has to be home before the sun goes down completely so we can cover ALL of the plants with bed sheets and tarps and whatever else we can find to save them

He was chuckling while we covered the plants and I was cursing I am not a happy camper

Zach was running in and out of the house grabbing as many sheets as he could find (good thing we have tons of bed sheets) to save the garden because he said "OH NO I am not letting all our work go to the frost! "

I picked one nice big beautiful Dahlia for the table and we headed inside

we brought along with us
One Dahlia flower
One Banana tree
One Lime tree

One huge pot of assorted kitchen herbs
one pot with lavender growing in it
a pot of basil
a pot with strawberries
and a pot of peppermint

I think I now have my jungle back

This morning when I woke up the temperature was 34 degrees I removed the sheets just as the sun was coming over the trees and the plants look a little crushed from the weight of the damp sheets but they look alive at least

So no frost damage last night

I also found out this cool thing Snake Gourds are edible! Zach has some great snake gourds in his garden and we can use them similar to cucumbers (if they are the right kind) I must find out more about these unique plants.

I was hoping frost would have held off another week or two so I had the time to plant better and change out the soil for something fresh and lighter weight for inside the house with better drainage ...and of course to set up places and lighting for these beauties

oh well they are inside now I will get some dirt on payday (Dave laughs that he has to buy more dirt)

Oh and we got some more trees Dave is on his way to having the orchard of his dreams We now have in total

3 apple trees (they were here when we moved in)

5 plum trees

and one cherry tree

(and he laughs at me for my seeds!)

Adventures in canning

2008-09-08T08:14:00.002-05:00

Oh my goodness!!!

My mother in law (from here on out to save my fingers I will call her Mom) came up this weekend for a few reasons

1) it was Zach's birthday and she does not miss her grand children's birthdays

2) she comes to visit once a month

3) she was coming up to teach me canning

several things could have gone very bad with this. Mom and I have very different attitudes towards cooking and us working in the kitchen can at times be either a pure joy or VERY volatile

this time it was hectic but fun

First to coordinate this mess we have to remember we had a kids birthday party on Saturday

one kid spent the night

the boys all had homework

and I am still nursing the 16 month old

We got started early in the morning trying to get everything cleaned up good and get breakfast for the crowd of people
(my 5 kids plus the extra kid Dave myself and mom it was pancakes)

then clean up that mess

Then Dave and I had to go to the store cause we did not have the canning jars we thought we did

we got home by now it is afternoon

the kitchen is clean Mom started the crock pickles she was going to make us and I headed out to the garden to start picking things

I picked her 10 good cucumbers and a whole bunch of tomatoes and some onions and celery

I then went out to pick some more berries cause I really want to make jam out of the berries I have been picking and freezing I figure once I get enough of them it should not be too bad to make a bunch of jam and freeze it

RIIiiiiiiiGHT!!

well at this point I had a crying toddler who wanted to take his so I had to sit down and nurse him

while I was doing this mom started the sauce

I BTW make a great sauce I have done this part before I just have never canned it I usually make it and use it fresh

she cut up all of the tomatoes including some that could have waited a few days before being cooked they were not quite ripe but fell off the plants

she left the seeds in which is not what I do no big deal but again not what I do

after all the chopping and work the jars were sterilized but the sauce was not fully done

and then by the time the sauce was done the jars were cooled off

this happened to us twice by the end of the night she and I were giggling thinking we would be canning these 2 lousy jars of sauce till next weekend!

by 11:30pm the jars were full and all processed the lids sealed properly and her boiling water canner was left on the stove to cool

we said goodnight to each other and I promised her those two precious cans of spaghetti sauce would cherished

I am thinking of having them bronzed

Happy Birthday Zach

2008-09-05T10:02:00.003-05:00

The mini Environmentalist is celebrating his birthday today

he is 9

Last night he said to us as he was heading to bed
"say goodbye to 8 year old Zach you will never see him again Tomorrow I will be 9"

I of course cried

I will miss 8 year old Zach

8 year old Zach is the one who started us on this journey

guided by my desire to save money and his desire to save the planet we have come a long way. He makes me think now about every light that is turned on, about every item that is to be put in the trash , about every thing that is no longer "usable" how can we reuse some of it

He has given me ideas of things like

reusing old holey socks as the stuff for the "draft dodgers" I make for wintertime

using those same socks for reusable floor wipes for my swiffer wet so I do not have to buy them anymore

He has made me think about larger gardens , using less water, creating new a bigger better things, and he makes me want to get a pedal car!

and now 8 year old Zach is gone

only to be replaced by 9 year old Zach

I hugged him this morning and you know what

he feels older and bigger and taller and his head seems to have grown to make space for all the new stuff he will learn.

So Happy Birthday to my Zach

I love you!

Just a few tidbits

2008-09-04T11:42:00.002-05:00

The tomatoes are starting to ripen
The cucumbers are coming en force

we have been eating salads with assorted things from our garden but poor Dave has to keep stopping at the store to buy lettuce because I foolishly did not do succession planting (next year I will do better)

sooooo

we buy lettuce

The corn has tassles on it (very cool thing to see)

The snake goards are growing UP the corn (not planting goards anywhere near anything next year)

I have been on and off sick and tired all week LOL

Zach completed his first book so I am working on finding a place to get it published Tim did the illustrations and I think the story is adorable it all about a little glass bottle and how to reuse it

my mother in law is coming up this weekend to help celebrate Zach's birthday and she is going to teach me how to do canning!

we are going to make pickles out of the cucumbers I am so excited (and so is she I can tell!)

The boys started back to school this week so things have been a little hectic with the little ones at home

Tonight for dinner we will make Pizza Dippers

I use my bread recipie and make it into a pizza crust on a cookie sheet (my recipie fills 3 cookie sheets)

I then baste the dough in olive oil and sprinkle parmesan cheese and motzerella cheese on top then add some garlic and basil and bake it till done

then the dipper part is roma tomatoes cut up simmered in olive oil basil garlic and oregano

that is it for now

Labor Day unofficial end of Summer

2008-09-01T11:16:00.003-05:00

I keep hearing that

end of summer blow out

SALE end of summer

even my kids running around saying

MOoooooooooOOOOOMMM it's the end of SUMMMMER!!! and I did not get to have any fun!

Then we go through the ritual of reminding them of the fun they had and today is just an exhausting day

The fall garden is planted and wants to sprout
we are experiencing a pretty bad drought we have not had a good amount of rain in over a week and we are behind for the month of August the lakes are low etc and my garden is DRY

and tomorrow my helpers go back to school

I hate the end of things

I will not miss the fighting and screaming and thier crying when one brother offends the other

I will miss being able to have a big brother watch the little ones so I can go for a walk ALONE

I will miss showering with the little ones supervised (time to go back to showering at night before bed or EARLY morning like before 6 am neither appeals to me)

Time to look back at the summer and see the large LONG list I made during the cold boring days of winter and spring and see how ambitous I am when I have cabin fever!

I wanted to build a solar oven

did not happen

Zach wrote his book though

I wanted a passive solar hot water heater

did not happen but at least we have the things for it

Dave wanted a working riding lawn mower and he has finally broken down to seek professional help for it LOL (he is taking it to a mechanic)

We planned a rummage sale ..again did not happen yet we might do it one weekend during fall but that all has to work in between football and assorted school things

We did plant a HUGE garden ...and have found that during the summer it was not large enough the plants need more space so we have been working with friends to already plant next years garden

We sure learned a lot this year

we learned how to take care of apple trees so that we can break the biennial pattern they have

we learned how to work with the rassberries and blackberries to make them productive and work better and easier to pick

we read a LOT of information on organic gardening from many sources and learned that one of the main benefits of organic gardening is not only inexpensive to do but it also make healthier produce with more vitamins and better taste!

we learned that we really need to get our butts out to the garden more often so we can grow things like lettuce in succession plantings

we learned we can grow sweet lettuce in the shade (sorry bitter greens are little too southern for this midwestern family)

We remember things like we love having chickens and pigs even though it means lots of work they are just fun to have

I have been researching ways to keep growing things well into fall and how to best transition my outside potted plants to move inside (the bananna tree and lime tree and assorted potted herbs will all be coming inside along with the habenero peppers and perhaps some other pepper plants)

poor Dave will have to live in a jungle again I know he will hate it till he gets a habenero pepper that we grew from seed ..and he said it couldn't be done HAH

So as summer winds to a close it is by no means the end of our gardening efforts we still have tons of work to get done

things like processing the food we grew both the meat and the fruits and veggies my mother in law is coming up next weekend maybe I can talk her into making some applesauce or jam or something

Then we have to prep the garden areas for the winter sleep. Dave has even agreed that this is an important step that he will help with ..I am hopeful he might even take time off work to do that

Downside to the "centometer"

2008-08-26T11:24:00.002-05:00

POWER COST MONITOR

This is a sad day for me
I was given a great opportunity and sadly the electrical meter I have is not compatible with the power cost monitor from Blue Line Innovations. The Power cost monitor is compatible with 95% of the meters out there mine ..sadly for me ...falls into the 5%

here is the e-mail I got today

Hi Sue,

Unfortunately, your electric meter (Lands and Gyr ALTIMUS, Type AL) is one of the few that is not compatible with the PowerCost Monitor. The technical reason is that the “Watt IR pulse” (the signal we use to show consumers their electricity usage) cannot be reactivated by the optical port.

As I might have mentioned the PCM works with about 95% of the current electric meters installed in the US and Canada today. Unfortunately yours falls into the 5% that is not compatible.

Best regards,

Pete

This is such a bummer I really wanted one I am hopeful that the company will be working to fix this oversite and might come up with a power cost monitor that works with my meter till then I will still sing the praises of this product even though I did not get the chance to try it

WHY???

Because this is a product that gives you right in your hands a chance to take charge and control over the electricity you use and it gives you the instant feedback that many people need.

SO

save energy turn off your lights use your solar clothes dryer(clothes line) when shopping look for things that use less energy

and save yourself a few bucks

Some interesting reading

2008-08-26T08:08:00.002-05:00

I love to read in my not so spare time. I spend most of my time reading articles or books or book reviews of books I think I might want to read...so let's just say I am fairly well read ..granted reading sometimes means I get 3 or 4 words in before I hear a kid say Mom I have to tell you a question but eventually I plug my way through whatever I am trying to concentrate on.

An article that fascinated me and I could not tear my eyes off of is in the most recent issue of National Geographic

It is called Where Food Begins

It is a story about dirt

It is about how we are neglecting our dirt and how we are destroying the very thing that gives us our food.

The story goes into great detail about what we have done in many parts of the world (the WE here is the human family)

From poor soil management and chemical usage to deforestation and compaction of the soil using heavy equiptment

This to me is very relevant the magazine showed a map of places where the soil was the best for growing food and guess what

where I live in not one of the best areas

Does this article only speak to doom and gloom of destruction

NOPE it even talks of ways to make the soil better and you guessed it there are tons of things we can do to our soil to "fix" it

first is to ..well not compact it

Next fertilizer, poop, compost, charcoal (no not the briquettes you buy in a bag)

Basically all the thigns an organic gardener does to make thier dirt the best

so there you have all the "kooks" and granola crunchers have been right all along

I sure hope they don't get all smug about it

LOL

So with this lovely article in mind I went out to work in the dusty compacted soil that Dave had tilled up for me it is a great spot for planting right in my front yard full sunshine warmed first in the spring and really a good place

too bad the dirt is nasty dust hard as a rock full of rocks and so compacted it is hard to till even with the tiller

so I was out there using my gardening fork to dig deep I came up with

a couple of grubs

YUCK those are so gross and nasty I gave them to the boys to feed to the chicken I should have the boys grab me some chickens in a cage to stick out there for a while to dig up some grubs and let the chickens take care of the problem for me

So I tilled up one side and got some carrot seeds in the dirt probably won't have carrots from them but who knows

and then I tilled up another section and planted some shelling peas

today I will dig up another section and get the spinach and some lettuce in just for the S&Gs

So much to do and so little time

we are already getting nights that are quite cool (low 40s) so soon we will have frost warnings and that will be the end of my gardening adventure for this year

I will be able to get the garden area cleaned up and then prepped for next spring and start the whole mess all over again after Christmas by starting some seeds indoors (Dave will be so happy LOL) I just have to remember to not start the tomato plants so darn early

Well we sure have been busy

2008-08-24T22:16:00.002-05:00

Things here are not easy to get done when you run around all the time.

my oldest boys are involved with the high school football team..yes ..high school football. Alex the big boy is playing for the team and my son Tim is the water boy

So every afternoon I drive them off to thier practice and then deal with Zach and Nik and QT without the extra help

As a result the garden has not gotten planted yet (no big deal) it is the fall garden so again ..I am hopeful for it happening tommorow

We have had some great luck with BERRY PICKING

oh my goodness berry picking is awesome I personally love picking berries even with the tedious nature of it and they mess and the pain from getting scratched.

I find it relaxing it is quiet ..the kids dont like it so I get to be alone and things go nicely ..and we get a lot of berries

I think you can learn a great deal from berry picking

first you learn who your friends are..

A true friend will not only SAY "sure I'll come berry picking with you" a true friend will show up grab a bucket and stay out there till she can barely stand even though she did not listen to you when said wear denim !

That is my friend Angela the two of us worked for about an hour and a half and picked half a gallon of berries we tredged ourselves some paths to make it easier on us the next time we go berry picking

With berry picking you also learn patience it takes a lot of patience to work for an hour and a half and get ONLY a half gallon of berries

Berry picking teaches you not to be greedy

???

yes it does

go berry picking in a thicket of thorns and just out of your reach you will see this lovely branch with big thick ripe berries pick them into your hand and in your impatient state you might be tempted to try from some just out of your reach

if you do that you will probably drop your berries into the thicket and lose most of them in your hand

so patience and dont be greedy!

It also teaches you to not be a glutton. I tell you you can appreciate a fruit much more if you have to work as hard as we do for it.

OH and the apples are ripe

so we have been getting apples any that are bad go to the pigs

and then the corn is just starting to get tassles on it which is really cool
of course we have the cucumbers and tomatoes ripening and onions a few of the jalepenos

Oh and carrots and nastursiums (Alex loves those on his salad!)

So we have been busy

sometimes it seems like we work a lot all the time and there is not much to show for it because there is so much more that needs to be done

The season is coming to a close I am sitting here at 10:30pm writing this wearing a jacket in the house cause it is chilly a definate sign that fall is rushing in and before we know it we will have to abandon the gardening for more ...wintery persuits

Things like preparing the wood (most of our neighbors who are brighter than we are already have that done) I think I will talk the boys into getting started more on that tommorow

we also have to slaughter the chickens and pigs
get the garden put to bed for the fall

Today we went fishing we only caught little bitty fish but the kids had a blast which is what is important

I need to learn about carpentry

2008-08-20T07:41:00.002-05:00

I come up with all kinds of neato things to build and put together things that will save us money and energy

but since I cannot use power tools (I do not know how) nothing that I come up with gets built no matter how cool the idea is

so there is that I just need to find a class in the area for me to take

Of course Dave is not much better oh sure he has the tools and he knows how to use them but he never has the time to dedicate to doing extra projects when he is home he is doing the basic bare necessities to keep things around here running.

heavy sigh (LOL)

oh well someday things will get made

things like

solar oven

passive solar hot water heater

passive solar greenhouse (Dave does not think this one is possible for him to put together at all)

solar dehydrator

perhaps we will try to tackle something today

but I doubt it there is laundry to do and with this crowd that takes a long time to get done

not to mention football practice for Alex and Tim

I will be impressed if we get our fall garden in

we want to plant

more peas

some spinach

some more lettuce

and Kale

and carrots

wish us luck

Dave tilled a space for it and needs to till up some more I have to convince Nik and QT that the tilled dirt is not thier sandbox and then mix in some pig poo so the dirt is more than just ...dry sand....

oh and our yard has not had more than a few drops of rain in a week

Anxiously awaiting my "centometer"

2008-08-18T16:43:00.002-05:00

POWER COST MONITOR

I know the TV shows call it a Centometer but really it is a Power cost monitor I have blogged about it before.

WELL today I got a call from the company that makes them (after many e-mails were sent to a guy who no longer works there) and the nice fellow I chatted with (such a patient man to listen to me prattle on while my kids made noise in the background) is actually sending me one to try out and to talk about to those who like to come here to find out about.

I am so psyched.

This is a neat way to give yourself an energy audit without having to do the math.
You also don't have to wait till your electric bill comes in to see the difference in savings.

