The sun after the storm

It poured rain all day yesterday. Of course, it's filling my root cellar hole with water. I guess I should have consulted the Farmers Almanac ahead of time and I would have known this wasn't a good time to dig a hole! It's gonna rain Tuesday thru Saturday of next week! LOL, oh well, we'll deal with it.

Every day a new sunflower blooms. Now that the orchard is completely wiped out and all the trees removed, it's kind of bare out there. I look forward to planting new trees in the spring and getting them done correctly.

I took the seeds from my jam making out and spread them out along the front fence line. Hopefully I'll get a stand of blackberry growing out there. It'll be a double duty stand of blackberries, food for our family and home protection for the farm. Won't be anybody coming thru that fence line, I'm still picking thorns from my arms just from berry picking!

Going to bake some fresh bread today plus 2 more pound cakes for the freezer, gotta use up those eggs a little quicker. Maybe I should hang a sign out and pick up a couple egg customers?

Once again, dp from New Kentucky Homestead is my hero for the day. He posted a link in comments everyone should read. It's an ingredient list of how manufacturers hide MSG in food. You're going to be amazed... this is the link-Truth in Labeling.

I see that the MSM is tying to pull more wool over our eyes by saying the Recession Eases, even if the economy contracts less that predicted, it still contracted! Duh, how does that calculate into the end of a Recession???? Smoke and mirrors, frankly it's all bullshit just like the unemployment figures. The continuing unemployment numbers are going down because people are exhausting their benefits! It's not a good indicator of real employment across the country. How many people still are out of work now without government benefit checks? The government isn't counting those people.... I wonder why????

Well, once again I'm going to tell you all to work on becoming more self sustained. I know, you must be getting tired of hearing me say that but it's really a geat thing. Not only is the food awesome but the feeling of freedom it gives you is almost overwhelming. The time it frees up from not having to go to the store and the money you save from not going to that store....... well, you know the rest!

My favorite part of self sustained living

Yep, you guessed it, I'm talking about growing coffee! I'm a coffee drinker, every day and multiple pots. When I was younger, I did like most people, bought coffee in a tin can or now they come in plastic tubs. I never knew that the coffee inside was such poor quality until I had a cup of fresh ground real coffee. That hooked me. I was forever on the hunt for good quality coffee beans. Then I learned I could grow my own. Oh, Heaven now! Life just became so much better! I planted my beans and tried to wait patiently for them to sprout(it takes a looooong time compared to garden vege seeds) pampered them, primped over them, meticulously fertilized them and then the miracle happened... the plant flowered! Then the beans started to form and I've got home grown coffee! Year after year, pampering them, gently cleaning the leaves, more meticulous fertilizing and more beans. I'm a very happy camper. Of course, learning to roast had it's good and bad batches until I got it mastered and had consistent results to my satisfaction. It's a learning curve like any new skill. I'm glad I went on the adventure.

As I talked about before, I had to start new coffee plants this year due to a couple of bad(very bad) kittens dirty little misdeeds. The plants are doing well and are just about ready to be seperated into their buckets to continue growing into coffee producers. I may even start another round of seed.

What got me on this kick to talk about coffee was because of dp over at the New Kentucky Homestead. dp posted about roasting and brewing whole "green" coffee beans. He's also posted a couple great links to buy coffee beans. The post is awesome, he takes you step by step thru his process along with how he brews in his Aeropress. I use a french press quite a bit, very similar to what he's got. Check it out, you'll like it and maybe it will make you want to buy some beans and try roasting yourself some! You'll be hooked if you do, you'll never go back to coffee in a can.

The Bounty of Self Sustained living

Look at the eggs! Fresh laid this morning, great big'uns! There is no grocery store on earth that has eggs this fresh. Just one of the perks of the lifestyle.

We often will eat a dozen eggs for breakfast along with sausage or bacon, fresh bread with fresh home made butter or jam. Making breakfast often takes longer than tending all the livestock on the farm and collecting the eggs does. This part of living self sustained isn't that tough.

For supper today, it will be a mixture of what's left from the cow butcher and fresh from the garden items. Some new potatoes, onion, garlic, various fresh cut herbs, tomato, green and red peppers. The meal consists of food I grew right here. No cost to me other than my time. The true definition of a free meal as in absolutely no monetary cost.

