Busy Day

 How's that redneck saying go?  You know you're a redneck of you've got 15 goats under the porch?  Yep, that's the new hang out.  It's been 98F here the last couple of days and the cool, damp soil under the porch is the "spot".

 Here's Furrball, headed out the front door for the daily adventure.  This one is the only kitten to survive the mystery virus.  He's still a little bit snotty but much better than he's been and actually gaining weight now.

I need to set up the tomato cage today.  The one row is getting pretty darn big in the wood chip mulch section.  I also need to pull the weeds in the next couple of rows, lay down cardboard and get wood chips laid down.  The Hopi tobacco is already flowering and didn't get but 18" tall.  This is the first time I've grown it so I don't know if it's the soil, the temperature (dang hot quick this year) or something else i did to make it bolt like a cauliflower in mid summer.

All week I've been piddling around the farm pouring sweat all week, half heartedly cleaning up stuff the goats have made messes of.  The barns (hay and straw bales they broke and scattered) the firewood piles (they climb on and knock all over) and set up a nice spot in the shade near the horse paddock for the preppers meet up this weekend.

I was pretty nervous about hosting it but it ended up being a pretty relaxing day. 14 people rsvp'd for it but only 8 showed up. Funny how the city folks didn't show. Everybody that did attend is already working in some way to grow or raise food.

It was 98F but a nice breeze blew all day and I had the meeting/relaxing/BBQ area set up in a shaded area just off the horse paddock. The puppies behaved and even Sissy goat was well behaved!

I dug around in the compost pile but nobody wanted to dig in it with me, LOL. I showed different stages of decomposition, we discussed whats good to put in the pile and alternatives for getting things such as meat scraps etc into the compost without ruining the natural flora.

We toured the small gardens here on the farm and discussed weeds, mulching, moisture retention. We never did get across to the big garden tho. it's okay, it was really hot and sweaty in the sun anyway.

We played with the grain grinder and discussed wheats, gluten, fiber content, best ways to mix different kinds of wheat for the beast bread results, how to actually get the best flour from the grinder, different grain mill options and models.

We looked at my canners, the ball blue book and discussed some canning techniques.

We had a good discussion on chickens. Not hard to do with so many running around the farm, LOL

We petted on the cow and discussed milking, milk handling and what to do with all the milk.

We messed with the rabbits a bit and I tried to actually go ahead and butcher one but nobody wanted to do it. Guess they saw my whack and peel video, LOL

My friend/neighbor from up the road and fellow prepper/farmer (http://thunder5ranch.com) brought out a half hog he butchered for the meetup and cooked it on the spot. A couple early arrivals also got to join me for late breakfast, I cooked steak on the grill with a wood fire. You just cant describe the taste difference to someone who has never eaten a real piece of meat cooked with a little skill over an open fire. We cooked taters and corn on an open fire pit I threw together (all old cinder blocks we had laying around) and had a discussion about why cinder block explodes in fire and why these didn't crack etc.


Great discussion over the meal about life, economic collapse, inflation, recession, the middle east, our country in general.

Next one I do, I'll spend more time cleaning up the farm, LOL Mower broke down on me and other things I had to do this past week and I just didnt get to everything I wanted to clean up but hey, it's life, its a farm.

Oh yah, it's that time of year again! It's down right cold overnight now, with temperatures heading toward the mid 20's for the end of this week. I am so not ready to be busting ice in November! But, what can you do other than just go with the flow.

Speaking of cold, have you read next years farmers almanac? Hmmm, cooler than normal and dry all thru the growing season. Might make for some poor crops next season. I hate to think we will see 2 years of drought. The way the almanac is reading, I won't get my warm crops out til mid June! That simply will not do! I will be applying some new techniques to keep the plants warm and growing this coming season.....

ARG, i still owe $500 on the milk cow so it's going to be a while before i get it home and milking for me.