An Energy audit is important for so many reasons

First it saves money by cutting back on your spending where ever you are comfortable with cutting back things like light bulbs ,unplugging things you don't use using fans instead of AC etc

Second it helps one prepare for living on less energy which is what is needed if one wants to go self sufficient you need to know how to budget your electrical usage much the way you budget your money choosing what is more important to use and at what time.

Those who use Alternative power that is not grid tied say this is one of the most challenging steps that people often forget to take because it requires the work and math and is basically a boring penny pinching tedious task

well I like tedious (read about Berry picking) and penny pinching is my thing and I am a gadget freak so I can't wait to get this thing and put it to work to see how much money it can save me and to tell the world about it all

Farmers Market Details

2008-08-16T17:12:00.002-05:00

WOW what an adventure that was

Starting Friday We went berry picking.

Berry picking ...it sounds so calm and peaceful so sweet..so back to nature.. a nice family activity with kids eating some ripe berries and giggling as they walk down nice paths finding the sweet sweet ripe berries

sure in my fantasy that is what berry picking is like. You see we do not have a nice well tended berry patch with neat rows of berry brambles trained to grow on fences.

no we have a thicket of thorns old thorns from last year all crisp and sharp . berry vines from this year full of berries and extremely sharp..and then the new canes that will bear fruit next year that are..well if you have ever seen the movie Snow White where she is running through the forest and she gets trapped by all the branches reaching out grabbing her ..that is what those thorns are like.

This is not the only issue this entire thicket is on a hillside so you are standing on an angle ..not that big of a deal I mean I may be obese but I am in damn good shape for a fat chick I can out run and outlast most people who are in much better physical condition..I just need to take a longer nap later in the week.

So there we are in the thicket wearing denim (jean jackets and jeans) because the thorns do not stick to denim as much as other clothes. the brambles are over the head of my 8 year old volunteer and he is REALLY struggling with the no eatting all the berries in the bucket policy because berries are...one of his favorite foods

Mosquitoes it seems like berry patches.

Oh did I mention that the previous owner of our land had a large collection of building materials? He would buy large amounts of wood and then stack them up on the land so there are several decades and many many piles of assorted types of wood in various states of decay. One wrong step in the thicket can find you standing on a pile of rotting wood

Did I mention how heavy I am?

Did you know that rotting wood does not hold a heavy woman very well.

I fell down the wood cracked and broke my foot went through it I went off to one side through the brambles

I am dedicated though I did not drop any berries from my bucket

cut the hell outta my arm and twisted my ankle (not real bad)

So that was our berry picking adventure

all that work and all we ended up with was a WHOPPING

16 ozs of berries

I separated them into two bags and the boys ate the berries this morning at the farmers market and belive me those boys earned those berries!!

I can't think of anyone I would rather have given them to.

So for the market I had

11 cucumbers of assorted sizes

I have a huge punch bowl full of black seeded simpson lettuce which btw when picked at 6am is not bitter I also had a gallon ice cream bucket full of it as well

I had a gallon bucket of german chamomile

I had a vase with about 15 nastursiums

I had three of my lily lamps with me

I had a large mixing bowl of basil

a bunch of rosemary (the scent of that alone attracted people to the table)

I had 8 large pots of marigolds (zach grew these and they are very very pretty I thought someone might like them for thier front yard for fall)

I had some sprigs of sage

I also put up a sign saying for people to ask me about baby carriers. I make a nice mei tai baby carrier and my Dave thinks I should show it off more often and try to sell them.

For sales

All the cucumbers are gone

All the lettuce sold

All the sage sold

Most of the Basil sold

A few sprigs of rosemary sold

All of the nastursiums sold (I had some people tasting them and they all said "how cool for salads")

None of the lily lamps sold but people were interested in them

and they told me how cleaver I am ...I already know that now buy the damn thing! LOL

I sold one of the marigold plants which was cool Zach was so happy he helped the lady who bought it carry it to her car (what a gentleman!)

All in All it was an awesome day

my signs did not stay on my board very well so for next time I will use card stock and print the signs up on the computer (I hand wrote them at the farmers market)

Next time I will have tomatoes ripe

and I will get some house plants going and hopefully the herbs will be back in full so I will get those to sell as well

I had requests for herb plants so perhaps I will start some basil plants

I had only one bad thing happen today and that was this guy who walked by and snorted at the Marigolds in pots for sale it took all my stregnth to keep smiling at this jerk. I am glad that Zach was not there at that moment because Zach would have been very hurt at that and I would probably be in jail now because that little boy has worked too hard to get his feelings hurt from some smug guy who thinks it is strange to have marigolds for sale. I was a good girl I smiled sweetly almost daring him to say something to me about it. I guess my manic grin scared him away. LOL

Grand total for what we made today

$36.00

stuff sells cheap at the northwoods farmers market

that covered the cost of my fees for the 2 markets I am signed up for so it was a good thing.

and I bought 5$ in fancy soaps from another vendor

chocolate peppermint and a rosewater glycerin soap

OH and I signed up for a canning class I am very excited about that

Nuts

2008-08-12T10:17:00.003-05:00

I have a space set aside and paid for at the Farmer's market for this Saturday

the main thing I was going to sell was lettuce. I have a ton of it. Well guess what we FINALLY got some heat here temps got warm ..too warm for lettuce and sure enough it all went nasty bitter

All it took was a day of weather warmer than 75 and that was all we had one day over 75 degrees and a week with no rain and the lettuce is bitter it was sweet and tasty on Saturday tried it Monday and it has gone to CRAP

grrrrrrrr

so last night I was scratching my head saying CRAP what am I gonna have at my table so I dont look like a freaking FOOL

I mean my tomatoes are not ripe yet

I have no peppers yet ..too early for the pumkins and I have like 4 cucumbers what a bounty there

(dripping sarcasm)

So this morning I went for a walk hoping to see maybe a new patch of beautiful wild flowers (no luck) instead I walked in my garden at the knee deep grass (lawn mowers not working even the new to me one needs to be oiled and sharpened it has been a fun week)

Well I have some lovely large merrigold plants I mean it they are pretty I will dig up half of them put them in pots and sell them

I have some tomatoes that are ripening I will leave them on the vine and hope that they ripen a bunch and then we will have some tomatoes to sell

I have the basil

I have the stuff to make some lily lamps

I have a house plant that I will take some cuttings off of and get them to take root and then put them in pots to sell

and of course some black eye susans

and maybe some daisies
and I have chamomile I will cut those flowers and see if those sell too

I would sell yarrow plants but I dont know if anyone would want it

too bad no one thinks of queen anne's lace as beautiful like I do (Wild Carrot)

Mullien? I got tons of that (so does everyone it grows everywhere)

hmmmmm

So I walked a little farther on and saw something that made me both happy and sad at the same time

The Blackberries are getting ripe and huge

happy cause COOL we love blackberries and I have tons of them

but sad because blackberries being ripe means the end of the gardening season they are one of the last things to ripen

I guess I could dig up some rassberry canes that will produce next year

I am just disappointed that more did not come of this garden we put out so much stuff

just a bad year around here I guess

Gardening for life

2008-08-12T08:50:00.004-05:00

I want to talk about my mom (pardon me if I take time out to bawl in my keyboard from time to time)

My mom died when I was 11 years old from a brain aneurysm it was shocking it was horrible and it is one of those defining moments in ones life.

Mom was a gardener. she grew the most fabulous gardens. My siblings and I joke that mom could take a dead dried out twig and make it sprout. We are not far from the truth that woman could make anything grow.

Her garden was magical. Flowers of all kinds many obtained from her borrowing cuttings from places she visited.

She spent hours every day spring summer and fall in her garden it was her passion part of her life. and so it became a part of our lives.

My older sister has a garden probably most similar to mom's garden wild flowers , things that attract butterflies and hummingbirds and bees.

One of my brothers his is a happy combo of vegetable and flowers

and mine is ..well undefined because it is never finished

(my sibs that garden have been at their gardens for a longer time than I have)

Now if that has not confused you I will give you family history

My mom was a coal miners daughter. literally. She was the youngest of many many kids (I think 8 I forget)
Her family moved from coal town to coal town where ever there was work. Mom BTW was born in 1935 she was a "change baby" (meaning she was born late in my grandma's life)

Mom did not talk much to me about her childhood. Parts of it I know now were too much to tell such a small child (and I was a babied baby)

However I know these things that I have gleaned from conversations with siblings and my Dad and other relatives over the years.

I know mom never wanted to grow any food in her garden. I asked her why once she said "we don't have to" to her growing food meant poverty. it was a reminder of times when she did not have anything to eat.

My sister told me that grandma kept chickens in her front yard. my sister remembers being in the yard with the chickens (kind of a kid and chicken pen LOL) and she remembers grandpa coming home from hunting with nothing in his hands but his gun and yelling at the back of the house and then Grandma coming out to the chicken yard and strangling a chicken on her way back into the house and that was dinner.

Being at the mercy of the elements of the landlord at the mercy of animals and the dirt on the rented land. What if that mine dried up or if there was no work in the area then it meant get off the land even if you just planted it all

It was a brutal life

Mom knew how to can food she knew how to make bread and how to cook without having tons of gadgets and measuring cups(she used her hands)

As a children my older siblings knew a different woman that I knew (there is 21 years age difference between the oldest of us and the youngest) They knew a volatile strong tough woman who could do anything and often did to survive. she went berry picking on the road sides got her kids wild vegetables and made bread and any number of things that she could get in anyway possible.

again it was a brutal life.

She met and married my Dad (mom was married more than once) they had my older brother and Dad finished college and got a great job and they moved up to the middle class.

Then I was born. The Wonder bread generation. it was the 1970's a hippy dippy time but mom was not all about that. Mom liked wonder bread sure it tasted like sugar but she did not have to work to give me a sandwich. she did not have to make the jelly herself she did not have to make the bread herself it was like discovering running water inside a house (and yes she lived in houses without running water)

So she was tired of the work and the hardship she still cooked dinner every night and she gardened but now she gardened for her pleasure and for the love of digging the dirt

As far as I know and remember she grew no herbs no fruits nothing of what we would consider "useful" but for her the garden was where her soul was fed.

(now I am crying) Mom loved her garden I can still see her every morning with her coffee on a warm day looking at the changes that happened every night and I remember walking with her around our small yard (remember I lived in the city) I remember her telling me the names of the plants and the things that we could do to them and if anything was wrong what had to be done.

I do remember that for a couple years we tried some vegetables I wanted Corn so we grew some corn. it was awful I wanted it too early and mom let me pick it to eat it it was terrible I know she said well now you learned something. and I remember she had tomatoes (mom loved fried green tomatoes) I remember these bugs on her tomatoes and her swearing and getting all mad and coming out with a coffee can filled with something and her picking them and smashing the bug in her hand and saying "take that you little f ----r!" (mom swore a LOT when she gardened LOL) and she picked the rest of them off and tossed them into the can

I remember on vacations mom liked to go for walks we always vacationed at our property near WI Dells and mom enjoyed going into abandoned buildings looking for treasures. I remember listening to her tell me about the wild flowers.

and the black eyed Susan's and I would argue with her about their name "mommy they are brown eyed Susan's! just like me"

So you can see now why that information has been lost to many generations
lots of women like my mom probably did not want to teach their daughters these skills because they were hopeful that those skills would never have to become a necessity for their girls. The work the drudgery and the pain if it all failed.

I am self taught. I learned how to garden by my own trial and error I learned how to sew the same way. For canning I am going to rely on a class at the local health food store LOL. I am more hopeful I am hopeful that teaching these things to others and learning these skills will not only help us to suppliment what we need but may someday take over. I know it is work I know it is hard. but it is a work that can be enjoyable. I know that if I had to rely on this years garden to help my family survive the winter I would be singing a different tune but I also know that given time I can get a garden set up that will indeed last us a good long time.

Uh OH

2008-08-09T10:58:00.002-05:00

Tee hee Dave Drank the Kool-Aide LOL

(sorry)

no I am not Dave has become a convert. I mean he has always gone along with the things that I want to do because he wants to make me happy but he will tease me about my ideas or methods.

His thing lately has been a bit of ..frustration with my obsession with seeds I refuse to mention how many seed packs I have but lets' say it is ..A LOT assorted varieties but a LOT

In my mind it is not enough for many reasons
First I know not every seed a seed pack will turn into a plant and not every plant will survive transplanting to the garden or any number of other things

so to make up for my lack of ability in gardening (and I am good) in order to make sure we have a lot I ...plant A LOT

I plant and hope for the best

of course this year I have done my planting and my hoping to really have a larger production of vegetables to save to see how much we need to live off of

I know that this years garden will not produce what we will use over the course of a year.. I might get enough speghetti sauce but I don't think that I will have enough of everything else

not enough pickles from the cucumber plants

certainly not enough corn not enough peas and since we have NO broccoli from our garden not enough of that either

but it is a learning garden an experiment

and Dave is now more fully on board than ever before he found seeds today and bought some LOL

So I have converted him he is having almost as much fun watching things grow as I am
and he is taking great pride in the work we have put in and the results we have gotten

I think this is good on many levels the main thing is Dave is a guy who can see someone's vision (I am a dreamer) and he can see the steps that need to be taken over time to achieve that ..and he does not mind a bit of labor to get there

I feel horribly outclassed

2008-08-07T15:53:00.002-05:00

I went to the gardening talk last night about organic gardening. First off I have to say to anyone in the area that this is an awesome little greenhouse and the lady who runs it is such a sweetie. Such a great crowd of people of all ages showed up to talk organic gardening. I think that the speaker was pleasantly surprised at how many people in our area already apply organic principals to gardening and were looking for specific answers to questions that plagued us

like my Tansy..or why can't I get broccoli to grow.. or black walnut trees..

The gardeners were from all walks of life and from all experience levels some like me had gardened before but were trying to grow quite a bit more intensely than previous years.

The setting of this talk was in an empty hoop house greenhouse she had some of her herbs and assorted things on one end and I was just in love

You could tell this place was built by her and her family the tables were put together out of wood and some wire fencing material The house was warm but not too hot it was a great night for a talk

After the talk we got to go see the gardens

Here is where I saw I am outclassed

I had to remind myself ..This lady has been doing this for years she is where you want to be in a few years (granted I want to be there for feeding my group and selling a little extra so I don't want to go quite as grand as she has but a girl can dream!)

Her garden was lovely everything was pretty ..and nicely I loved this touch it was not "perfect" I was so happy (not in a malicious way) to see a few weeds peaking out of the plants it made me feel more at home in her garden because it was not like a magazine it was like visiting an old friend.

She had this FANTASTIC watering system for her garden which is what I have wanted it is a set of gravity fed waterers that are all connected to each other with 2 spigots that are attached to hoses and they are then attached to a splitter that runs the lengths of soaker hoses through her garden

I saw it and squealed with joy telling her how I loved her gravity fed rain barrels

and I knew I met a kindred spirit when she told me they are ...dumpster finds

AHHHHHHHHH (do you hear the angels singing!)

I was chatting with her and some others and they were asking me what I was planning on doing with my garden splendor and I said I am going to be doing freezing of the food I make with it and dehydrating because I don't know how to can food.

There is a possibility of a class on canning coming up at her greenhouse (I would love to go!)

So I had a blast it was so nice to meet others and I invited the greenhouse lady to come see my garden in it's first little baby year

I have to remember

my Garden is like a baby an infant and in the years to come with the right care and attention it will get larger it will learn new things (like how to grow broccoli) and it will flourish.

SCORE at the dump

2008-08-06T16:01:00.002-05:00

Yes we are dumpster divers...well at our dump we don't have to dive very far the "junk man" or garbage technician or whatever he is called takes out anything from the dumpsters that people might be able to use and has a kind of "free rummage" set up

WELL
Dave went to the dump today and found me an OLD push reel mower

it is rusty and needs to have it's blades sharpened but I tell you I took it for a test cut and while rough this thing is marvelous it cuts better than the one I borrowed from my friends that is only a year old

I love antiques

Tonight is the organic gardening talk at the local greenhouse

I had to laugh at this

2008-08-05T13:17:00.002-05:00

If you are thinking about a more sustainable life and that life includes moving from the city to the country and possibly having farm animals and you have never had animals before please let me enlighten you on a very important fact

Animal poop stinks

period that is all it smells BAD any feces that sits out in the sun for any amount of time is going to have an odor to it

now some people smell that distinctive scent of animal poop and think "ahhhh fertilizer" others roll up their car windows and cover their noses

When I smell cow poop horse poop pig poop and even chicken poop I think of how nice and green they will make everything for me for next year

Of course you don't NEED to use the animal BM for fertilizer but in my mind why let it go to waste ??