I often try to explain to the people I talk to how much money they can save by growing their own food. How small spaces can produce more than enough food for their families. I often get the reply of " I don't have the time to garden". Of course you do! Tun off the TV and you've got plenty of time. You can do this, you can eat good, healthy, chemical free and cost free food.

Even in a suburban backyard, fresh eggs are something you can have. Hens are quiet, roosters are noisy. You do not need a rooster to have fresh eggs. A few hens and you have fresh eggs every day. Of course, living in a suburban area would eliminate your opportunity to have fresh sausage, I don't think you neighbors would go for a hog in the back yard! They are kind of smelly! But, you aren't defeated, rabbits are quiet and easy to handle. They produce wonderful high protein, low fat meat quickly and make a wonderful meal.

Think about the vegetables you buy from the store. Canned or fresh, doesn't matter because you can grow all of it for yourself. If you need it canned, you can easily do that for yourself in your own kitchen. Jams, jellies, fruit cocktails, corn, mixed veges, whatever you purchase and consume. How much garlic and onion do you buy thru the year? Both are easily grown, even in containers and keep well in storage.

Once you get growing food for yourself, you can put the money you would normally spend on groceries into a jar or some other form of savings and use that money to get out of debt. Don't use the money to eat out or buy a bigger TV, get completely out of debt. No credit card bills, no mortgage, no car payment.... once you get there you'll start feeling truly free. Then we'll start working on getting off the grid and really start the money savings!

Farming stuff

The old beat up farm cat is still going strong. She's used up 8 of her 9 lives over the past 15 years and is too old to be having kittens anyway but she ran out the door and now look what we've got! She had 4 kittens on the couch. I knew it was coming when she followed me around all morning meowing at me so I put a towel up there and let her rip. Had to sit next to her so she'd stay there and get it over with.

LOL the worst part of it all was- I was working on a batch of cheddar cheese and every time I had to get up to stir curd or check temperatures, I had to get one of the kids to sit there. Kind of a trade out thing. As you can see, I got the cheddar done in good order and it's drying on the butcher block table.

Today will be a garlic cheddar day as we've eaten all of it and need some to sell. I've got a couple of regular customers now so I need to focus on cheese making more regular along with everything else going on.

We've finally seen a break in the rain, looks like just a slight chance of rain on Wednesday and clear for the rest of the week. Good news since I really need to cut some hay!

Crop reports have me a bit worried too. Seems the world is suffering a coffee, sugar and wheat crop failure. Since I don't grow sugar cane, I've been thinking about stocking some up. The price has gone up a bit lately which backs the reports. Maybe another 200lbs or so for the cellar is in order. Thankfully my little wheat patch is looking okay and is headed for harvest on time. Somehow my little metal harvester scooper thingy(guys at the coal mine made it for me) got ran over and broken so I need to come up with another one. I'm thinking I could whip one up from left over plywood if the single blade cut isn't too wide to catch the straw stalk. Tack it up in the shape of a wooden feed scoop and harvest my wheat that way. Peeling wheat one handful at a time will make for a long day!

This weekend I'll be finishing the chicken coop, I'll take pictures. I've already put some of my pullets out there, they were making too much noise in the house so out they went. Since I don't have the back wall or door on it, I banked them with straw bales. They're now big enough to jump the straw and forage but are returning every night to the coop to roost. Speaking of roosting, the door blew off the old barn stall I had my bantys in during the big storm we had last Friday. I was pretty disappointed because I could not find my bantys. No worries, they've returned and are roosting back in the stall every night! I continue to feed them like I always did in the stall so they keep roosting in there.

That about covers the farm news, don't forget about the wheat, coffee and sugar crop troubles, might be a good time to add a little to your preps and avoid higher prices.......

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!

Chicken Coop Project

ROFL, I swear, the level says it's level!!!! Here's what I got done today on the chicken coop. Notice the evil cat with the glowing eyeballs guarding it! I think it's big enough to hold my 30 laying hens. It will have a wire enclosure out the front, the man door is on the left side, windows for venting heat etc on the front and back. I'll probably put a 3 degree roof on it and catch the rain. Speaking of rain, the weather report says isolated storms tomorrow thru Thursday! That figures....