I moved and restacked the 200 bales of hay in the big barn this weekend. I needed to clean up the pile a bit and move it down where I had some room to put the indoor goat pen back in the barn corner. I got a bit of a surprise about half way thru it. 2 possums hiding under a wood pallet! now I know what's been happening to all the chicken eggs! poor Polar Bear had been getting the suspicious looks. I killed one and she killed the other. I am already back up to a dozen eggs a day. I was only finding 3 or 4!

I'm back into the no kits thing. The rabbits have all been bred but no kits. I had this trouble a couple years ago too. I still don't know for sure what it is that causes that. maybe it's the weather change, maybe something else. I just keep breeding and waiting. Sooner or later I'll get a round of kits!

A friend has given me a whole stack of Taste of Home magazines so I'm sure to be cooking up something good this week.........

Self Sustained Urban Living

As many of us have realized, things are getting pretty expensive lately. Fuel and food take up most of our paychecks. Life in the fast lane of Blackberries, fast food and video gaming is getting harder. Some would say that is a good thing. Either way you like it, something has got to give.

I can help you with the grocery bill no matter where you live, even in condos and apartments. It is not difficult to grow things such as tomatoes and peppers, lettuce, cucumbers, even melons in small spaces and containers! A sunny spot is all you need. If you don't have a sunny spot, a florescent light or 2 will do.

For people living in rental homes, you can expand a little with a small chicken coop built like a dog pen or even rabbits in wooden hutches. The hutches even work well for a few chickens. Remember tho, if you have crabby neighbors, don't get a rooster! It's also a good idea to check your city or town ordinances to make sure having chickens doesn't violate some unknown law because you don't want to have to get rid of you egg layers as soon as you get them settled in. Chickens are daylight sensitive and lay an egg every 24 to 28 hours so plan accordingly for your egg consumption. Just 6 hens give me 3 dozen eggs a week, give or take an egg here or there.
In an 8x10 coop with a 10x10 run, I have 10 to 14 fresh eggs every day and fresh meat whenever I want some chicken. How to kill a chicken will be another days post.

Remember my post on raised bed gardens? For those of you that have the opportunity to make a raised bed, I forgot to mention how easy they are to maintain! It is easy to cover the garden in the fall with grass clippings, even newspaper or paper sacks, anything organic that will decompose, kill off the weeds, add to the nutrient value of the soil and keep your soil easy to turn. Just one small raised bed garden here produces literally hundreds of pounds of healthy, pesticide free food for my family.

Now to rabbits- I keep 4 does and 1 buck, I breed every other month for 32 to 40 kits for the table. Rabbit is high protein, low fat and can be served up just like any chicken recipe you have.
Rabbits don't make any noise, their manure is high in nitrogen, phosphorus and potash and can be used right out of the rabbit, no composting needed. It will not burn your plants like cow, horse or chicken will. Rabbit is a win win situation! Small spaces work out well as a medium sized meat rabbit needs just 2'x2' to stay healthy and produce for you.

All these things add up to savings. Think about how much money you spend on food stuffs like meat and veges. Canning is easy to do and cooking is just as easy. Think about how much money you spend eating out. A healthy and tasty meal can be whipped up in your own kitchen for a third of the price if not cheaper than that, for just 20 minutes or so of your time. Plus, you get to spend a little quiet time at home relaxing while you do it! Don't under estimate the stress relief of producing your own food.

Self Sustained Living-Cooking with what you've got

Here's supper for today. It's a nice deer meat sauce with some pasta. Simple to whip up and everybody enjoys it. Just throw some stuff from the garden in the pot. Diced tomatoes, some tomato sauce I made with the squisher thingy, some dehydrated sweet peppers, oregano, rosemary, thyme, some diced onions and of course the meal maker- browned ground deer meat. I like to let my sauce simmer for a while to blend the flavors and cook off extra water from the tomatoes and sauce. I sometimes put chopped up dehydrated mushrooms in too but hubby doesn't much care for them. Just an example of a simple and tasty meal you can whip up easily. This meal also works pretty darn good on a wood fire.

How about the Christmas presents under the tree? 2 cats and a dog, hmmmm, can I exchange those? hahahaha Ole' Polar Bear wants to make sure those cats don't steal the tree I guess...