I toss it into my compost pile with some wood shavings or straw and let it sit for a year and next year it will add to my dirt

(unless it is rabbit poop rabbit can go right in the garden)

Some complain about flies and mosquitoes (and trust me I am NO fan of mosquitoes) but really you are in the country so get a grip

I saw this
article on Yahoo today and my only comment after reading it was

if you can't take the stink get out of the country!

The article is about a fellow who decided to deal with his new neighbors complaint with his own red neck sculpture 3 car nose first in the dirt

some might call it art
I call it a nice piss off to people complaining about things that are just normal operating procedure in the country

Things like

haying kicks up dust

Cow poop and horse poop stinks and it attracts flies

so IMO if you don't want bugs go back to the city where the bugs can't even survive because the air quality is so crappy they can't breathe

you don't like "dairy Aire" go back to the city and sniff some of that nice smog and the lovely smell of artificial fertilizer poison to make the grass on the median strips so damn green

Animals no matter how well cared for stink
I have pigs who by nature are VERY neat creatures they will not poop and eat in the same place they find a spot as far away from their food as possible they also will not sleep where they poop

we shovel out their poop once a week but guess what they still stink you cant get the stink out of the dirt and it attracts flies

Chickens are not as neat they will poop in their food while peeing in their water they could care less it is IN THE NATURE of birds to do this

and they STINK Chickens smell worse than any animal EVER the high ammonia content of their urine will burn your eyes

we shovel out their house every week as well but I tell you those last few days PHHHEWW!! what a smell

So to the lovely folks that built their home near this farmer I have to say

Quit griping no place is perfect that view you love so much comes with a price

Finally some harvest!

2008-08-05T09:16:00.002-05:00

It has been a long growing season for us ..well a long time to get from starting seedlings in February through March to finally now having something to show for it all.

The tomatoes are still green but in abundance
The lettuce is still doing great
Yesterday I went out and picked a bunch of sweet peas and steamed them for Dave and Nik and I also picked some cucumbers 3 to be exact

I am waiting for a tomato to get ripe so I can make long suffering Dave a salad (I don't eat them)

I also have 2 packages of peas and 3 packages of spinach to plant for a hopeful fall harvest.

So small though it is I am happy I have something and I know in a couple weeks I will be sick of picking tomatoes LOL

I miss my big boys they are off having fun in the big city for 2 weeks with thier grandparents

Rambling to myself

2008-08-02T15:47:00.003-05:00

I just had to pat myself on the back..well OK reveal to cyberspace the pat on the back I got from my Dave.

Today Dave told me "I wanted to tell you how impressed I am with the difference in our garbage you have made by your obsessive recylcling and composting. It has been 3 weeks since I have had time to get to the dump and I had less than half a truck. That was cool"

The garden is producing now we have peas to eat I picked some for Dave and we have the lettuce of course, I picked a carrot to check thier development they are tiny but Dave ate it anyways The corn is starting to get tassles on it and we have cucumbers!!

and the tomatoes are just starting to show some signs of ripening.

Kid funny to share

Zach was out in the garden and said "mom why is that green apple on the tomato plant?" I had to explain to him that it was a not yet ripe tomato and he said OOoohhh

I went to the new farmers market. I belive I will be outclassed when it comes to produce from the farms in the area . I can bring along a few things I mean things like some of my herbs I guess I could pick some camomile from the roadside. and maybe some flowers or something. and of course there is the lettuce. I just don't feel like we really have all that much ..of course my tune will change once I am able to harvest those tomatoes!

I signed up for a class on introduction to organic gardening at one of the local greenhouses. I want to get to know some growers from our area so I can learn more about growing in this climate. Remember I grew up and learned to grow things in a climate that was different than here. with different soil and it was in the heart of the city. things are very different growing in the country and in a colder climate and with sand instead of clay for soil.

So I have the forms to sign up to be a vendor at this farmers market I think I will make a few of my recycled crafts to bring along to fill the gap and I will prepare some herbs that morning and I will get the lettuce plants into some cups and if I have tomatoes ripe those will come along too.

I think gardening is a sickness that I suffer from I already have plans for next years garden ...everyone should bow thier heads now and say "poor poor Dave" my garden will mean a great deal of work for him LOL however once done and maintained it will be much easier....

In Preparation of my dream cattle

2008-07-30T10:48:00.003-05:00

I have been taking my wild flower book outside along with my garden notebook and identifying the wild flowers in my "pit" which is where we will eventually set up to have the cows graze.

This exhaustive process will probably take years to come to pass. remember what I said about homesteading and being on the PATH to self sufficentcy well getting there is half of the fun of living.

Plant identification is right up my alley. I remember many walks with my mom while we were on vacation or well just anywhere really. She seemed to know EVERYTHING about plants which ones could be eaten what family the plants were from what they were and she could talk on and on about plants.

Now I walk my own small property with my sons and find myself doing the same thing as she did reminded them to walk lightly not to trample showing them how to look them up based on thier leaf shape ow the flower looks and showing them that there are some plants that look a like where one would be posionous the other may not be so don't eat anything till I check it out and say it OK

Aside from finding tons of common yarrow and lots of chamomile we also found a plant called Heal All a member of the mint family This is a pretty little plant and I found out it is neither poisonous to cattle or people ..and it also does not live up to it's hype of being able to "heal all" ..such a bummer too but it sure it better than having things that can kill animals around.

We have many more weeds that need to be identified so I keep searching and looking for things that I want to keep and stuff that can be fed to animals and stuff that needs to be erradicated

We have white sweet clover growing in a small patch it is very pretty and I found out is used for honey bees to make honey (one of the many flowers)

of course we have tons of Milkweed which I know cannot be fed to critters except Zach's beloved Monarch caterpillars

Common Tansy ..the bane of my exsistance it is useless stinky and prolific it causes rashes on those who are sensitive to it (Alex and Zach have both developed nasty rashes from this stuff) and without a working riding lawn mower we are going to have a very hard time getting rid of this pest.

Burdock which makes those lovely nasty sticky burrs that cannot be fed to animals because it causes trouble in thier stomachs (why anyone would feed burrs to animals I dont get but OK)

Beautiful Ox Eye Daisies I just love those

Black eyed Susan's again another favorite of mine

Low growing white clover and the lovely red clover as well

So as you can see the first step for us to getting cows has more to do with providing them a safe nice place to pasture where they will have quality feed along with a safe clean home inside the barn.

Kids say the darndest things

2008-07-30T07:33:00.002-05:00

While grating some Ivory soap for laundry (I love this stuff it smells good works better and is less expensive than bottled soaps) Zach wanted to grate some with me. He asked what kind of soap we were using and why. I explained to him we are using Ivory soap and went on to talk of the great qualities of the soap I have loved since I was a little kid. His face dropped he set the soap down and saying "MOM we can't use Ivory soap it is killing the Hippos!"

shocked to hear this I said "what?"

he said "I have proof" and he ran full speed to his room to get his proof

Zach came back with his copy of Zoobooks that featured Hippos

he handed it to me with a great sense of self satisfaction and said

LOOK right there in the puzzle it say NOT to buy Ivory

I searched the magazine for the article and found it Sure enough

you are not supposed to buy products made from the Ivory Tusks of Hippos I had to break it to him that the Ivory in thier tusks and the Ivory that is our soap is 2 completely different things.

I love it that he keeps me on my toes

Cute Video of my chickens

2008-07-29T12:17:00.004-05:00

So there they are the big one is making the most noise she is over a year old the rest of them are ...ummm I forget but they are well close to 3 months

The big boy and I spent yesterday in the barn cleaning it out I found a really neat recipe for white wash in Hobby Farm Home magazine (along with a 30 minute to motz cheese recipe that I MUST try) So my goal is to get the barn clean and neat and nice and then paint the inside with white wash and make it sparkly and bright
and THEN

get a small family size COW yes a COW I want one I found out ..OK ,check that Dave found out that the cow we MUST get is a Dexter cow. A Dexter Cow is an Irish breed of cow that is multi purpose and perfect for the family farm. Not only is it smaller in size, it produces less milk and can live on less feed making it great for one or 2 families to invest in and share. You see Dave was listening to this radio show and it brought up Dexter cows he was fascinated. Then at work (Dave works in a nursing home) he was talking with a guy who knows we have a small farm. The guy asked if we had a cow. Dave said no I was just looking into getting a cow for our small property. The guy actually BROUGHT UP Dexter cows and he knows a fellow who has them and breeds them in our area.

KISMET!!!

It's fate we are bound to get Dexter cows now after all when would you hear about something like that 2 times in one day unless you are destined for it LOL So the plan is to get the pit cleaned out (it is infested with Common Tansy which is poisonous to mammals) this fall and get things in place for us to have this cow.(porbably not happening this fall but we are closer to getting it)

I also would love to get Angora Goats 2 females but that will probably have to wait as I really think a Cow would be a better investment in our farm ..and in our family after all my kids can go through 2 gallons of milk a day if they are allowed to drink that much (I restrict it) I did find that Milk at Walgreen's is about 50 cent cheaper than at the grocery store. So a Cow would be a good thing

On my walk today I found that we have cucumbers! I feel so powerful I grew cucumbers that to me is so neat I never had cucumber plants survive this long I also found a Teeny tiny Jalepeno pepper on the pepper plant I also found some lovely signs on my other pepper plants there will be flowers on them soon so by the end of August I will have peppers.. I hope..The Habenero plants are still too small to produce peppers or even signs of peppers but if they keep growing well I will transplant some into pots and hopefully grow them indoors

Something that is standing in our way this year with being closer to our goal of self sufficiency is that the Broccoli and spinach did not grow.

My goal is to be able to grow our vegetables I know what veggies we use a great deal of sadly my Broccoli did not do anything this year I dont know what I am doing wrong so anyone who has grown broccoli from seed give me tips I will be checking my encyclopedia soon

I started new broccoli plants and will be starting some new spinach to grow for fall and some more pea plants so far no sprouts on the broccoli seeds

The sweet potato plants are both growing I am so excited about that because I did not buy them I started them myself from old sweet potatoes it was fun and neat and next year will be done earlier in the season

Part of this whole self sufficiency thing is learning what works and what does not. It is nice cause it falls into my method of learning learn from my own mistakes. I also started keeping a gardening journal so I can carry it with me and walk about finding out about things like different plants growing on the property and what can be done with them.

I learned some new things

2008-07-29T07:13:00.003-05:00

Last night while reading my large book called "the Encyclopedia of Gardening"
I found out some answers to questions that have plagued me for a couple of years

We have Raspberry bushes and blackberry bushes and we also have 3 apple trees on our property

the bushes are really brambles mixed with weeds and they do not produce big lovely fruit they produce a lot of small tiny fruits but only a few large ones

I found out why

in order to produce the large amount of fruits and the large size fruits you don't need more brambles you need less and need them done right so I told Dave we are going to train the brambles nicely on a fence thin them out and get rid of the weed competition growing in between

and then any excess plants that grow up in the middle we can sell off

Not only will this make growing them better but it will also make picking them easier (DUH guess I should have looked in the book before)

Now the apple trees I checked into this one because I was really bummed about this our apple trees have taken on a Biennial bloom pattern.(there is a name for it !) what this means is they bloom one year in a large profusion and then the next year they only make a few blooms. luckily we have 2 small trees that produce one year and 1 large tree that produces the next year.

There is a way to fix this it is too late for this year to repair the problem but for next year we can take care of it

pruning the limbs to thin out the canopy Also we need to pinch the mass of blossoms or get rid of some of the fruit.

Don't think I have not asked around I talked to the guys at 3 different garden centers they all said either they had never seen what I was talking about OR they had the same problem with their trees.

So I am looking forward to being able to fix some of my fruit problems probably this fall with the berries.

In the picture above you see we teach ours young to help out he was helping his brothers pick some berries when he saw me coming out of the chicken house. You can see the pig pen off his left and the gravity waterer that screams white trash..well that and the old broken truck parked in front of the barn.

Tim just came in the house and said he has a new survivalist salad for people to try

Daisy petals, white clover petals, and raspberries

good thing my kids know how to get their own breakfast!

Off to work before the rain comes

Learn by doing

2008-07-28T06:55:00.003-05:00

Learn by doing is my main method of learning. I will read about something either online or in a book.I pick and choose what I find that I think will work with my situation and then I try to apply it to my little farm.

I guess you can say that for me experience is my teacher in the school of hard knocks and I am a slow learner. I make mistakes ..I try again ..make some more (hopefully different) mistakes sadly sometimes I make the same mistake over and over and over again , but I live with it.

Chickens and the mishaps that happen with them is one example. I must say my biggest mistakes happen in gardening. Luckily my biggest successes also happen in gardening.

I have found that one of the hardest things in gardening is finding information suited to my climate.

That and I have a desire to try new things or things that are different and slightly out of the ordinary (potatoes in tires comes to mind)

I think I get the most benefit out of gardening now because it is not a solo effort. my kids help out a great deal and my husband is really getting into it this year because he is seeing how much we are going to have and we are already making plans for next year.

It also helps that my girl friend and her family are interested in doing the same thing so they are helping out here and we are planning next years garden to get things moving on what we need to do.

things like plant for the animals we want to keep, set up a deer proof deck garden for her family (they live deep in the woods)

Something I think is a MUST in anyone who wishes to attempt even a small degree of self sufficiency is to get to know your local wild plants and herbs

I have a collection of old books from many different sources these old books give some history and lore of assorted herbs that many who use herbs take for granted

being a history buff I love to read about how things were used in the middle ages and their meanings.

For this I have a great example of a terrific little herb that grows wild on the roadsides here

Chamomile. I see it everywhere. It is used in everything from teas that you drink to bath teas to shampoos

Today I saw the roadside crew starting to come by to trim the grasses on the roadside to keep down the amount of accidents from deer hiding in the brush and running into oncoming traffic

so before he came to our area I ran across the street(OK meandered I do NOT run) and I quickly picked some of this lovely little flower by the roots

it grows great in sandy soils with bad growing conditions and the more abuse it gets the happier it is

you gotta love a plant like that!

Well this entry is just all over the place

Let's talk waterers

2008-07-25T10:53:00.002-05:00

or watering systems

I have pigs and I have chickens

I have a barn about 100 or so yards from our nearest water source

so this means hauling water
we do this by using the kids wagon and milk jugs we fill them up at the hose and then haul the water 10 gallons at a time down to the barn

I keep a bottle of vinegar (white vinegar) down at the barn to clean out the stubborn gross mess that ends up in the chicken water (anyone who thinks birds are neat and clean is living in a fantasy world)

I use roughly half of the water for cleaning the assorted pans and the rest for watering the animals

this is done at least twice a day depending on how hot it is and how thirsty the animals are (I check on them several times a day probably part of the reason I am loosing weight FINALLY)

The pigs have a gravity fed waterer designed by my brother Leo (if you are reading this hey bro!) and we just got a new pig nipple for it so it works much better now

Dave and I have discussed a few options to fixing our watering "problem" (this can be inconveinent when we are busy or want to go anywhere for the day)

Here are a few of the options we have come up with
Option 1
Digging a well ...expensive .. work intensive and would require Dave taking time off work no matter how much fun anyone thinks this is I do not relish the idea of doing this with my kids especially since I am NOT a tool person. but it would give us water up at the barn I would however insist on it being a neato hand pump just because ...well I have always wanted one!

Option 2

Some sort of a rain catchment system very cool idea very neat to implement and very "hip" (not that I ever really cared) however this would mean we would need to put up gutters on the barn (currently has a metal roof no gutters) and set up the thing that does the water catching under ground beneath the frost line again $$$ to do but very neat idea and I would also insist again on a hand pump for this thingie as well

Option 3

Is a less permanent less labor intensive technique and that is to simply build the chickens a gravity fed waterer like the one for the pigs but without the pig nipple on the end

on the end instead set up a faucet that would slowly drain water from the large barrel (in our case a big plastic garbage can) the water would drain into a watering pan inside the chicken yard.