This weekends Pictures

A little bit of happenings this weekend, some work getting done with the warm and dry weather.
The last few days since I've been out and working slowly but surely on the farm, I've turned the goats and the sheep loose to run around. They've all behaved rather well, checked out the whole farm and even without fully functional perimeter fencing they've stayed close. I've got a duck that has decided she needs duck and chicklings, she's taken over a chicken nest, laid herself a few eggs and gone broody on them. Maybe she'll get s few hatched. I've got a bit done on the chicken house, being down on the ground is causing me some discomfort so it's going slower than I want it to. I also can't seem to find that whole bucket of 10p nails, guess I'll need to go pick up more. I hate going to town tho. The bunnies ae growing like mad, I've got some
New Zealand whites out of the box and those cute little smoke grey ones about 3 days from coming out. Hard to see them in the box, they blend in with Mommas hair so well.

I feel exhausted today for some reason. A trip around the barn lot and a little work on the barney mobile and I need a rest. I've got cheese going on the stove too.

Speaking of cheese, I visited some Amish neighbors that make cheese and learned tons watching them prepare a wheel of Gouda this morning. I look forward to the wheel I'm working on now.

Gardens are coming along and as stuff gets established and isn't getting pummeled by 25mph winds, I'll share some pics.......

How to be an Economic Survivalist thru Self Sustained Living

Okay, my rant is out of the way for those naysayers that think it's easy to do what I do because I've got land. The amount of land you have should not stop you from feeding yourself.

Let's get down to some stuff my city dwelling friends can use. I did a post yesterday for Illinois Prepper Network and it has pictures of backyard gardens on it. Check it out for ideas on what you can do with your backyard to feed yourself. After you get your preps in order, you need those to eat while you garden is growing, you need to get things growing. Starting seeds is simple, I have excellent luck using ziploc bags and peat pellets. It can even be done with a little soil in a bowl and some plastic wrap over it. Once the seedling is an inch or so tall, I remove it to a sunny spot to grow some more.




Then, after it grows for a while, I transplant it to a cut off pop bottle to develop roots while I'm waiting for the weather to get warmer. If you start seeds right now, by the time they are a decent size, you can skip the pop bottle and go right to outdoors with them, in the ground or in the container you plan to use. Now you're well on your way to surviving anything the economy throws at you and your ahead of the curve for living self sustained! Anytime you don't have to spend your hard earned money on something to eat, you're ahead. Wouldn't you like to not spend that 2 or 300 hundred dollars a paycheck on food? Think about all the money you spend eating out. What could you have if you saved that money?

Let's face reality, no matter how much money our government throws away, it will not magically create jobs out there for us. Life will not be improved until our country realigns itself. All we can do now is wait and make it thru the unemployment etc the very best we can. Having something good to eat right from home is so much nicer than the alternatives.






Here's my last years garden spot, it's roughly 30x40 I guess, maybe a little smaller and I planted potatoes elsewhere on the place. That garden would have fit in my backyard in Cicero, or in any of the places I lived in the city before moving down here to the country. Every plant in it will grow in any part of the USA with the exception of Alaska. Not sure if their growing season is long enough for a couple of those plants.

Anyway, my point is, everybody can do this. It will make a serious impact on the amount of money you have left over each payday and you'll be eating healthier than you could ever imagine. This is how you become an Economic Survivalist.

Sheep Shearing

I really thought this was going to turn out differently than it did. Another adventure for us. The clippers we have for the horses didn't work out quite like I expected so we did it the old fashioned way more or less. With a pair of scissors, we found out the "Copper" the sheep isn't copper, he's black! Well, we didn't know, this is our first sheep. Copper went off his feed 2 weeks ago and I have been concerned with him losing weight since he's going to be supper one of these days. So, I did a little reading and decided he was hot. 3 hours later, here is the naked sheep. I am absolutely covered in lanolin. His wool was drenched with it. At least my hands are soft now! I think Copper is happy, he's been wagging the tail we never knew he had ever since we turned him loose.....

Swimming Day

While we've watched it rain bucket loads over the past week, our ducks have swam all over the entire farm in places that should never have water. Now the farm is complete with ducklings in the bath tub! My kids thought the ducklings might need a little swim time, filled the tub a little bit and turned them loose. It's still too cold around here to put them outdoors with the rest of the ducks but their time will come soon enough. So, we'll just keep humming the rubber ducky song.......