There's some cold weather coming in on us again with a hint of a snow flurry on Saturday. This might get interesting. Snow cover is better than ice any day.

Dodging the Bullet

Whew, the severe winter weather that was full of ice and snow went north of us. We did have some nasty winds and it's pretty darn cold now but I'll take sunny and cold over 2' of snow anyday!

So, what are we doing around the farm today? Oh, the usual stuff- feeding the animals, chopping a little firewood and baking bread. Plus my all time favorite winter passtime of garden dreaming. Yes, I know it's just December but it's never the wrong time to be thinking about and making plans to start those precious seedlings for a new garden.

The garden is the very heart of this self sustained lifestyle. Without the garden, all I would be is a consumer. Buy it, use it up and buy some more. Breaking that cycle wasn't easy since it's what we all grew up believing was normal. I choose to feed myself and accept the responsibility and all the work that goes with it. So, I must constantly think about last years garden and how i can improve my yields. What worked good and what didn't work so good. Like my potato crop for instance. I also constantly work on how I can beat Mother Nature. What? Yep, I am always trying to get around her, every chance I can get! I want my plants to hit the garden and produce as quickly as I can make them. The sooner I can get tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, etc, the more I will have for the table. How do I do that? I start my seeds early, way before the last frost in the kitchen window garden. It takes up a bunch of space and usually by planting time, my kitchen is literally taken over by plants. I have a small table full plus a variety of shelves and the "indoor garden" always ends up sprawling over to the dinner table and my counters. It's lots of work tending and watering all those plants but if I didn't do that, I'd not have ripe tomatoes before July around here.

Sounds like a big fuss, doesn't it? It would be if I didn't have that whole line of southern exposure windows. Is it worth it? I think it is. Eating only from what you grow isn't a small accomplishment. It takes 20 tomato plants producing full time to cover just the sauce, paste and diced tomatoes we consume in the course of a year. If my first red tomato doesn't come until July, that just gives me 3 1/2 to 4 months to produce enough to last the 9 months until the next round of tomato plants start producing.

Self sutained living isn't any different than the way everyone lives, we just don't go out and buy what we need, we create it for ourselves. Yes, it takes more time and effort to do it for ourselves and sometimes it's no so much fun but in the end, it's worth it. If it weren't for my dedication to doing it for myself, I would most likely be among the thousands across the country in mortgage default right now. Growing my own food has allowed us to stretch what little money we have much, much longer than what it would for people that are consumer based. All the animals here are fed from what we can produce. In turn, that gives us free chicken, free eggs, free rabbit, free sheep, free pork, free beef, plus free produce! When all you have is $100 to make it the whole month, that sure does mean a bunch! Especially when fuel is $2.80 a gallon...

Tired out

No clever thoughts today, I'm too wore out. Taking on a whole new set of farm chores in addition to my own has just plum beat me down. Guess I'm not a spring chicken anymore. I have officially decided that I like cows much better when they are somebody elses and I can go home when I'm tired out! hahahaha

I should be cutting hay but I can't seem to drag myself out to the tractor.

I cut the Farmhouse Cheddar today and I've decided I really like it. Not quite as much as the regular cheddar but it is mighty tasty. I think I will add it to the regular schedule of cheese making.

I got all the monthly bills paid yesterday and there's no money left. I really hate that. I still haven't managed to finish the chicken house or get any blocks for the root cellar. Good thing I'm so dang frugal or we might be a bit uncomfortable! Still, it's hard to go out and feed those chickens every day and look at that half finished chicken house when all I need is a lousy $50 in supplies.

Oh, I almost forgot... the garden is acting like it's mid October. Plants are slowing way down and starting to die back. Even the beans are dying back on me with half filled pods. It's kind of weird. The tomatoes and peppers are still doing well and I'm pleased with that, been dehydrating the peppers and setting the tomatoes up to be canning into sauce about every other day now. Al least we'll have plenty of sauce for chili, stews and italian dishes. All good winter meals for a hungry family.