I can see some flaws with this plan and NO heating the water is not one of them

the first flaw is that we would need two watering pans one that is clean in the barn to replace the dirty one so every day as the pan needs cleaning we can take out the dirty one and replace it with a clean one

not that big of a deal

the other issue is that during the winter time when the chickens are inside (from late December roughly till early March due to cold and the extreme deep snow in thier yard) the waterer would be out of commision

Keeping the water from freezing is not too difficult we have a heater that goes inside the large bin for the pigs so we would use that for chickens(pigs are not gonna be around here come winter time)

So total cost for the gravity fed waterer is roughly 25$
Materials for this project are

A large garbage can

Some screening material (to keep bugs and debris out of the water)

a bungie cord to keep screening material in place

A faucet

Some tires to raise this thing off the ground (I am really into using tires lately)

a small section of hose going from the faucet to drain into the pan

Like I said we use one already for the pigs and it works great they have access to water at all times and we fill it up as needed if the water looks bad we simple empty it into the pen to give them a nice mud hole (they love that) and then we haul it up the house to rinse it with the hose and we fill it about 1/4 of the way and drag it back to the barn and then fill it with the gallon jugs

every time it rains they get more water

so in a way it is the best solution for now

of course I also want more rain barrels like this in assorted places I would like about 3 of them lined up by the barn to catch the rain off the roof but I would like them campflaged in some way to make them not look like ...well garbage cans on top of tires

so I was thinking again (a dangerous thing as you can see)

what I would like to do (Dave will hate this) is to take the rocks that we have plentiful around here and using soil or preferably using morter stack the rocks around making a pillar like structure that has a faucet coming out of it

Reason why Dave would hate this ? it is too permanent of a temporary solution

I think it would make it look more rustic and natural and still be cost effective and workable

and not look like a garbage can on top of tires

the reason this "look" bothers me so much is our property borders the road and everything is in the open and visable to passers by I am sick of my yard and farm looking like ...well white trash dump site

True Joys

2008-07-24T15:35:00.003-05:00

One of the true joys in life (well my life) is knowing what I am providing for my family.

In the Garden - we have lots of the veggies we will need to freeze and use through winter. For next year the garden will of course have to be tweaked so growing times of plants are set up for us in our short season things like sweet potatoe slips will need to be started early but this years garden is more of an experiment. The work of getting it started and getting the beds ready took away from actual planting so with plenty of preparation this fall things will be better for spring next year

things like

once the gardening season is over I plan on tilling the soil and adding compost to it to build the beds deeper

we are going to use some boards (old barn board we found on the land) and build up the sides of the beds and then cover the beds with black landscaping fabric

I find great satisfaction in walking out to the garden several times a day to check things out today I found one of the nastursiums blooming. several little cucumbers(I have never been able to get them to grow before now every plant is producing) and in the rock garden bed where my pretty flowers are I saw a calla lily blooming.

For me those kinds of things bring joy

Zach was very excited when i told him that FINALLY the peas are starting to produce. You would have thought I just informed him that there is a new ice cream stand in our backyard giving out free samples to every kid whose first name starts with a Z

(the boy likes his veggies)

Zach has also been experimenting with herbs

(sounds horrible to put it that way)

he likes to use them when he cooks himself some eggs so today he tried something without asking me first he added

Basil leaves, thyme, rosemary, to his eggs

needless to say he discovered that while these spices are tasty they are probably not best when combined with eggs

so we fed that mess to the pigs

I contacted the local person for the farmers market I am excited it starts in August

I am excited because it would be a neat place to sell things like eggs or my fancy bread but sadly because of state laws I would need to have my farm inspected and have a separate kitchen for making things so I will instead sell things like veggies and herbs from my little extras perhaps I will go out and look for some fresh herbs and see if anyone wants to buy things like camomile flowers (they grow wild on the roadside if you know what to look for)

Little joys make days better

I am bothered

2008-07-22T08:09:00.002-05:00

I am annoyed at the SLOWNESS of how my grand plans take effect

I am annoyed that my grand idea of a passive solar hot water heater is not up and running in my yard yet I have ALL of the materials (aside from Dave's plumbing stuff) all gathered together and sitting in the yard

This is the problem with grand plans no matter how much money they will save us it requires skills and abilities that I do not possess

Things like plumbing

and using a power saw

grrrrrrrr

I am just afraid that by the time we get the damn thing built it will be time to drain it

of course if Dear Dave waits much longer to built it the temperature outside will be too cold for it to even be useful and then he will make comments about how "this is not effective"

Oh well there goes my grand plan of having a Passive Solar hot water heater available for us to use this summer He has one day off a week from work and he spends that day putzing around with the lawn tractors because he has this silly vision of using them to mow the yard. What a MAN!!

He has wasted more days off with the lawn tractors hoping to have them working (I understand his frustration with them)

That is what stinks about ideas I can have a million ideas of things we can afford to do I plan it all out and gather materials (the materials I have gotten together have cost us nothing) my dream is to build this thing show others it can be done and NOT look like a pile of junk in the yard and have it actually work and work well and then perhaps I can help my friends and neighbors in real life and online to build the same kind of thing or something similar to it to help them decrease their dependence on more expensive and wasteful sources of hot water.

What annoys me most is that my big boys leave in a week to go stay with their grandparents for 2 weeks so my partners in crime will not be here to help out with things and IF Dave and I find the time to build this creation(Dave really does want to see it built too but really time is limited for him)

I am afraid that my patience will be my undoing

luckily I have the garden and chickens and pigs to keep me busy

Oh and some crafting things to do I am making some neat things out of "treasures" I have had laying around some things like

pretty cloth covered garden notebooks mainly because I want one for my gardening notes ...I know WHY keep a garden notebook?? well there are so many things to write down when gardening on a large scale I mean I cant be expected to remember EVERYTHING

for instance when did I start those tomatoes? how long till I get to pick my first one? when did I start the peppers ? should I have started them earlier ? would the produce better if they got started before the tomatoes? what about the other veggies?

Then we are working on turning food cans into neat garden candle holders by cutting holes in them either with a nail or using the dremmel(spelled wrong I know) tool I can then spray paint them (not environmentally friendly but more aesthetically pleasing than a rusty can) this will seal and protect them and make them pretty

Did I mention that Zach also expects me to build him a pond??

yes Zach has another project he wants to accomplish this summer he wants to build a pond however being big on brains but small on size he cannot dig through the weeds as easily as one might think. His big brother is busy still working on digging that hole to fix the septic issue we are having he is over 5 feet deep but at this rate I am afraid the hole will probably never get finished

I was outside earlier trying to fix the pig waterer our old pig nipple needs replacement so I am inside to cool off (it is very warm out there right now ..well at least for me)

Zach is working on another movie with brother this one is about Garter snakes

So much to do so little time and energy to do it all

I really wonder if I am the only person who makes huge plans and then does not have the time to finish all my plans ....

Zachary has some new "pets"

2008-07-21T10:09:00.002-05:00

Oh dear

Zachary is definatly all BOY he likes crepy crawly things and things that slither

While his Dad was working ..yet again ...on the broken law tractor (if he would just admit it they are BROKEN and wasting time trying to fix them just wastes time he would accept that we NEED 2 or 3 push reel mowers and life would be much easier and the lawn would be mowed and my garden would have mulch, but I got distracted from my topic)

Daddy found A couple garden snakes living inside the engine of the tractor that he wanted to install

So he gave them to Zach

These are probably garter snakes I am guessing common ones but they look more like a Butlers snake but I am no expert by any means and I am not about to examine the darn things that closely

So today we will be building the snakes a habitat inside an animal cage we have (aquarium complete with lighting)

Zach also has outside some caccoons of Monarch butterflies he collected some catepillars and then raised them on fresh milkweed every morning and once they were ready they went into thier caccoons and we then made them a lovely tent out of paper plates and some tulle fabric and fishing line. we watched one come out of it's crystlis the other day and got to observe the butterfly for a little bit. Sadly Nik (the 3 year old) said the butterfly wanted to fly up up up into the sky and he let it free (Zach was sad he wanted a chance to feed it and then set it free like we did last year)

I like doing these little projects with the kids it helps them learn about the animals they are interested in and gives them some responsibility they have to care for thier pet and keep it safe and happy. they have to learn what the pet eats and then learn how to best mimic thier natural environment.

and then we set it free...

The kids gain an appreciation of the animal and learn to respect it more

So now I am off to mimic a small grassy area complete with a few rocks twigs and of course a source of water (but not too deep)

come on creativity hit me fast a 8 year old is hoping I know exactly what to do

LOL

Just a few Garden Pictures

2008-07-20T18:19:00.003-05:00

For those interested here are some parts of my gardens

I wanted the vegetable garden to have raised beds and to look like a lovely walk in an English style garden (Don't think I got there yet but I like unfinished garden work it means promise) with soft wide grass paths and raised beds combined with different companion plantings that would be beautiful as well as function to get rid of pests and support the plants themselves. This is a work in progress the raised beds will probably get built this fall and then have compost added to the beds to raise them as much as possible and then we will cover them with black gardening fabric to let water through but keep weeds and things out

This is a close up of my Roma tomatoes these are the biggest ones. the tomatoes to me are like my babies after all I have been with them a long time and I take good care of them

I don't know if anyone would be live this but I started out as a rose gardener I really REALLY love flowers and I used to have a large rose garden when we lived in the city (roughly 30 plants with companion flowers) This raised tier bed shows off some perennials and a few annuals it was my mother's day gift built by me and the boys we did the annuals from seeds and a couple perennials too but much of it was bought for me from a local garden center the sink toward the back will someday be a fountain I have the stuff I just have not put it together yet. Along the back thing there will be some climbing plants. The rocks are from our property too

And finally here are my potato plants in tires

Let's talk potatoes

2008-07-19T23:30:00.003-05:00

I love potatoes

I mean I can eat potatoes for just about every meal. and often I have them WITH every meal they are the side dish, part of the main dish, or the main dish.

I make the worlds best Baked Potatoe soup but if you want my recipie you better be prepared to play with food because I dont measure anything when I cook

I am growing potatoes this year in my garden

...welll.....not really IN my garden

my potatoes are growing in a bunch of stacked tires in front of my front deck

classy hey ??

no they dont look all that pretty. Right now one of the plants is 3 tires high and in need of a 4th tire which it will get tommorow the other one two tires high

Why oh WHy am I growing potatoes in tires?

well first off I have tires and need a use for them

and secondly I wanted potatoes and needed a place to grow them

I read somewhere that using a stacked tire method would work just as well if not better than growing them in barrels or buckets or in mounds in the ground

So there are my potatoes growing inside of the tires

It cost me nothing to get these plants I started them from ..sprouting potatoes out of a bag

2 different kinds I have the big bakers and then some smaller ones if this works next year we will try a few other kinds as well

Mommy Guilt

2008-07-19T08:57:00.002-05:00

Sometimes mommy guilt hits me hard

My kids work very hard they help to care for our home they help with animals both 2 legged and 4 legged they help out with the gardening and cooking and every other task that needs to be done in this house

So why do I feel mommy guilt? sounds like I am doing my job to give my kids balance and structure and to let them know that they are not the center of the world and that they can learn to entertain themselves instead of BE entertained

(hence the movies and the cartoons they create and the books they are working on)

So why the guilt

it comes on strong when we are involved at the school or functions where other kids are

We do not have a whole lot of a whole lot of anything (except clutter and junk) So when other kids can get things because they are able to (not that there is anything wrong with that their parents are being good parents giving their children something they would like) I wish I could give it to my kids

My boys were just involved in a nice little production at the school. A really cool little theater camp that I hope the school brings back every year. It is a great program where this company comes in works with the kids for a week, and at the end of the week they put on a little show. Lots of fun for the kids and gives them something cool to work on for a week.

At the end of the show they sell T shirts $15.00 EACH

HOLY CRAP

now $15.00 is not that big of a deal I mean it is something special

but when $15.00 each comes the same week I have to pay the electric bill and that $15.00 is multiplied by 3 that is $45.00 and when it comes the same pay period that we had some oppsies with the checking account and it comes when we had the "big" shopping week for groceries (we were out of EVERYTHING this week it seemed)

then that $45.00 seems like a really BIG DEAL

Now I know all about things like budgeting and being careful with money and living without etc.. So you would think that by now at MY age things would be a little more secure around here.

Well of course they are NOT why would life be that easy

One mistake can lead to a landslide effect that can take months to correct

and then something else will happen that makes me feel better

Yesterday I went grocery shopping and aside from spending more than the normal amount. I took my oldest with me because he had his birthday money burning a hole in his pocket.

He wanted a phone. He has been saving his babysitting money, and money from mowing a friends lawn and his birthday cash and he had enough. So he bought himself a track phone (I am probably spelling that wrong too)

So why does my boy wanting something and then buying it make me feel better?

well that $20.00 phone has made him so happy he has it in his pocket the first numbers he added to his address book are our home phone number and his Dad's cell phone (no I don't have a cell phone) He says this is great MOM now when I am stranded at school cause I miss the bus I don't have to run to the school office before it closes

and if practice lets out early I can call you

and I can text my cousin

It is things like that those little events make me feel better.

I also got a great e-mail from a friend (Hello professor!) You see the professor offered me an opportunity to invest in making my little blog into a web site however this of course costs money and ..well it costs more money than I can justify spending even if the opportunity will make money (no guarantees on that like any business venture there are no guarantees)

So I told him in an e-mail that I cannot do this right now ...even though I envision this fabulous family friendly user friendly site that has everything from e stories for kiddos and games similar to Energy Hogs to tool advice to gardening to ...well geez how about videos on basic sewing for those who can't sew but really want to!

SO you can see I do know how to dream big but ..well my brain and imagination are larger than my pocketbook ...for now

part of being able to survive struggles and hardship is to have hope and to try not to let the other fluff and stuff get in the way.

Some things are out of our control I can't change gas prices
I can't change that food prices have skyrockets

I can't change how much money we make or our bills (within reason)

I can control how much we buy
I can control how we use energy(again within reason)
and I can control how I think about things

if I sat around obsessing over the "bad" things in our lives I would be such a depressed mess I would be institutionalised and on heavy medication

HOWEVER

if I look at the things in our lives that are good the things that WE work to change that WE do to make our lives better

Cause I am bored

2008-07-17T23:22:00.002-05:00

and it is late and I am lacking a great deal of sleep I feel like doing a poll to help name my chicken

I have one adult female laying hen who survived the attack of the fox (a while back all our girls got attacked she survived) she suffered a broken toe and is now living in the big house with the "baby" chicks who are now about a month old (I lost track of the time)

So I want to name her she deserves it after all she has a broken toe and was lonely for a while there but she is a tough girl I think Lela (for Lela Ali and I am probably spelling it wrong cause that is what I do!) a nice tough but feminine name heck I might even make a barnwood sign or something to put on the chicken house for her

So I will leave it up to more creative types (and those who are better rested)

Name my chicken !! if you dont like the poll options vote other and then post here and then I will add other options to the poll

have fun

Kid Alternative energy

2008-07-17T23:08:00.004-05:00

Now I know some people would get all up in arms about child labor and about forcing children to "work"

GASP!! OH NO making kids work sorry I do it my children have chores they help out my kids also have fun and friends and enjoy life but they are learning responsiblity and that being part of a family means helping out with the work that needs to be done for the family to survive

anywho that rant is over

NOW

here is what this post is about for real

I saw this

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Energy-Matters/Renewable-Energy/See-Saw-Electrical-Power.aspx?blogid=1500

A teeter totter that makes electricity!! COOL if I make the thing big enough Dave and I can go sit on it and have fun

wooohoooo

I sure hope I find plans for this thing cause this just looks fabulous

think of it playgrounds set up so that children bouncing all over the place doing what kids do are generating electricity

did your mother ever say to you "if only we could bottle that energy?"

I know mine did and I also know I say it to my little bundles

I love this kind of "alternative" thinking

Power Cost monitor / "centometer"

2008-07-17T12:37:00.002-05:00

There is a difference between the two of these products (see TV lied to me again!)

On those "green" TV shows like "Wa$ted" on planet green a product called a "centometer" is used to help give the participants a home energy audit

this product needs to be installed by an electrician

but GUESS WHAT I just had a chat today with a nice fellow from Blue Line Innovations the makers of the Power Cost Monitor (Hiya Darrel!) and he told me that their product can be used by even people like me whose knowledge and ability with tools is ...well limited

So if you are getting to my blog by searching for the "Centometer" that you have seen on any number of the TV shows on planet green please feel free to check out the link in my margins to go see this product.

and come back often because your very own greenish chickie is going to be checking out this product to see just how much money it can indeed save my bigger than average family

I can't wait to get my very own Power Cost Monitor to use around here I KNOW there are things that are wasting energy in my house and I KNOW my little energy hogs(my dear boys) will love to help find ways to pinch more pennies

I have several older appliances I can't wait to see how much the 13 year old fridge uses

and of course to show Dear Dave how much his beloved incandescent light bulbs use

bwhahahaha I am going to go mad with POWER

(I think I need a nap)

Being green with house guests

2008-07-17T06:46:00.002-05:00

I have a house guest staying with us this week my 14 year old Niece. She is a lovely girl in all ways and such a sweet good sport but not used to the amount of conservation that living in a house of so many enforces on us...that and the lucky child has a perfectly working septic system! LOL

She is a good house guest considerate of the things that we have asked her to do and she does her best to follow the rules of the house.