Disgusted and disappointed

You all know from reading this blog that I am an old hand at homesteading and living the rural farm life. I've got multitudes of animals and crops here. Monday I received my replacement order of chicks in the mail. Of course, par for my luck, instead of it being nice and warm like last week, it has to be 34 degrees and snowing! 6 dead chicks at the post office. Overnight to Tuesday, 11 more died. Thru the day yesterday, I lost 2 more. I about hate to go look at them this morning, the rest should be dead if my luck holds. This is the exact same tank, same light and setting I used last spring to raise 50 chicks at once I bought from Rural King. All lived and thrived. Brooding chicks isn't very hard, keep them warm and provide feed and water! Why are all my banty chicks dying? To add insult to injury, the door of the coop in the old barn where I was keeping the mature bantys blew down in the storm we had Saturday and they are all out. Yesterday I found the roo and 3 of the 5 hens but could not catch them. At dark, I could not find a single one. So, I may not even have any mature bantys now. I am down to 6 mature mixed laying hens now and hubby still hasn't brought home a single pallet from the coal mine for me to build the chicken house. We simply do not have the money to buy new lumber.

But on a brighter note, today is the first day since last Saturday that I woke up without back spasms! Still really stiff but not a single spasm yet and I've been up an hour!

The goats found freedom yesterday, they were running around in the barn lot. Still not sure how they got out unless they simply climbed out. They ran right up to me and followed me right back in the barn. They aren't quite gentled down yet, I didn't play with them all last week with my back misbehaving but they know who feeds them! The sheep is still alive, I moved him in the barn before the storm and realized we've not been feeding him quite enough. Under all that wool is a skinny sheep! So, his feed has been increased and we're aiming for 2 weeks to butcher. I need the time anyway to get my back going in the right direction....

At least the cheese wheels are drying a rind like they are supposed to. Something is going right!

Every day worries

Evey single day I can find some piece of MSM that worries me about the future. I give up, I'm not reading any more news stories. I just won't be up on all the "current events". Let's face it folks, we're in a tight spot. Jobs are not going to magically appear just because the President says "have faith" or "the recession is over" or some other pile of cow offal he thinks we're going to believe. Things are NOT going to improve, the jobless rate continues to increase. Everything we all are currently buying with our hard earned, taxed to death dollars is going to continue to cost us more and more.

So, what do I plan to do to combat these things? What I always do, grow my own food! We just suffered, and I mean suffered(rods in my back told me so) thru a nice little cold spell with a bit of freezing rain. No worries tho, I've got all my warm weather plants going good indoors in the sunny kitchen windows. The cold weather stuff didn't even notice. Onions and garlic are still going strong, still waiting on the lettuce(seed might be bad). If the lettuce doesn't pop up by the end of the week, I'll replant some.

I've still got a good supply of food I grew last year in the pantry so I'm not real upset over when I'll get produce so that leaves me some time to enjoy the plants growing. I am out of onions and potatoes tho.....

It's time to decide which way you want to go. Do you want to continue to try to buy all your food and possibly not have enough because of prices or shortages due to world drought(read your almanac) or will you grow your own? You're running out of time to decide...


Stay safe and keep prepping!

Feeling wore out

Yep, that's it, I just feel wore out. My mind is so full of MSM garbage topped off by a full helping of the O-man's cowshit propaganda; my eyeball twitches now. I've been listening to my idiot neighbors waste a couple thousand rounds of what sounds like 9mm ammo since Friday afternoon. At least the weather has been nice, yesterday was a bit windy with that storm pushing in on us, the one that dumped all the snow on Denver. It started the downpour around 6pm yesterday and rained pretty much all night. Everything looks pumped up and green today so that's good!

I've got small projects lined up left and right here, still working on finishing the laundry room and now the crappy, cheapass counter island drawers are falling apart. Just what I need. Wasn't planning on building a new kitchen island until more toward May or June. It's behind the chicken shed and pen and the goat shed. Maybe even behind the new barn lean-to!

Got the truck fixed, at least it appears to be fixed. The tranny yoke seems to have caused a bunch of small troubles with the truck but now that it's replaced to the tune of $450, most of the complaints have disappeared. Still haven't hooked the trailer to it yet. Spent half a day Monday pacing at the car dealer waiting on it.

This week is fill the cheese cave week. Made a big block of cheddar cheese, it's still got another 24 hours in the press. Good thing I whipped up that home made press since today I'm needing to make some eating cheese( I'm out completely) and I want to try some cottage cheese too. Gonna make another block of cheddar tomorrow and prolly Monterey Jack on Friday.

Did I tell ya's that I made another round of apple butter? I had a batch failure last week and it bugged me so I had to do it again. Guess you can't double the batch and have it work right ;) live and learn...