Coffee growing progress

I know, it's been a while since I talked about my favorite thing-coffee plants. Coffee has got to be the very most trying plant a gardener can start. Not because it's hard to do, but because it takes sooooo long to see results. Here they are, 8 of the 9 I started. The 9th could still yet pop up.

This round is for replacement plants for the old coffee plants my winter round of kittens so graciously killed for me. I stated them in one of those cheapie plastic food containers and just kept the soil moist with a daily spritzing from a water bottle. I kept the container on a shelf offset from the windows so it was not in direct sunlight. I did not cover the container, just kept it moist. It took 68 days for the first bean to sprout up.

As they grow, I will post updates on the progress.....

unemployment musings- economic survival

Like a fool, I clicked on this story and read it this morning. From Ordering Steak and Lobster, to serving it It's a wall street journal story so I knew it would ruffle my feathers a little, but still I clicked on it. Here's a fellow that was making 200k a year on wall street, complaining about having to take a job beneath him to feed his family. 25k a year is still 480 a week. That's double the $224 a week average paycheck around here! This fellow is upset because he used to eat in the same restaurant and spend $200 on a bottle of wine. Now he serves it.

Why is it that living frugal seems like such a bad or dirty thing? I eat steak all the time! Of course, I prepare it for myself instead of paying someone else to do it for me. It comes from the cow I fed out right here on the farm with food I grew, no chemicals or antibiotics and it doesn't hang in a meat locker for 6 months. Even if I took it to a butcher, it would still cost me less than $2 a pound for the whole cow. I live frugal but that doesn't mean my home is messy or run down. The things I use on my farm every day are well kept and maintained. The grass is mowed and my mailbox looks just like theirs.

Consumerism is a mindset just like frugality is. Just because you have money to spend, that doesn't mean you need to spend it on things you simply don't need! I splurge a little, I spend money each pay on a couple packs of chocolate and I buy the good toilet paper. LOL nothing worse than wiping with sand paper! hehehehe some things you just have to have.

Let's face it folks, the Obama Stimulus package isn't helping us little people. At least 3 million jobs (read that figure in a news article a week or so ago) have already been lost and there's nothing being created to replace those jobs. The DOW can go up all it wants, it's not making any jobs either. The more frugal we think, the better we will make it thru this poor economic trend. Even in a small city backyard, enough food can be grown to cut your grocery bill substantially. Why pay $2.50 for a cantalope you can grow? A $1 a can for name brand diced tomatoes or green beans. These vegeatables grow easily even in a 5 gallon bucket! Instead of buying the latest ipod or cell phone, buy a bag of fertilizer and some potting soil and grow yourself some money. It is growing money, everything you produce yourself is money in your pocket you didn't have to spend!



PS- it's raining here, again!!!!!!!

Self Sustained Living = Survival

I read something this morning that disturbed me a little. No, it wasn't something about the new Swine Flu(Mexican Flu), it was on the economy and spending trends for the first Q of the year. The title of the article is Economy Shrinks 6.1% in 1Q. The article goes on to state that people have spent money on big-ticket "durable" goods, including cars, furniture and household appliances led the increase. That spending rose at a 9.4 pace, the most in a year. Consumers also boosted spending on clothing, shoes, recreation services, medical care, gasoline and other energy products. But not on food, where spending dipped slightly.

Not on food? This article tells me people continue to be oblivious to the obvious. I guess 12.1% unemployment isn't worrying those that still have jobs for now. Those people aren't worried about eating, they can still pay to eat out every night.

The report still has dire warnings on overall economic performance. When will we (our government) admit that the billions of tax payer dollars they spent did nothing to help us? The gov keeps saying "just wait, it'll be good", how long are we supposed to be deceived by this? Have any of the unemployed found gainful employment yet? I'm not talking about a job that pays substantially less than what you used to make so you can get by...

Living self sustained will help you live healthier and happier. It takes some work but it's worth it. I have the option of having a bit of land. I can bale hay for my large animals but for my family and my small animals, I grow what we need on a spot roughly equal to a standard Chicago suburban back yard. The spot I grow feed in for the large animals is about a 1/2 acre. So there's no reason why anyone can't feed themselves in the city. Whatever you spend on food each week will be money you can save for things such as your house payment.