I think in having a house when you have certain ...what would be seen as restrictions to some...you need to explain why things are done the way they need to be done.

This week because of our septic issues we have adopted the when it's yellow let it mellow when it's brown flush it down technique .. not pleasant for me I personally can't stand this because of the smell and stains but I found a way around that by making the boys go outside (benefit of rural living)

I love kids because they are more flexible than most adults

So if you are having a house guest like say your mother in law explain to her WHY you are doing things the way you are doing them

maybe you will be lucky and end up with a new ally I know my mother in law surprised me she loves what the kids and I are doing and has been very supportive.
hmmm short post not a whole lotta tips in there.

The Timinator Movie

2008-07-15T11:52:00.002-05:00

Here it is the premiere of the Timinator Please NOTE for those who are sensitive to children and violent images I just want to let you know my son is holding a BB gun that is not loaded the explosion is taken from another movie This is meant to be funny if you dont have a dark twisted sense of humor then this film clip is probably not for you. my 13 year old has a twisted sense of humor just like his parents. Here it is Tim's Vision

and so the digging of the hole begins

2008-07-14T19:50:00.003-05:00

exciting stuff I know

the nasty rotting wood is being moved now so it can dry a touch and then be burned later in the week for a campfire

and the digging is starting tonight

TIminator movie needs some minor tweaking (need to get Tim's voice over done) and then the masters work can premiere HERE

I am all on pins and needles

are you??

Timinator production

2008-07-14T12:15:00.002-05:00

The boys wanted to get one of thier movies completed and so yesterday July 13th we filmed the soon to be famous Timinator anti litter campaign movie

after filming it went immediately into editing and by tonight it will be released for all to see on You Tube (we need to add just one more tiny detail for it to be perfect)

aside from it crashing my computer a few dozen times there were no problems

The next G-Force production will go into filming in the next few days and be released possibly next week we are having some casting issues we want a certain young lady to play a damsel in distress but she does not wish to so we may have to dress a boy up as a girl as you can imagine the whole thing is quite a contact dispute

oh the drama

and we still have not even started digging that hole yet grrrrrrrr

Uh Oh

2008-07-11T23:09:00.003-05:00

Dave said we are probably going to be digging out the broken pipe BY HAND
I mean WOW knowing him this means 2 new shovels (spades) and a whole lotta work this coming week

oh dear

and the kicker is he is not taking any time off work to get this done he plans on doing this all after work when he gets home

RIIIIIIIIGGGGHHHTTT!!!

More about piggies

2008-07-11T11:51:00.002-05:00

I love piggies I mean it I love them I love them alive I love them wrapped in my freezer they are fabulous animals to have

my advice about pigs is as follows

First a good strong place for them is a MUST pigs root or dig in the dirt and if you think your fence is strong enough you are probably wrong so a good wooden fence with deep posts and cattle pannels on the inside works great

when they dig a hole ...and belive me they will dig... take a wooden log a big one and put it in the hole this way they will dig but the log will roll into the hole and prevent them from digging out

water water water

We use a gravity fed waterer (designed by my big brother Leo I told you all he was a genius) attached to a board that has the "pig nipple" out the other end

Pigs eat almost anything so if you have friends who you want to help out and get rid of thier scraps or a restaurant that is willing to give you good food scraps go for it

I read a book on raising pigs I recommend readng up on them and taking what you need but honestly the best way to learn how to deal with pigs is to just have them

I love being able to go for a walk and hear my pigs grunting away in thier pen and the chickens clucking like mad it a blast to have a little farm like this

not to mention come fall smoking our own bacon

mmmmm mmmm all Laura Ingalls wanna bes eat your heart out!! LOL

IF anyone has any specific questions I am happy to answer them

I have been thinking that perhaps I should start up a section like an ASk Sue kinda thing I mean I do know a little bit about everything and I can come up with answers that sound great even if they are not correct

I knwo that I have a lot of skills that many women my age do not have some don't know how to save seeds or make bread or sew on a button it is just a thought

OMG OMG OH MY GOD!!!

2008-07-11T11:46:00.003-05:00

This is so cool I just was featured on someones blog!! Holy smokes

here is the link

http://youvegotmaille.blogspot.com/

I thought that was cool it is a post all about upcycling and about my LILY LAMPS

damn guess I better get to moving on making more of those

and making the light last longer than 8 hours

if I could find a way to charge it using a photovoltaic cell to charge the battery that would be cool

perhaps I will instead play around with glow paint on the edges so once the battery dies out at least it will glow at night

I did hear bad news about the future of lily lamps though they are changing the milk jugs and how they are made so I may not be able to make them out of Milk jugs anymore but perhaps the water jugs will stay the same (we buy water cause ours in undrinkable)

AND my brother is going to be getting a lily lamp for his birthday (I swear Leo I am working on it) and he will be working on a way to make the light last longer for me he is a genius when it comes to tinkering and making something out of nothing I am a mere hack in comparison

Green Support

2008-07-11T07:25:00.004-05:00

When changing your lifestyle you need support be it to get rid of a bad habit or an addiction.

I have heard lots of different people talk about how we need to give up our crutch of reliance on energy sources that are being depleated so fast that in my lifetime according to scientists we will see an end to them (I am 37 BTW and I hope to live a long time)

So how is your support system for your efforts? I know a few years ago things like what we are doing now would have been considered a little weird by family and friends but our family and friends also like our quirky nature so they accept it and they would have made fun of us but they like it.

Now we are not only seeing support but also encouragement and other suggestions from our friends and family

My mother in law came to visit this week because it was my oldest son Alex's 15th birthday (I know my baby is 15 and entering high school this year makes me wanna cry to think on it!) Sometimes these visits are tense but other times they can be very pleasant thankfully this was one of the latter

Not only did we have a great time chatting it up she was thrilled with the work we all did in the garden and loved to hear of our progress on our projects we have planned

she brought up som3e nice books for me and the kids (Nana is a book fanatic) Some wild flower identification books for me and Solar Energy for dummies and Green Living for Dummies

I like the for Dummies books cause it explains the basics and gives you places to look for more info

So how do you get more support for your choices ? depends on who you are trying to get support from People are usually really supportive of more "green" efforts when they see immediate results. in cash

what I think is neat is that even small simple changes can save a great deal of money and I find that inspiring to go on and try more things

The joys of rural living

2008-07-10T12:04:00.002-05:00

I was going to put up an amusing story about my attempts with composting worms (the worms have survived my bumbling skills and are all OK) however the "honey wagon" arrived today and has led me on a whole new path

It seems that our old septic system is in need of some TLC this will involve my dear Dave renting or borrowing a back hoe and digging a ten foot deep trench to fix some pipe that could be either 5 or ten feet long

yippee

you can hear the glee in my voice no really (said kinda sarcastic but kinda actually happy)

Dave will get a "vacation" of sorts and get to play with large power tools and dig in dirt

and I will get to have him home for a few days granted he will not be doing anything we had PLANNED on but he will be around so I guess it could be worse

So to help with this problem we are having we are now going to a water conservation method that I personally am not fond of (good thing it is summer)

our water conservation is the ol "when it is yellow let it mellow when it's brown flush it down"

so that will work for any females of the clan (ME and my neice when she comes for her visit)

for all males who keep thier "plumbing" on the outside they can go in the woods

my poor dears they will survive so long as they pee on the weeds and not in the garden!!

of course they could pee around the garden and that would help with some pest control but we dont have a problem with pests most of them are afraid of the random loudness from my boys

One of the best things about this though is getting to talk to and see the pair of fellows who run the bussiness they are good people it is a father and son great folks The dad is a real hoot and reminds me of my uncles which is bittersweet as they all died a long time ago but this guy is a gem amoung people he offered to help Dave as much as he could with the work THAT is what is neat about rural community we see this fellow every 3 years except maybe in passing in town and he offered to help out as much as he can with this huge plumbing project I said if he could I would feed him and I am a great cook (or at least my boys tell me so)

That is what is cool about rural living sure everyone knows you and your bussiness but

everyone knows you and your bussiness and cares and wants to help out too

WE GOT PIGGIES!!!

2008-07-10T09:11:00.003-05:00

yes I am excited to those who do not eat meat this may be offensive to you however we are HUGE omnivores in our family and we love our meat
we went in with friends and got 4 pigs 3 girls and one boy I want to breed them but Dave said No I said how can we call ourselves a self sustainable farm if we are not willing to breed animals but that is a WHOLE other arguement see I am looking forward (probably a little too quickly) to a time when all we need comes from our small property except for bare essencials that we cannot possibly make here (like flour)

my friend (Angela) is thrilled at this prospect and loves to come over to check on the gardens with me and walk up our hill(which you now see pictured atop my page) to check on the berries and apple trees and assorted wild flowers up there We both have large families and appreciate the amount of money and work that goes into feeding a large crew and with the rise in food prices we both want to do what we can to not only give our families good quality food but also to cut costs

So without further ado I would like you all too meet bacon, cutlet, ham hock, and sausage (just kidding we did not name them I just call them all pig)

Just a cute picture of Zach

2008-07-07T14:17:00.004-05:00

I jsut felt like showing off a pic of Zach in his "reused" stained shirt

as you can see this shirt can get completely filthy and no one cares cause it fits his saying and most people understand that he is a little boy and boys are meant to get dirty

He is such a charmer this was taken on the 4th and he is sitting with a crowd of kids watching fireworks and getting really excited!

Considering alternative energy

2008-07-06T22:45:00.002-05:00

This journey we are on has led both my hubby and I to consider alternative energy we both know that we have lots to do before we actually DO anything so I will post about some of our thoughts on this so far

Reduce in order to go "off the grid" you either need to produce a great DEAL of energy using a combination of different types of energy sources

OR you can reduce the amount you use either way using alternative energy means that one needs to rethink energy (this was covered very well in a neat article in Mother Earth news magazine)

SO I looked around my house and thought

what do I need to do without ?

I look in my kitchen first
Microwave? Toaster Oven? my mixer? fridge/freezer stove? Dishwasher?

hmmmmmm

While I like the microwave I did not have one growing up so I know I can do without this

my mixer is fantastic and I really LOVE that mixer I have wanted one for years and well I love my mixer but yes I could do without it I only use it for really large loaves of bread

I would need the fridge and freezer sorry folks I am not going to an icebox I could do without it during winter time but I NEED my fridge and freezer

Stove I could go for a wood fired one over the electric if absolutely nessisary

I might have to harm someone if I have to give up my dishwasher OR things would need to drastically change with my family I would have to go to the one plate one cup one set of utensils per person PERIOD (I may do that anyways because I hate dishes and the messes we are left with it is SOOOO much)
One neat way to reduce without noticing or "suffering" is to alter things you can around the house

I happen to like line drying clothes for me it is fun I like getting outside in the sunshine and drying my clothes they smell better and it is free and I get some excersise

Changing light bulbs if you dont like the CFLs I am likng the LED bulbs so far I have only found them equal to 40watts of light but they are pretty and light well but expensive however they are 90% more efficent than Incadescent bulbs and for those who are afraid of the mercury inside CFLs these have NONE (that is my mother in laws big sticking point on CFLs)

I do not recommend doing it all at once I paid over $5.00 for one bulb I bought two this paycheck next paycheck I will buy a couple more and see how it goes

I shut down appliances when not in use it helps so much we use the windows for light during the day and I force the boys to turn off the TV it helps

So slowly but surely things are changing here

I want Dave to build a wind turbine I actually got him to read some articles I found on Wind power he was intrigued but he has little confidence in himself and his abilities I will get him to build a small model and he will feel better about it I bet !!

OH and ANOTHER neat thing I saw The reuse of old shirts a stained work shirt getting dyed a different color to reuse it instead of tossing it

I say donate some stained ones to the local kindergarten I bet they could use some paint smocks! there are so many things that can be done to reuse old clothes

dont get me started!

OH and the garden is going great

and the chickens are all in on big house together

AND the best news ever

Monday we get pigs yup Monday we get pigs ...we better Dave has pens in the back of his truck and everything he better show up with piggies for me!!

Self Sustainability again

2008-07-05T23:58:00.002-05:00

I keep thinking about this and I think more and more because of the crazy rise in prices of everything

Dave and I talk about it as well and he being the patient one keeps me well a little better on track

I like many people want it all and I want it all NOW I want to be able to do everything and I want it to be easy and pretty and well I dont want to make costly mistakes

of course to do this I have to slow down I can't rush through this project I need to have it done in a meticulous manner I have to know what I am getting and where it is going

So for example my animals I have a dog several cats chickens and soon (hopefully tomorrow) we will get pigs

how do I feed them if I can't get feed from the store? being self sustainable means being able to feed the animals without having to rely on commercially bought feeds

I guess I would have to keep a phone I mean if I did not have internet or a phone how would I do my research to find things I would need or how would I talk to my friends?

I need to think of what skills I would need and what tools I would need to survive

what things would need to be done how would I do the laundry? how would I light the house? I can handle no electric lights or very few but how would I get things like candles (I have never made them) Soap ..well my mother in law wants to do that this fall so we will let her learn how and come up with how we will do this

I can garden I can kinda build at least good enough to get by simple structures

Dave promised we would build the Solar Hot water heater this week so we will be working on that and I will take pictures as we do it step by step

we also bought some things to make a solar oven of sorts so we will see how this works I hope it does well because we are supposed to get some really hot weather here soon!

I dont do well with hot weather but perhaps this will inspire the watermelons to perk up a bit

So I am taking small baby steps towards being able to do more for us here

and Dave got himself his treat for this paycheck some half price Plum trees (he loves plums and wants tons of fruit trees on our property)

How our 4th Went

2008-07-05T08:17:00.004-05:00

We had SOOOOOO much fun we went to our friends house for a picnic. What I love about our friends is that they have 6 kids living in thier house of assorted ages 4 girls and 2 boys I have my 5 kids all boys we get together we have the 4 adults and 11 kids we go lots of places together (to the beach and each others houses we tend to run into each other at the store we take up our own aisle)

Large families are a whole new dynamic that if you don't live in one you need to understand a few things

first off everyone in the family works to help the family work it is needed because no one person can make it all happen meals are a joint effort dishes even with a dishwasher are a joint effort etc

Large families use more energy in some ways but conserve it in other ways which makes a large family something to behold

the "sacrifices" made by larger famililes are if creative not seen as sacrifices to the children so no one suffers

also Large families are more at ease little things like spills and scraped knees or bumped heads are no big deal

So our 4th I brought some side dishes and my friend and her family were supplying the meat (a real undertaking) we had fruit salad cheesy potatoes (and I left my crock pot at her house) she baked a cake we had tuna salad and baked beans and tons and tons of things on the grill it was really lovely

the "men folk" put on this fabulous fireworks show for the kids fountains and big boom booms the kids were all thrilled

I was more excited to go with my friend first for a joy ride in an artic cat around her property and also for a lovely walk to take pictures of some of the wild flowers around her house to try to identify them

She has razzberries around her whole house plus some very vigorous multi flora roses in white and this lovely pink I told her those can be made into hedge rows because they are invasive you can be viscous with them and trim them into shapes and then just let them bloom like mad

I used to grow roses when I lived in a more favorable climate for them and I LOVE roses so my dear friend let me dig up some roses

I also found in her "garbage" pile several planters and a couple shepards crooks she does not want (my friend does not garden these things were left behind by former owners)

we did not get home till after midnight the kids had a blast as always Alex even did some yard for them and they paid him which was very nice for both of them to do

I have to say the only draw back was that QT had a fever so we gave him medicine and he was pampered and loved by everyone there

Our party was larger this year which was also fun they invited some more family over and it is always cool to have extras especially since my friend and I make enough to feed an army

I saw the first tiny tiny tomatoes on the vine today it is good to see

I dont know how well the water melon are going to do this year though they dont seem too big yet I mean the plants are just small

we have to get the lawn tractor fixed cause when Dave rolled it he cracked the carborator grrrrrrr

We moved some baby chicks this morning into the big house with some of the meat birds that are the same age and we turned off the lights in the chick cages because they are feathered out now

OH and I went to a great garage sale what I love about living in a small communitee is also what I dont like about it but sometimes it works in your favor

in a small communitee you knwo everyone and everyone knows you LOL

well this time it is a favorable kind of thing

The former Home ec teacher at the school had a rummage sale at her house I was nearby at the little league game and stopped in before she opened she let me look around she said she sold so much that day just setting things up she was thrilled to have people take her junk and give her a little money for it

she had such lovely things at these STEAL of prices I almost felt guilty not paying more

I bought 7 beautiful votive holders she ahd a huge box of them from her sons wedding I got those for $1.50

I also got baskets and planters and some really cool garden plant signs and this wonderful marble game for the kids and a huge box of colored pencils and some really pretty colored glass bottles

ALL for under ten dollars!!

