The Big Weenie

Hahahahahaha, I bet you thought this was a perverted post!

I finally got around to finishing the butcher job on the hog in the freezer. Well, one half of it anyway. Home grown pork turned into home made breakfast sausage! This has been a very pleasant Valentines Day, hubby and my son both got in on this project. We've spent the afternoon laughing and messing around while we're getting the job done. That's what being a self sustained farm is all about!



Stay safe and keep prepping!

Sustainable Living with our Habits

Recent conditions created by our government via it's brilliant bailout plan hopefully has you thinking about how much LESS money you're going to have soon if you don't conform to mainstream stupidity. Myself, I am down right pissed off by the fact that a single group of people can force legislation on the rest of us. What am I talking about? Smoking bans and increased taxes put directly on smokers. Hermit wrote a nice blog about it that includes how much our government intends to squeeze out of a small group of people to pay for it's socialist plans.

So, how do we fight back? For me, that's simple since I've been doing it for a couple of years already. Grow your own. Tobacco is not hard to grow, at least here it isn't. It grows like a weed. I like rustic girls webpage for growing directions and wikipedia for a good understanding of how to use what you grow.

There's tons of website out there that will sell you tobacco seeds. What I grow is pretty hardy, drought tolerant and takes the heat and humidity well. There's even types of tobacco that grow well in Canada. If you smoke or like to chew, you might want to plant yourself a little tobacco to support your habit or you may be using your hard earned money to support others instead.

Stay safe and keep Prepping!

Thinking Spring

It's almost spring and I'm really trying hard to resist the urge to get seeds started. It's still a bit early here.

I got some new seed ordered today along with some new potato varieties I'd like to try. I know lists make peoples eyes cross, but I thought I'd share what I grow here every year anyway.

The farm produces:
lettuce, kale, carrots, radish, peppers-hot and sweet, cucumbers, 5 varieties of tomato,4 varieties of corn, pumpkins, 3 varieties of squash, brussels sprout,broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, 4 varieties of potato, peas, 3 varieties of melon, onions, garlic, 3 varieties of beans, sunflower, various herbs, coffee and tobacco.

The farm also produces peaches, apples, pears, strawberries and blackberries.

The ground here now that the snow and ice has melted(it's 60 degrees today) is like mush with rain in the forecast about every day for the next week. The planting prep for the gardens can not be done until the ground is half way dried out. No sense in carrying off half of my humus on my boots and tools! Even areas of the arm not set up as gardens produce some of the bounty. Around walkways, along the house and barns, anywhere a touch of sunshine hits is fair game here.

So for now, I will do my best to resist the urge to start my seeds and just dream about the warm spring days and the coming bounty....

Stay safe and keep prepping! For my readers in Illinois, join me over at Illinois Preppers Network

Soap Day Revisited

Back on January 10th, hubby and I made a batch of soap using whole, unskimmed cows milk. I wasn't very pleased with it and had my doubts about how it would finish out. It's not been near enough time for the curing but I couldn't wait. I tested the soap and it's cured enough to not burn the hide off me. The scent I used in it faded out nicely, you can smell it while you are using it but it does not noticed after your bath on your skin. It made nice, compact bubbles, rinsed clean and leaves your skin baby butt soft!

I'm pretty pleased with it overall now. It ended up a darker color than the batch normally produces but the milk did scald a bit during the process. I would have liked it to make more bubbles so an experiment into "super fatting" the batch next time is in order.

I'm counting this batch as a success. Keep on prepping!