This is not hard to do. This is actually quite simple. The containers can be purchased for less than the price of a movie ticket. You can even use water caught from the downspout from your gutters. Set it in a sunny spot, keep it watered and eat. Even your backyard chickens will appreciate them, they'll gladly eat them too!

Monterey Jack day

Well, I been at it again. Since this wacked out weather has me down in the back and stuck in the house, I figured I might as well do something constructive. Not being able to bend down or sit down limited what I was going to do so I made a few batches of Monterey Jack cheese. So fa it looks right, LOL. Ya never know tho.

Are you kidding me?

I was just reading this story from yahoo news... it says 1 in 10 Americans getting food stamps. The title of the article is Food Stamp list swells to record 32.2 million... How depressing is that? I have a chip on my shoulder when it comes to welfare, I could rant for hours. Here in rural southern Illinois, I see the program abused and I see lazy ignorant people reaping the benefits of others' hard work. I also see the government not doing anything about the abuse, they turn a blind eye to it here. I'll quit this subject now or I'll go off on a 2 hour rant.

Here's something else I read today I'd like to share with you today. It's also from yahoo news, it's about how Wall Street could be indicating a bottom to the recession. It's called New Signs Emerge That Recession may be Near Bottom. I read the article and it seemed to me that the author contradicted himself all thru it. If the wealthy spend some money but the jobless rate keeps going up, how is that a bottom to the recession???? If those of us that qualify as "working poor" (anybody making less than $40,000.00 a year) can't buy food without foodstamps, how is this a sign of things getting better? I just don't get this at all. 10% of the workforce in this country is collecting unemployment. There's no count of the people that have exhausted their benefits and are still out of work.

My family is working poor. We work hard for what we've got and I do my very best to make sure we eat well without the aid of the government. With the help of my son, I provide our food with blood sweat and tears. I am disabled as well. We do not collect any type of government aid. If I can do this, anybody can do this.

We've got a storm headed our way, due to run over the top of us any time now. My back is so stiff and sore, I can hardly breathe. I look forward to it passing us by so I can get back to business as usual. I'm milking cows for my neighbor for the next couple of days, they're out on a calf buying trip. I love the calves, if it's not pouring rain, I'll get a pic or 2 for you all to see.


Stay safe and get growing something!

Getting ready for spring

Okay, we had snow yesterday here, it was melted by late afternoon. Today is cold and sunny. I couldn't take it, I started 120 Yellow of Parma onion seeds. Parma is an excellent keeper in cold storage and has a light sweet but oniony flavor. I'd show you a picture of them but my daughter isn't home from her weekend away with my camera.

We're roughly 6 weeks from our last estimated frost date here so seeds will be started about every day here for plants I intend on transplanting. Corn and beans etc will be direct planted.

Now is a good time to get those container plants going too. They'll be strong enough to go out and get producing by the last frost.

Garden days are coming quick!

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!

Cooking with what you grow

I needed a distraction today so I went thru the kitchen with comfort food on my mind. I whipped this neat little dish up from things I have grown on the farm.

I guess for the lack of a better name, it's an egg pie. I just whipped up some pie crust dough, pressed it into a spring form pan(cheesecake pan) and then went to fixing the stuff. I used about a cup and a half of the cream I skimmed off the milk yesterday, 6 eggs from my chickens, some green onions growing in my window garden that I chopped real fine and cooked until clear in some home made butter, some ham from the hog I butchered(I pan fried it and chopped it up into teenie pieces) and shredded a couple handfuls of cheese off the block of home made cheddar. I poured the egg mix into the crust, set the oven on 350 and threw it in there for 50 minutes. It actually came out pretty good! It has a light, sweet taste to it.

I'd imagine you could probably put about anything you wanted into the mix and it would still come out good. A nice alternative to eating eggs and bacon/sausage with biscuits every day.