Like I said I almost felt guilty not paying more

almost ..

Indepenence day

2008-07-04T07:18:00.003-05:00

In the United States today is 4th of July or Independence Day it is the anniversary of the signing of the declaration of Independence from England and the tyranny of living under a monarch ...and well those who know their history on both sides know the rest of the bloody store of a bloody war and nastiness that ensued

Now here in the US Independence Day is celebrated with picnics parades tons of flags and lots and lots of Fireworks

This year I suggest that independence Day be treated similar to New Years make a fresh start declare your independence from something

There are many things we all have that are toxic in our lives be it behaviors like smoking and drinking to eating too much meat or not exercising enough not eating enough good foods or using too much energy.

Instead of using the gas lawnmower let the lawn grow a little longer or dig it up and plant some vegetables or just mow it later

Take a walk why waste gas going to the gym or where ever go walking

Turn off the TV and computer and have an energy free day or two with the kids once they get outside and playing around they will have fun and not notice that they are not being entertain but are doing the entertaining

if you must buy something buy some new light bulbs The LED ones are expensive but pretty nifty I was able to get one I like them more than the CFLs so I think those will replace any bulbs we have

eat at home so many people go out and now so many can't afford it over the years I have made recipes of things that we loved to eat at restaurants that contain few ingredients and if I the worlds most pathetic cook can make them anyone can

we make oven breaded chicken tenders for the kids

crush up corn flakes add into it some spices of your choice I like to use Parmesan cheese garlic powder black pepper use a scrambled egg in a bowl to dip the chicken chunks in and then bake on a greased baking sheet till done

and those are chicken chunks I also have used this for breading fish I bet lots more people can come up with better ideas than I can. Play around with it food is a fun toy and if release some fears about it you will come up with something great OR you will have a very funny story about the worlds worse attempt to make _______
so declare your Independence from something and as my mom used to say

get off your ass and do it!!

Those cats have GOT to go

2008-07-02T15:52:00.001-05:00

We just lost 10 baby chicks through the cage floor to the cats they were eaten by the cats

we never had outdoor cats the last time we had chickens
so we are down 5 brown pullet chicks and 5 black chicks(don't know the sex of them we got a straight run)

sucks the cats are going to be GONE and I mean SOON

grrrrrrrr damn cats I put some old boxes down on the cage floor to keep the cats from being able to get to the chicks through there

bye bye kitties

Some people just don't get "IT"

2008-07-02T08:12:00.005-05:00

Being broke lets you look at things in a different way things that others see as NEEDS are suddenly not so needed

things like AC I mean how long did people survive without Air Conditioning and even in the deep south I mean how did they do it??

Things that our modern world has taken for granted many in the real world can't afford or wish they could but just do without and hope and pray they won't have a problem

It was brought up in the election stuff you know health insurance elder care all of these things that many people in the world think I sure wish I had that

I saw on the news that food pantries are seeing a BOOM in people in need and a bust of people donating food makes me want to clean my bare pantry to donate some things I might not use so others can have it

makes me greatful for the little we do have

makes me greatful for my husband who works hard all the time to give us what we do have

makes me greatful my children are healthy so we dont have to test that health insurance we have

Makes me appreciative of my boys who bust thier butts to help save energy every day (my oldest helps with laundry he hung some on the line today good boy!!)

I am lucky to have boys so willing to turn saving money and energy into an adventure and a science project

It is a joy to have that

Zach has been working with Tim on thier first book here is a picture of the cover

I dont know if you can see it but the little glass bottle in the picture is crying because it got thrown away and not recycled there are other characters in the garbage can with the bottle who will star in other books

(I have brilliant children and yes I am bragging!)

Zach's concept for this series of books is so sweet and simple and adorable and Tim's art work just brings these sweet stories such an adorable quality I am so proud of both of them

Weed Identification

2008-07-01T10:10:00.006-05:00

I have 4 acres of land and much of it is not used so I have many wild plants and a few infestations of unwanted plants

Among the plants I hate the most is Tansy

Common tansy it looks very pretty covers lots of land and it has this nasty smell that makes me sick (if a mom of 5 is nauseated by a smell then the smell is STRONG)

According to some of my searches it says it wards off flies

sure it does I have seen flies swarm over the darn stuff

Some sites say it decreases the amount of mosquitoes you have well if I get rid of the stuff and the mosquito population goes up then I will cultivate it

my main reason for NOT liking tansy is that it is toxic to grazing animals
I prefer a wild flower mix with multiple colors to be in the place I affectionately call the pit

my other problem for hating this weed is it is a BEAR to get rid of we are thinking we will have to hire the fire department to help us with a controled burn or something to get rid of this stuff Dave has a weed burning and while it is nice and wet would be a good time to get it GONE

I read some GOOD things about Tansy first off I can cut it down and put it in my compost heap and add tons of good potassium to my heap so that is good news Here is a shot of what Tansy looks like now before flowering

The depression you see in the weeds is where Dave rolled the lawn tractor you guess it he broke the carborator on the damn thing so it is now NOT running again he is upset about it I am more upset about watching him tumble screaming under that big ol thing (we have an old Case lawn mower tractor thingie) freaked me out I thought he was going to horribly hurt at best but luckily he came out without a scratch just a bruise on his back where it hit him

What can I say he is a real man not one of those manicured psuedo men he got up grinned at me for his summer sault and said "I'm OK"!!

I slapped him for scaring me like that he was too busy giggling

grrr

anyways more on weeds and identifying them

my problems with weeds is well I dont know much about what I have I did by chance find that I have some lovely white yarrow growing on our land (COOL I thought) the ahrdest part about IDing these things is you have to know the name of the plant to positively ID it

I find this lame myself because I dont know the names of all of the plants on my property I want to be able to search for them by description you know

Stinky pain in my butt that won't let anything else grow

but that also describes another weed I despise this one is in the Mint family

creeping charlie creeping charlie and I have a hate hate relationship it hates me and grows big and lush and I hate it and wherever I dont want it I pull and pull and pull and dig out roots and shoots all to no avail

I really would LOVE to get some Wild Flower seeds of my native WI and have the lovely plants native to this area grow here

oh and I still want some Honey suckle vines for my garden (I know not native invasive but so pretty and reminds me of my mom so I want it!!)

Just a few things about the garden

2008-06-30T23:12:00.002-05:00

I know you might be getting sick of hearing about it but would you rather I discuss the nasty smell from cleaning out the baby chicks cage? I think not

SO we will talk about the garden and what I am doing out there

Every day I head outside put on my bug spray (does not matter how much garlic I eat or how many vitamin B1 tablets I swallow Mosquitoes LOVE me so bug spray is my way of not being driven INSANE) and cover up with 3/4 legnth sleeves and my big gardening hat I find my wet work gloves (Thanks boys for leaving them in the mud puddle again) and I find my assorted tools for weeding and such

and I head out to survey my plantings

First stop is the side of the deck where I have some tomatoe plants and some peppers and in the tires are potatoes I swear there are some in there

I then look at my pretty flowers I started all of those from seed I also check my upside down hanging tomato plant in it's homemade "topsy turvy" planter. next I look at my tiered garden to see how my mother's day plants are doing as well as some flower seeds I started in the green sink I swear I will one day put the fountain pump I bought for it!

I have celery and Cucumbers in one small bed together the cukes are starting to creep up the pretty trellis I have for them

I then check out my corn and cantaloupe and swear to weed out the corn bed and finish planting the cantaloupe I have

I also glance quickly at the Black seeded simpson lettuce it is doing very well!

I have more cucumbers back there that need a trellis Dave keeps promising to get one set up for me (Chicken wire and wood but he has been very busy with work) now time to check all my tomatoes
I am looking for the usual things when I survery my garden bug or animal damage growth flowers gernal condition of the plant,weeds do they need water etc

usually it only requires some putzing I know this garden will not be as good as gardens I have planned for the future I look at this one as the start of the others A test garden if you will on a grand scale I see my little beds laid out and I imagine them as they will be in a few years

in a few years I will have sides built up around them so they are truly raised beds

each bed will have grass cuttings around the plants to keep the weeds down I have started this this year and it works SOOO well and adds so much to the soil it keeps the soil moist keeps out weeds and adds nitrogen to the dirt

I also will have walking stones in my grass pathways we have not gotten the concrete yet this year to make them but the boys and I have been gathering things to put in them marbles small toys etc to make them pretty my hope is to have each boy make a couple of them each year and then my garden will have a path that will be of my boys and will save me from mowing !!

my garden is a labor of love I look at the carrots planted by Tim who I told to plant them in a straight line he got anxious and dumped half the seed pack (I understand this desire I have done it myself) so as the carrots get bigger I will separate them I have done it before tedious but it works and we get lots of carrots this way

When I garden I am reminded of my mom she wore a funny hat too but hers was to keep the sun out her eyes not off her skin I wear my hat for fear of sunburn she just liked big floppy hats

I am reminded of talks with my brother who Gardens Leo we talk plants and weeds and herbs and all kinds of things he is an herbalist and knows so many neat things I found yarrow growing on my land and I told him about it and he was excited "you got neosporin in a plant that stuff is great make a poultice..." neat conversations like that

and as I garden when my boys are around I make sure to tell them the things I know we spread the grass to keep the weeds out we plant the marigolds cause they are pretty and keep the bad bugs away from the tomatoes and we plant Peppers with them for the same reason blah blah blah on and on and I know someday they will share that memory with thier kids

I can talk so nicely about them cause they are all in bed asleep LOL

Our Garden is a family effort they all help Dave helped plant too His Dad and his mom helped us with and our friends were here and they helped as well (I really overdid it with the plants I was not exaggerating!)

I see so much in my little garden beds I see speghetti dinners when it is cold outside or homemade pizza dippers with our own sauce and bread listening to the kids tell me "this is the best meal EVER" (my oldest says that at every meal)

Every time I go out there I putz around and make it a touch better each time weeding here and there.. looking at things putting in mulch ...snipping off a bit of this and that..

I really enjoy my garden

Funny observation about my obsession

2008-06-29T16:12:00.003-05:00

well it is funny to ME I dont know if anyone else will enjoy this but who knows!

I was outside today laying down some mown and dried grass as my mulch around my tomatoes and pulling up assorted weeds and things I noticed that my signs for each of my garden beds were not holding up as well as I had hoped they would

yes I made signs for each garden bed ...WHY?? Sue would you make signs well for several reasons

I have a notoriously poor memory

and even when I do remember something no one belives me so they tend to do things like tell me I am wrong and then pick a pumkin insisting it is a watermelon (this has happened no lie)

So I label my garden bed

there are many ways to label a garden bed you can make signs you paint some wood signs you put out those little stake things

well I put 4 foot wood stakes in my garden and then stapled seeds packs to them

NOt just ANY seed packs (yes I saved the empty seed packs) I saved the seed packs from the plants I planted and then covered them in clear contact paper to protect them from the elements

SO now you have the details and hopefully this will explain the actual funny part

I was out there looking at my signs and noticing that some of them are fading meaning that the clear contact paper was not sealed completely around the edges and it got some water inside it

So I casually mention to my dear long suffering Dave that next time I make them I will use a low setting on the iron to seal the edges of the signs

Poor Dear Dave gave me a look like I am a dangerous obsessed person and said "You won't iron my work clothes but you will iron seed packs"

I looked at him very simply and said "yeah neat huh?"

(I hate ironing)

So yes I will iron seed packs so my garden looks pretty I am weird

really really weird

Breakfast on the Farm

2008-06-29T12:40:00.002-05:00

As you know I live in the Dairy state ..sorry California Wisconsin has been the Dairy state longer than you have and our cows LOVE snow and they like cool temperatures and they hate wild fires and smog

So (geez I am testy today ) Breakfast on the farm happens every other year at a local organic dairy farm the farm is owned by Mr & Mrs Bures great people Mrs. Bures was a teacher at my kids school she taught my son Alex Science and was my son Tim's social studies teacher

It was Mrs Bures who got the environmental bug up my oldest boys butt (I just love her she is so cool to talk to)

That is the link to the article from the local paper

I was there chatting and she was so excited to find out the stuff we are doing here that she introduced me to her husband so I could tell him about the passive solar hot water heater we want to build

he was excited to hear about it and also wants to see it so now we have even more reasons to get this thing built and we want to get it done SOON

of course we have to wait for another neighbor to get a hold of his friend to get the old broken wood burning outdoor furnace out of here

so exciting I love being able to have people in my area to share this stuff with and the passion of saving money while doing something good for all of us that removes some polution (in the form of reclaimed "waste" materials used for the building of this thing) it is just an exciting idea

ALSO She is on the board of the newly formed farmers market in our area

again I am thrilled to be making contact with these kind of like minded people

makes me feel less alone in my efforts in my area

living in a rural area I tend to feel a bit isolated in my efforts

So there is my ramble on this rainy day

Such a neat conversation

2008-06-28T18:39:00.002-05:00

Today (remember please we live in a small town rural area) a teacher came over to buy some plants from me so I dug her up some of what I hope will be very productive tomatoes and a couple cucumbers and handed her over some pepper plants and watermelon not too much in my opinion but a good start for her

but that is not the cool part

we got to talking about another teacher (Zach's teacher from 3rd grade who he loved who got him going and then got me going on this green thing even more) and she said that they have been working out a way to get the school to start up composting thier waste

Oh My GOODNESS that would be so wonderful on so many levels I mean by composting not only would they be saving themselves from having to pay to haul away this extra trash BUT they would also be able to make ..dirt and this dirt could either be sold to local gardeners and the proceeds would go back to the school kids I would so buy a few bags of it to support a good cause

like my chidlrens education

She and I then started talking about other things like the possiblity of getting the school to build a passive solar greenhouse out of things we could find at the dump

You will notice if you read enough of my writing or talk to me enough that this whole passive solar thing has got me REALLY excited and I mean REALLY excited

I want to build a solar oven like this one at this site http://www.pathtofreedom.com/pathproject/offthegrid/solaroven.shtml

and I want the Passive solar hot water heater BADLY (I am waiting for a neighbor to get the old furnace out of the space so we can put up the stuff we need)

and I want a passive solar greenhouse so I can grow food year round

lots of people I talk to say things like "use plastic sheeting" sure that extends the growing season but I want more than just a few weeks on either end of the growing season

I WANT to be able to go into my greenhouse through the cold room into the warm room and pick fresh spinach and lettuces at the end of February (when it is still below zero here !HAH)

can't do that with plastic sheeting

so back to the cool conversation

She is going to talk to this other teacher and we will get together to decide how to approach this topic with the school board we need to start small they dont like change mainly we need to find a way to present it to them that would show just how beneficial this is the bottom line of the school without it costing them much if anything AND as a side note show them that this then teaches the children that the adults are not hipocrits preaching one thing and showing them another

I Found the Centometer!!!

2008-06-27T23:37:00.007-05:00

Who knew TV lied to me and told me the wrong darn name but here it is a web site that sells the centometer

of course they call it something else!!! they call it the power cost monitor it is at the blue line innovations
http://www.bluelineinnovations.com/default.asp?mn=1.274.285

OHHHH I must save up to buy me one of those

Think of the money I could save with that thing especially with the gadget crazy group of guys!!

how fun they would fight over it and never ..let me play with it.. and break it before ...but

HEY it would still be cool and fun while we had it!!