Everything in this dish with the exception of the shortening I used in the crust and the salt I added to the eggs was grown on the farm( milk came from neighbors farm). I think it's a keeper.

Canned butter adventure

I'd give credit if I could remember who it was that wrote the post with this idea and a link to Green Apple Orchards blog for the directions on how to do this neat little project. Hermit just canned himself a batch so I felt a little left out ;). Just a 1lb batch of home made brown swiss cow butter in half pint jars for my pantry. I was distracted during the process by hubby who took my kitchen over for a while and the butter cooled down too much to shake/mix so I had to put it in the oven at 170 for a few minutes to fix it. Seals stayed good thru it, I re-shook the jars until cooled properly, all seems as it should be. I'm counting this as a success!

Self Sustaining Living- Holiday Meal and a realization

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Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone and I found myself short on a few things needed for the meal that my containers could not handle. So, I ran out to the local Sav-a-lot(box store) for a few things. I picked up 5 tomatoes, head of celery, 4 green peppers, 2 cucumbers and a bag of carrots. The total was $16.54! Now, this is from the local discount grocery! One more plant of each variety plus a celery plant or 2 and I would not have had to spend that
money. These items would have normally been off my own container plants for the every day meals I prepare for the 4 of us and fed us well for 2 days worth of meals. So, using that as an example,growing these things for myself would save my family $50 a week.What??? $50 extra a week??? That's not something to sneeze at, that's $200 a month, or $2,400 a year! That's a decent amount of money we could be fixing something that's broken around the farm with or just plain saving for a rainy day.

Self Sustained living

As many of us have realized, things are getting pretty expensive lately. Fuel and food take up most of our paychecks. Life in the fast lane of Blackberries, cell phones, fast food and video gaming is getting harder. Some would say that is a good thing. Either way you like it, something has got to give.

I can help you with the grocery bill no matter where you live, even in condos and apartments. It is not difficult to grow things such as tomatoes and peppers, lettuce, cucumbers, even melons in small spaces and containers! A sunny spot is all you need. If you don't have a sunny spot, a florescent light will do. You don't need to waste your money on the "grow lamp" bulbs, the white light bulbs do just fine. If you don't feel like that is going to do it for you, you can always use the bulbs designed for fish tanks, readily available at Lowes or Home Depot.

For people living in rental homes, you can expand a little with a small chicken coop built like a dog pen or even rabbits in wooden hutches. The hutches even work well for a few chickens. Remember tho, if you have crabby neighbors, don't get a rooster! Chickens are daylight sensitive and lay an egg every 24 to 28 hours so plan accordingly for your egg consumption. Just 6 hens give me 3 dozen eggs a week, give or take an egg here or there.
In an 8x10 coop with a 10x10 run, I have 4 to 6 fresh eggs every day and fresh meat whenever I want some chicken. How to kill a chicken will be another days post.

Remember my post on raised bed gardens? For those of you that have the opportunity to make a raised bed, I forgot to mention how easy they are to maintain! It is easy to cover the garden in the fall with grass clippings, even newspaper or paper sacks, anything organic that will decompose, kill off the weeds, add to the nutrient value of the soil and keep your soil easy to turn. Just one small raised bed garden here produces literally hundreds of pounds of healthy, pesticide free food for my family.

Now to rabbits- I keep 2 does and 2 bucks, I breed every other month for 12 to 18 kits for the table. Rabbit is high protein, low fat and can be served up just like any chicken recipe you have.
Rabbits don't make any noise, their manure is high in nitrogen, phosphorus and potash and can be used right out of the rabbit, no composting needed. It will not burn your plants like cow or horse or chicken will. Rabbit is a win win situation! Small spaces work out well as a medium sized meat rabbit needs just 2'x2' to stay healthy and produce for you.

All these things add up to savings. Think about how much money you spend on food stuffs like meat and veges. Canning is easy to do and cooking is just as easy. Think about how much money you spend eating out. A healthy and tasty meal can be whipped up in your own kitchen for a third of the price if not cheaper than that, for just 20 minutes or so of your time. Plus, you get to spend a little quiet time at home relaxing while you do it!