I must save that site
Here is another link to more information on this neat product

IF Only I could bottle that energy

2008-06-27T22:50:00.003-05:00

IF you are a parent or have ever been around many children you will have this phrase run through your mind

now imagine my life 5 active boys two are teenagers one school age one preschooler and a brand new walking toddler trying his darndest to keep up

Zach is probably my most active closely followed by Nikolaus

I want something to HARNESS that energy of thiers

like a trampoline that produces electrical energy charge to a battery or Like a bike from living with Ed but it would have to be smaller on scale for them to all use or adjustable for all of us to use LOL

cause we all know I really want to sit on a bike and pedal to produce power

Zach can stand kinda still and be bouncing in place while explaining his latest thoughts

Oh my that child's energy

Tim will sit on my excersise ball while watching TV and bounce from sitting to a standing position and just keep doing it over and over again I get winded just watching him and have to say

Tim stop it you are making mommy tired

I must look into this method of energy production and see if we can make one I know we have bikes laying around

Here is one site on this topic if interested sadly I dont think we can do this this year Dave is getting a bit overwhelmed with all of the projects I want to do you know he has to work his full time job and then come home to me begging him to help me figure out the easiest way to do ____ I really need to learn to use tools better

http://www.gulland.ca/homenergy/lindabike.htm

GRRRRRRR my sewing pile

2008-06-27T12:14:00.002-05:00

I do like to sew but being the weirdo I am I have to have certain conditions to be able to sew

first I need to be able to concentrate on what I am doing. as you can well imagine being able to concentrate in my house is not as easy as you think it is noisy here I have this horrific fear of putting a sewing needle through my hand I have had it happen so it is not an irrational fear yes I took my eyes off my sewing machine and literally sewed my finger

hurt too

I also have never had any "real" training when it comes to sewing I am self taught so reading any instructions on sewing that do not include the phrase "well you put this thingie into that thingie" and there you have it I get lost so I have to do a great deal of figuring things out for myself

SO how does this relate to ANYTHING green???

my sewing pile is made up of clothes that need patching and mending clothes that are beyond repair that will be used for patching and mending and piles of scrap to be freecycled to some lucky person who has the time for making quilts for those who are in hospice care or for babies (I dream of a time when I can sew for that kind of joy)

My sewing pile is also made up of parts of diapers to be sewn in assorted stages of finishedness LOL

Another thing I really need when sewing is ...a clear space to set my sewing machine

my main room in my house is my dining room it is where the table is and the table is basically the center of all activity in our home it is where we eat it is where we do crafts , where we fold laundry, where homework gets done where games are played etc etc etc etc

so doing sewing on there does not happen often especially during anytime when I have kids around

I have kids around most of the time
SO

as a green reuse fix up person I am planing on doing when my mother used to do

She had a laundry day AND

she had a Mending day

and now so will I
When this day will be I have no idea yet but I sure hope to get to it soon cause the mending is currently housed on my excersise bike and I dream of getting that thing cleaned off and actually using it again

I crack myself up !!

Reclaming things

2008-06-27T09:14:00.002-05:00

As you know I am big on the Reuse of the 3Rs I like to take things we have laying around junk really and turn it into something else

I have had this old nasty patio table for YEARS it is off white rusty one leg is wobbly and well it just looks too nasty to use for food

we found it of course at a dump with the hope of "someday" fixing it up painting it getting a patio umbrella for it and this table becoming our great yard find

well for YEARS we have used this table simply by tossing a table cloth on top of the rust and shooing children out from underneath

Well this year I had had enough procrastinating on this thing

so I bought some spray paint (sorry I had to get spray paint) it is this neat metalic copper paint that makes the table look like an old battered copper table (I just hope it never turns green)

so far looks good and I have a shout out on freecycle looking for a patio umbrella is there are no takers I will then ask my friendly neighborhood junk man if he has seen any and if no luck there I will buy one

Now what to do with the leftover spray paint

well I have many cans from food (I call them tin cans but I know they are not made of tin anymore) and the boys and I are going to poke some holes in the "tin" cans in some kind of pattern (probably a star cause I like stars) and then paint the cans

we will then have candle holders for the yard

we must also poke holes in the bottom of the cans to let water out

I will take pictures once this project is done (LOL)

No AC? No Problem!!

2008-06-26T13:01:00.002-05:00

Alright I know I live in Northern WI and it does not get "hot" in Northern WI

I am a person who does not tolerate heat very well it is now 1pm and 79 degrees F I know it is the end of june and I should not complain about heat after all I was begging for summer a few weeks ago when we were still getting frost warnings LOL

I do not mind this heat much because there are many ways I can keep cool I do what people did before there was AC

In the evening I open up the curtains and windows and let the cool night air in

in the morning I close the curtains (leaving the windows open) to keep the cool air in and the bright sun and hot air out

I run fans

ceiling fans a tower fan and a pedastal fan

we dont use the oven inside during warm weather (Zach wants to build a solar oven so we are looking into that he saw one on Living with Ed)

For food on the really hot days (today BTW is not a really hot day just one of the warmest we have seen ) We stick to more simple foods and something more light like cold sandwiches and chips or tuna salad or chicken salad

on super hot days the kids and Dave eat Watermelon for dinner

Cold cereal and apple slices works for a dinner too

On super hot days during the warmest part of the day I do things to keep myself and the little boys cool and calm
we watch cartoons at that time of the day

I have a squirt bottle that I spray them with (on the mist setting it is a plant mister)

if we get bored we will blow bubbles inside or have a nice little siesta

OF course it does not get super hot in northern WI we are talking that we get a handful of days where the temps are over 95 degrees

sadly the humidity is also over 95%

The sprinkler put on in the front yard also helps or we head to the beach to hang out (this does not happen often our beach does not have a life guard and without another adult to help out I dont like taking them ALL to the beach)

THe biggest best thing I can tell you to do during heat is to take it easy dress appropriately no 3 peice suits or silly thick heavy things loose airy light weight and WATER WATER WATER

drink lots of water if you dont like water plain add things to it a bit of lemon a touch of lime something simple and fresh and cold

A great thing Dave and I had at this Bed and breakfast we went to was the pitcher of water they had at breakfast

fresh fruit tons of ice Kiwi, strawberries lemon slices and lime

it was colorful pretty and delicious!!

most importantly know the signs of heat stroke , sun stroke in adults and children

if you have little ones give them lots to drink water, watered down juices etc this helps and during the hottest part of the day stay protected

and don't forget if it starts to rain to cool things off you must go dance in it!

WOOOHOOO COOLEST NEWS

2008-06-25T22:34:00.003-05:00

OK I am exaggerating

but it is neat in my neck of the woods

You would be amazed that in the farming area that I live in that we do not have many farmers markets nearby

the closest farmers markets are 45 minutes in either direction held once a week during the summer months only

Now we have a farmers market opening only 15 minutes away from us in the nearest largish town

That is so cool

I mean it is one thing to buy produce from the few roadside stands or when someone Dave works with has extra from thier garden giving us something

but this is great nearby close we can make a day of it going to the market

I am so excited

Oh the bannana tree and Lime tree I got are actually doing quite well they are sprouting new leaves so I guess I am not killing them

My Reasons for blogging

2008-06-25T09:08:00.007-05:00

I blog because ..well I like to talk and I have a LOT to say on a variety of topics

I blog about our latest journey into a more green lifestyle for several reasons

first I want people to learn that unlike on TV and in other forms of media when one goes green they do not have to buy tons of more stuff and get rid of all of thier old stuff just to be green and they also do not have to go to the other extreme and live the life of a dirty hermit

There are things we can do as responsible people and still maintain or improve on our current lifestyle while being "greener" it just requires a change in thought and minor adjustments

Secondly my reason for wanting to start a blog was well to advertise myself and my ideas on life I am the person in a crowd who usually gets very strange looks whenever I speak people think I am cooky quirky and well downright weird ..I dont care my kids think I am fabulous and my Dear Dave adores me

So while trying to wrap my brain around this blogging stuff I came across the whole advertise on your blog and make money things ..and then of course the blog for cash things

being the cheapskate that I am I LOVE the idea of doing a hobby something I find fun and making a little cash off of it so now from time to time you may see a few blog posts here and there that will contain some shameless shilling for the man to make me a touch of cash

HERE is my vow I plan to use any money I make from my "selling out" (I chuckle as I type this because I already have ads running on my blog and I also have my Etsy shop posted LOL) my plan is to make money to make my part of the world a greener/cleaner place so money made from my efforts all goes toward things like

more CFLs for my house

a more efficient winter water heater for my home

a lap top which will be more efficient than my old desk top

and Heirloom seeds for next years garden !!

and my dream of Angora Goats

and of course this cool book I saw on foraging for food in WI (I really want that book)

So while searching around the net the other day I came across a web site that offered money for posting now the money offered sounds great I have joined up and gotten approved for using my site to advertise some opportunities that would apply to my "audience"

I will let you know when I am posting for money so you know whether the post is for $$ or just me rambling on about something else I have found !

So far this site looks promising for those of us who could use a few extra bucks for things we already do I look at this like TV commercials sometimes you find some neat stuff in TV commercials Pay Per Post neat site go look!!make money

So please feel free to check this place out I plan on doing more intensive putzing around thier site when I have more than two minutes to do so (it is morning and the kids are calling for breakfast and asking me millions of questions before we head to grocery store) blog ads

The site is neat and orderly and from my limited use of it seems easy to use and it has lots of opportunities and plenty of help from users and admins alike

Plastic bottles

2008-06-24T10:00:00.005-05:00

So easy a child can do it

leave it to the grown up to get things all confusing

I have many plastic bottles we buy our drinking water and use plastic drinking bottles I know so not PC so not "green" I should get us all reusable drinking bottles and that works for a while till one of the kids leaves thier bottle outside and it gets beyond nasty so for NOW we use plastic water bottles

I found ..or rather an online friend ..found a way to reuse them I know I posted the site already http://www.sci-scotland.org.uk/index.shtml This site had me out looking for other sites with the same thing

my only issue with this site is they want you to pay for the knowledge of how to build with plastic bottles

well I am gonna tell you I figured out the "secret" and it is not all that hard

the basic idea is to get your bottles clean (not too hard is water was in them ) get the labels off and then what you do is cut the very bottom off the bottles

now you can keep the tops on if you like we took them off when making ours

and then stack you can make them as high as you like (I have so far only made a sample)To make the end just cut off the top part where you drink from and put it on the last bottle you used (I will add pictures later)

To secure it I am using some wire (dont remember the gauge but it is thin enough for me to use) sadly this did not work as well as I had hoped for I know it could work but I need more time to putz with it and someone who is willing to help out by holding the whole mess still as I twist the wire
I have seen dirctions using long bamboo sticks in the center to hold them or wood frames on the outside I like the wire I will once I work the kinks out be able to "mold" it into shapes

weave the wire inbetween the stacks of bottles in a figure 8 form so two wires wrap around one stack of bottles then twist the wire and stick another stack of bottles in place twist the wires again and keep going till you get to the end

so once finished you will have two wires sticking out at the end mine will be used as a window for our pig yard (barn window broke) So I will use these two wires and curl them into a circle one wire on one side of the wood and the other wire will go on the other side of the wood this will secure the "window" in place (by nailing through the circle)

For the size of my window I will need to do the "figure 8" wire wrap thingie once toward the top of my structure and once toward the bottom

I know it all sounds confusing I hope the photos explain it better

Stuff I forgot to mention

2008-06-24T00:05:00.004-05:00

Deck now being clean 2 items have been gifted to some freecycle folks (I love freecycle by the way!)

Dave got me the flat black paint for the old water heaters

We talked to a neighbor who wanted to buy our old large broken outdoor wood burning furnace

Dave finally got his riding lawn mower fixed

Tiered garden is mostly finished I just need the lattice work for the trellis and to set up and put in the fountain I am making out of an old sink (go fig I found something to reuse!) So tomorrow I think I will work on this and just simple pick up of things and .....

crap I am making another list

I need to knock off the "To Do" lists

2008-06-23T23:39:00.003-05:00

They are going to kill me I swear they will

I am a real BIG time overacheiver always have been I also suffer from being really smart and having a naturally high energy (so why oh why are'nt I skinny? oh yeah I forgot I have that whole eat a ton of food thing going on ..and a severe addiction to chocolate)

well with these combinations I tend to "overdo" just about everything

I have mentioned the tomatoes I am not even counting them anymore all I know is it is over 100 tomato plants something like 15 or so cucumber plants roughly 15 pumkin plants approximately 20 watermelon plants and the list goes on and on

I also have another problem and that is severe impatience nothing ever happens fast enough for my tastes which is a shame really

I should learn to "stop and smell the roses" but I want everything DONE and set up the way I want it yesterday

Along with the short growing season I have kids 5 kids 2 of whom are too young to really be of a great deal of help and who need thier mommy to stop acting like super woman

Here are the things I want to be able to

I want my house clean ALL the time I mean beautifully clean non cluttered etc I understand the dirt I get dust I understand that things accumulate however piles of stuff everywhere has to stop it is non productive

I want my garden and yard to be pretty and productive
I want an herb garden not just an herb planter a full garden to grow all kinds of things (speaking of which I need more chamomile seeds)
I want to be able to do all those cool things I talked about during the cold weather but I constantly feel like I am racing with time

I get up at 6am (roughly during the week) and by the time I get the two older boys off to summer school (taking an extra math class to get better at thier skills) get breakfast for myself and the younger ones get out to the chicks to do the assorted things there come back nurse the baby change a diaper etc I already feel like most of my day has gone by and I have not been "productive" enough

silly isn't it? I KNOW I work I work hard my Dear beloved says I have the hardest job in the world (he is asleep on the couch as we speak waiting for me to wake him to go to bed it is almost midnight now)

So why do I keep making those damn lists!! I know part of it is to try to prioritize the things that need to be done

and I know that when I make the lists I give some of the chores to the boys and they do thier best to knock out a few of the things on the list

but seriously I would need a staff to accomplish everything I want to do in a day

or 2 or 3 days

So will I stop making lists
no probably not I will keep making them and keep feeling crappy for not being able to cross off everything

I once tried the reverse list idea this is where you instead of making a list of things TO do in a day you make a list of the things you HAVE done already in a day

but my arm got cramps from all that writing

I have been very ungreen today

2008-06-22T22:41:00.003-05:00

I had to sorry I just had to so here it is my major BIG time confession I hope you won't hold it against me but I just have to get this off my chest

My front deck (porch) looked horrific I mean nasty I want it to look nice and pretty or at least not have cat poop on it (I have cats that live on my deck)

So I set about this morning before making my family breakfast to clean the messy deck

oh dear I got the recycling off it and after a while of shifting between bags and listening to the kids whine through the window about wanting thier pancakes I just went to one bag and tossed and tossed and tossed and tossed

and then I swept and cleaned things and moved things and found large plastic boxes for my rummage sale tons of things how cool is that

in the process of cleaning I found a nice hanging basket!

I put up my broken bird bath one side of it broke off but it still holds water so I put it against the deck right under the solar powered lighted address sign and stuck a cute little turtle candle holder in it

my deck looks much nicer now

I then came inside because of the pouring rain
and worked with my Tim (who was so sweetly making the pancakes for us) to get breakfast finished

and then I also commited more green sins (she hangs her head in shame) I went about to clean the 8 year olds bedroom. Now anyone who has an 8 year old boy who has his own toys his 3 year old brothers toys plus whatever toys his older bros dont want not to mention other things that this little mini pack rat has (I really have no idea where he gets that from!) OH my My Zachhas so many things I dont even know what half of them are

so much ofit went into
(gasp) lawn adn leaf bags I feel so crappy about it but he did not want it and I dont know what to do with some of it I have a bag and a half of toys and garbage and 2 big boxes of toys for rummage sale

I felt so guilty I told the oldest Dear boy (Alex) to go through the bags tomorrow to see if some of those toys some other child might want I mean some kid must want toy parts (mega blocks kinda things but they are sets that are missing peices)

So that has been my non green day today which makes me feel bad so I must attone for these sins against the environment and here is how I am doing that

I took all of the plants that no one wanted to buy and with the help of my dear beloved Dave and his talent with small engines he got part of the front yard tilled up our friends were over for a picnic and they helped me plant the remaining things we had that would fit I still have some more to go but that will have to wait a few more days

Dave found a marvelous thing at the dump some 55 gallon drums and he snagged one for our rain barrel for the garden
I posted some things on my local freecycle group to get them out of my house AND saved from a dump 2 items were taken AND I also found good homes for 3 of the 6 kittens we are getting rid of

So see I am trying and after all that is what matters! No one should really feel super guilty about things they should do the green thing because it is a part of how things should be done and it is fun

I can't wait till tomorrow I will put up for sale some broken toys of my sons on e-Bay as well as some obscure player baseball cards if I get any money for them I will be thrilled but I am hopefull I get a LOT cause I will try to make the post a funny one

Pics of our farm attempts

2008-06-19T11:51:00.003-05:00

OK remember we have a short growing season and we got started late but here is some of our gardening attempts and also some of the baby chicks at a week and a half old
and this silly site will only let me post those pics for some reason there seems to be a limit to the size of pictures of something

so I only have 2 pictures of my lovely tomato plants BTW those are the ones that survived freezing temperatures so they may look like twigs to the untrained eye but to me they look like warriors who survived a courageous battle

warriors that will make me spaghetti sauce!

And what can I say about the baby chicks I took one outside and got him to pose so pretty so majestic for a chicken

then there is our sad and lonely one adult female bird who no longer lays eggs she also as you can possibly see from the pics has broken toes from the fox however since she is perching she will be fine

WOW this is soooo Cool

2008-06-19T08:25:00.002-05:00

WEll it is so cool for Zach

since starting this adventure he has had a couple of TV Celebrities answer his e-mails to them. I know some people think this is well not that big of a deal but to an 8 year old boy who lives in a rural small area who does not get to the "big city" but once a year and this "big city" is really pretty small (Milwauke WI go look it up that is my hometown a Great Place on a Great Lake LOL)

Well he has Tristan from the New Zealand version of Wa$ted contact him a few months ago when we started this he thought that was awesome and it was not an automated contact either (that I was impressed with that someone took thier time to contact my boy it gives me the vapors!)

NOW this week he decided to contact Ed Begley Jr. from Living with Ed fame he loves that show and thinks Ed is just cool so he wrote Ed a message(I typed it for him he dictated to me) and asked Ed if he would take him to lunch like the people on the show get to do and the other day he got a response :

Zachary - the next time I'm in Wisconsin I'll let you know. In the meantime, if you are ever in Los Angeles, let me know and we can have lunch. Keep up all your environmental efforts!
ed

That is so sweet! He was all excited and now talking about wanting Ed to come to our farm (I don't know if that would ever happen) Zach also wants to go to LA His Dad is trying to find a way to make it happen he would love to take a cross country trip with the kids all I think of is that I can barely stand to be in the car with the kids for a short trip to the store let alone cross country !!

Oh well off to do some gardening and get the chicks taken care of

we almost lost half of chicks on Fathers day because they wet when thier waterer accidentally tipped and soaked their bedding we were able to save all but one

I will take pictures to show how they look now that they are over a week old

What I don't like about being Green

2008-06-16T16:49:00.002-05:00

These are just some things that have struck me that I do not like about trying to live a greener (more earth friendly) life

First off I question EVERYTHING and being a good reformed Catholic (non practicing Roman Catholic) I feel extreme guilt when I dont do things "right" for example

I shop at Walmart for several reasons I have to shop there many people in the sustainable community see Walmart as the Anti Christ I see it as a place to get cheap food and clothes for my really big ol family

Next Cloth diapers those would be WAY easier to keep up with if I had a good supply of I would have to say 24 in his current size. since I make my own and have lots of kids and a farm to run with a garden that is HUGE and will hopefully supply us with not just vegetables and fruits for summer time but also some to sell and many to freeze and can this means that is a full time job in itself (I must get and insert a picture here of my garden plants)

so I feel guilty but I am back to using disposable diapers and we can't afford to all at once BUY a supple of cloth diapers AIOs (which is what I would get so everyone would help change him)

Then there is the recycling again I have been busy we are still recycling of course we have done that for years but I feel guilty NOT doing more to reuse our stuff I see all those food cans and think "these would make fabulous garden candle holders remove the label spray paint them black or forest green or a dark rusty red poke holes in a design and wow candles" but no time so into recycle they go

Oh well I will try to find a way to carve out that 48 hour day to be able to have the time to do all these things or else I need a better staff cause Martha Stewart I am not

Sad update

2008-06-13T09:33:00.002-05:00

Our grown chickens were attacked last night by something our hen yard was dug into and since the door was due to get fixed this weekend the hen house was open and something got in and ate 11 birds one is left and she has a broken toe and is pretty shook up today

Zach is alright not thrilled he really loved the big birds and was out there last night before dark with them he is mad and wants to hunt whatever got at his chickens

I say we just fix up the damn hen yard and hen house like I have been telling people to get done around here I do not have the carpentry skills nor the ability with tools and things to get the work done

after all that is why I got married so I would not have to mess with that BS so today we are (that is the boys and I) digging a trench around the hen yard putting in the barbed wire to discourage an animal from digging in and then we are going hopefully find some good hinges and rehang the chicken door.

Then we need to get to work on the other two yards for animals

Control over my food

2008-06-13T06:59:00.002-05:00

What I like about growing our own food and producing our own meat is the sense of control I feel over it all.

I know that I cannot produce everything on our small farm we have only 4 acres however there are plenty of small local farmers around here who do produce the things I cannot like beef cattle and dairy farms nearby.

It has always been my dream to do two things with my life first I wanted to become a huge star of the musical theater stage performing in London (I went there once and sat in the audience) and New York. Then I wanted to drop out of limelight have a ton of kids and settle down to a rural quiet life raising everything on my palacial estate!

well my estate is large (for me) and with any luck this year I will b able to produce a good amount of food for me and my large family of 5 boys and a hubby LOL

Dave and i were talking this morning as he left for work we have a deck full of plants that need to either get into the ground or be sold since no one has responded to our signs I will have to get them into the ground

so Dave is going to till me up some new ground for gardening because my current garden is full we will plant everything and any extras we will just have to sell

It rained here for several days and the sun just came out everything looks so lush and green

I am really excited to go look at the Angora Goats to check them out I wonder if the farmer will let me take pictures of them. This guys website is so neat and the goats are so beautiful. I know some people have a hard time seeing animals as beautiful especially farm animals some people dont expect them to smell or they dont want to hear about how the animals are slaugtered for food eventually well to those who are thinking about a self sustaining life and are planning on keeping animals I will tell you what I told my son

Our animals need things from us they need dry safe comfortable shelter
they need fresh clean cool water and they need dry good food

We also need to know that all creatures poop and all poop stinks you pick it up and you move on if you dont like picking up poop then farm life is not for you. I am not saying that I LOVE to pick up poop but I do it becuase it has to be done

where some see poop I see fertilizer!

Zach's Blog Entry

2008-06-12T12:16:00.002-05:00

Hello my Name is Zachary and I am going to write a series of books for little kids I dont know what I want to call it. I think I will call it "Kid's Can" it is going to be about recycling composting gardening and a lot of other stuff I hope it gets published then if it does you get to see what I wrote

Good bye Thank yoU!!

oh the ups and downs

2008-06-12T10:36:00.004-05:00

I got some good news and I got some not so good news Good news is we got chickens again so we are really a farm again !! I am so excited I mean we have been a farm by having plants and all but now we are REALLY a chicken farm complete with 72 baby chicks for eggs and meat and 12 full grown hens we bought from a farmer getting out of the chicken bussiness We brought the adult chickens to chicken heaven in comparison to what they were living in but that is a whole other story and I wont bore you all with my opinion of how animals should be raised because many people are not lucky enough to have the money or space to do what I can do. Here are pictures and video of my girls (and boys)
I would post a video of the big girls in the hen house but it takes so long for these things to upload I am just going to leave it alone for now I have other work to do!

Zach is thrilled with the chickens he loves animals and loves to take care of them

Bad news is it is raining again I know there are lots of places desperate for rain we like rain but things are really wet here and I dont have my rain barrels yet!! grrrr so I watch it all pool and come down and I want that water !! Also with it raining as much as it has been I can't work in the garden and I can't get my teired flower/herb garden built which stinks cause I have a lot of plants that need to get into the dirt

GOOD NEWS our shipment arrived from Spring HIll Nursery our indoor exotic fruit trees are here cleaning my inside air and looking all pretty granted they are tiny and one arrived with some pretty serious bug damage but since I am good at getting dead twigs to grow I think they should do alright now they just need some sunlight! (they are under my plant lights right now)

Zach has a new TV show he likes to watch my mini environmentalist loves the show LIving with Ed he thinks Rachelle is cranky and that Ed is funny and so cool we sent them an E-mail because Zach really wants to have lunch with Ed like the people on the show do I had to explain to Zach that the people who are having lunch with Ed have paid a lot of money to auctions where Lunch with Ed is the prize they get for thier donation. he looked kinda sad but who knows !!

GOOD NEWS a dear friend of mine (hi Nadine if you are reading this) thinks I should write a book on simple ways to go greener she also thinks Zach should write childrens books with simple pictures and tips on things kids can do to save the planet and energy and money I think it is awesome a very cool idea and now I have a billion and one things floating in my head of things to do for writing

Bad news the new to me washing machine I got off of freecycle went to pot . major bummer we have not been able to do wash for days (except by hand in the sink) sad really, Dave got the correct part ordered and we are hopeful that little league will be canceled tonight so we can get it fixed and wash clothes. baseball better get canceled the baseball uniforms are one thing that need to be washed

Good news I cleared the clog in the drain all by my lonesome I pulled a huge chunk of goo and hair out and then Zach and I put in baking soda and vinegar to clear it out good so now the tub drains really well yea me!!

Good News Dave has the money set aside to get himself a motorcycle to save on gas of course he has to learn to ride the damn thing and get a liscense and everything but it is a step in a less expensive more eco friendly option

still no word on when the heck we will be getting our pigs Dave needs to take time off to get this done and I need a day when it is not raining to fix the pen and build some crates to bring them home in
More good news this Saturday we are going to be going to a farm to check out Angora Goats they are lovely animals and from what I have read about them great pets. Also the bonus is they make Angora Mohair wool that can be carded and spun into very nice profitable yarn and the extra bonus is they can be kept in the area of the land we affectionatly call "the Pit" that has tons of weeds for them forage on. So HOW is this eco friendly ..well it keeps my gear head hubby from trying to cut down all the nasty weeds using his big stinky weed wacker and gas guzzling lawn mower !!The farm we are going to breeds these lovely animals and they can teach me lots of neat things about them I am hoping to be able to get our farm set up for two of them and if not oh well it is such a cool thing to learn about too! It is my wish to get a people powered mower you know a push reel mower I have many reasons for this that Dave just does not understand first off when I am doing yard work I am also caring for small children at the same time I prefer to be able to HEAR the children when they are talking to me it is a ROYAL PITA to have to constantly in my deafness turn off the lawnmower so I can hear the kid who has been trying to shout to me over the mower that he has a flower for me Dave says the kids need to learn to wait to talk to me I say he needs to learn to buy me the lawn mower I want $135 plus shipping and it will save us on gas give me and the kids excersise and the older boys and younger boy(Zach) can use it with ease of course Alex has no problems with the motor lawnmowers he is a big strong fellow who likes yard work but he likes the idea of a non motor one too(mostly cause I have convinced him!)

And now for some shameless cuteness these are the 4 week old kittens that our "mama kitty" AKA Lady SnowBell had they are precious 2 of them have homes now I need to find good homes for 4 more this picture is going to be made into a poster to be put up welcoming people to come have some good mousers

Rainy day ramblings

2008-06-08T17:02:00.003-05:00

What a busy week it has been here...

The boys got out of school so it is officially summer for us
Over the course of the past week and last weekend (if that makes sense to anyone you have been reading my blog too long) we have gotten the majority of the garden planted the tomatoes we wanted to keep are in the garden adn growing like mad and we planted some corn and peppers we also planted peas and spinich and lettuce (the peas and lettuce are coming up) and cucumbers and pumpkins and watermelons

we still have more to plant we got about 45 tomato plants in the ground

that is going to be a whole lot of damn tomatoes I better learn canning

today we moved the rest of the plants outside to the deck it is rainy and we are all sick of the plants taking over our space

Tim and I also took down most of the plant lights

the house looks so sparce and so lonely and so bare Oh I still have plants on the buffet table and on the garden shelf and some of the window sills but not as many as before and now the hearth is no longer covered in tomato plants instead it has some lonely dusty shop lights on it!

Our baby chicks have been delayed yet again supposedly we are going to get them this coming wednesday. We found a farmer who is getting rid of his flock so I will talk with him tonight to see how many hens that are laying now I can get I just want a dozen it will help out a great deal

I told Dave we MUST get our pigs by this weekend I am sick of waiting (see it is that instant gratification thing again)

The boys and I have tons of work to get done to make all these things happen but luckily they are home from school and willing to work to make it all happen tommorow we will clean up the "greenhouse" and start work on the raised bed flower/herb garden and perhaps have them get moving on cleaning up where the pigs are going to go

we have a broken riding lawn tractor so any mowing has to happen using a walk behind lawn mower we have a great deal of grass to cut so this takes a lot of work as well

I am hoping to get a walk behind old cutter that does not need a motor it will be easier to work with because then 4 of us can trade off on it right now only two of us are strong enough to mess with the lawn mower

Dave is fighting me on this he says "we dont need one" I say we do and we go round and round about who is right and why

I win by the way in the end no matter what he says because ...well I am me and I will get my way eventually he just likes to think he has a say so in matters so we pretend like this and I win him over using my wit my charm and by just saying

DO IT BECAUSE I SAID SO!!!

works every time

More thoughts on self sustainability

2008-06-02T07:02:00.001-05:00

I have been reading more and more and trying to do more and more and I tell you what it would be a HUGE shift to be completely self sustaining

For those thinking about this like me one thing we need to remember is that those who do go to the effort of being self sustaining and living off of only what they can produce every article or story I have read about them they all say this one thing

it did not happen overnight

The descision did not even come slowly it was not something someone wakes up with one day saying "I am going to live off the grid and produce all my own food"

I guess you could do it should you choose to We could easily live without some electrical things in our home I would happily give up the TV (I would miss discovery channel but that is about it) I would miss my computer but I could live without it and not be miserable what I would miss the most about the computer is the access to information

I would NEED a way to pump water our well is deep and has an electric pump

I would NEED a way to circulate the heat so our heating system would either need to be rethought or electric fans with the wood stove

lights I can do without (and have)

I cook better over a fire than on a stove

I would need an oven built

but that is not even the main thoughts that have run through my head the biggest things have to do with the every day objects we get so used to

while cooking I think ...how would I get _____ flour pepper sugar yeast

and that is when I check the internet

Pepper I love black pepper and use it A LOT I have a pepper mill we got for our wedding and one that was my mothers they are fabulous I have this huge thing of pepper corns and the other day while filling my mill I wondered where the heck do THESE grow? so I looked it up

You guessed it I could grow black pepper in my house I immediately showed my Dear Dave the plant and he looked around at our window sills filled with plants desperate for a garden and said "where do you think you are going to put that?"

I'd find a place the big goof seems to think that I am not thinking ahead our windows will not always be full of the other plants those are going outside and then I need greenery in my house

so I want a Pepper plant

We are still waiting on our bannana tree and our lime tree eventually we will order an orange tree and perhaps a lemon tree all in miniature (miniature being 5 - 6 feet tall) my house will then truely look like a jungle

these exotics are obviously NOT native to WI that is what is frightening to me about living a more self sustaining lifestyle while there are many wonderful fruits native to the wilds of WI some of our family favorites are not

It is not easy to think of the things we can live without I ask myself on my quest for being self sustaining would I be willing to live without chocolate?

I know I could do with LESS chocolate which is saying a great deal I love chocolate but can I live without it and not miss it terribly

Coffee is another one can I live without coffee? or Coke a Cola? (I drink one Coke a day at dinner time)

Sure there are lots of things I am willing to sacrifice for the sake of being a more self sustaining family I can make a great deal of things and I can create things easily I enjoy the challange of it all I always have. Again the journey to get to that point will take a long time and I know I am one of those instant gratification type people (as many are) so trying to slow things down to be able to appreciate the small victories is a difficult thing to do.

Today Dear Dave and I went for a walk up our hill to check on the wild strawberries I am very impatient for them to ripen and I have to catch them at just the right time before the other animals get them all we need a good hard rain to make them big and juicy I looked at the bounty we have here rasberry bushes black berry bushes wild strawberries on the hillside and apple trees and that is just the things that grow wild here I have not found any wild Asparagus this year which is a shame . however we still have quite a collection of wild plants

I need to be patient to wait for the right time for all of these things to get ripe

Our garden is almost completely in place I will type more of that another time I am tired we had so many things to finish today and we completed a lot of them