I'm watching for Morral(sp?) mushrooms now, I've got a couple of spots on the farm that grow them every year. I figure I'll dehydrate most of them this year instead of giving them away to people I know. They'll fit nicely in the preps for cooking later on.

The wild asparagus is nubbed up, that's something I don't eat but will put a couple bucks in the preps kitty, I have several people that buy it from me every year.

Well, guess that's all that's new here, so stay safe and keep prepping!

More spring fever

It's time to think spring here. Some of the plants I normally grow each year require up to 60 days for germination. For instance, I need to grow at least 20 coffee plants to cover my yearly coffee drinking habit. The beans need soaked overnite and then up to 60 days to germinate depending on temperature, moisture etc. I like the plastic ziplock bag method in combination with an old terrarium heater. My windows leak thanks to a couple of nasty ice storms and I've had trouble with the seedlings dying from drafts. So I'm hoping the heater will help.

Along with the coffee, I've got some peppers, cucumber, tomatoes, cardamom and various herbs started. I'm ready for spring to get here!


Keep preppin!

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!

What's for dinner?

I was on the list, last on the list as a matter of fact, to get a couple lambs out of a trailer load. The 4-H kids had first dibs and I ended up with "Copper", a just about ready to butcher sheep. Not one to look a "gift sheep" in the mouth, I was thrilled to have him even if he wasn't what I had in mind. Now, I am a big advocate of the self sustained living ideal, I live it and so I preach it. I've never butchered a sheep before tho, it should be an interesting exercise. I'm going to let "Copper" calm down for a bit, get gentled a bit so when I do get set to butcher him, I won't have a freaked out carcass full of endorphins that make the meat rank.

Off to the barn........

Wheat flour and baking bread

Let's talk bread, self sustained living style. Flour is what we need to bake bread and the main grain for flour is wheat. Hard wheat, soft wheat, red or white, winter or spring. Even a cheap grain mill will give you flour you can use to bake bread. Growing wheat is pretty easy and you can get quite a bit from small growing areas.

Okay, we've got our wheat and it's ground up into a nice batch of flour. Now what? Now we get out our bread recipe. Measure carefully then mix your ingedients. Kneading your dough pulls the bread together and makes it so the dough can trap the bubbles that give the bread structure. It makes for a good texture and ensures your bread won't turn into the heavy, flavorless brick. Now for the rise time. This is when the yeast feeds on the starches in your wheat flour, releasing gases giving your bread it's lift. Let it double in size. Now, the punch down which is what remixes the yeast and allows it to find new "food". Gently press down on the dough and fold it over on itself. Form your loaf and set it for it's next rise before baking. When it's risen to what you want, bake that bread.
I personally like a pizza stone on the bottom rack of my oven. It holds heat more evenly than the oven does on it's own. Makes a better crust. I suggest removing your bread from the pan right away and cooling it on a wire rack. It allows the moisture to escape during cooling, preventing a soggy bottomed loaf.

I found a bread recipe over at the Hillbilly Housewife website I have linked on the sidebar, it is the basic beginners bread recipe and it works out extremely well with home ground flour.

Happy baking!

Cooking without modern conveniences

Before anyone gets all excited, that is NOT my oven. I do have the complete plans for it and have more than half my blocks accumulated already. I got the plans free from FornoBravo's website. In the spring I will pour my concrete pad and get to work building it so I won't have to cook in the house and rely on electric or gas anymore.

I am pretty familiar with outdoor cooking, I almost never cook in the house during the spring/summer/fall. As long as it's not raining, I'm cooking outside with my cast iron. It's a skill I most strongly recommend everyone should learn. Hand in hand with cooking outdoors is the skill of starting a fire quickly without using starter fluids, etc. We all need to learn these skills just in case. With a little effort and patience, one can learn to easily control temperatures for specific cooking needs.

Along with the traditional bread oven, I will be building a wood fired grill/cook range. The design is solid in my mind and I have worked out a floor plan on paper for it that appears like it will work out well.

So, while we're all prepping( we ARE all prepping right?) consider how you'll cook all that food you've stocked up if the power fails. A ready to go outdoor cook pit is a good idea! Don't forget pots and pans, cast iron is the way to go. Not all indoor pots and pans will work well for wood fired cooking. Also remember your camp fire coffee pot!

Planted seed of inspiration

This post was inspired by something I read over at the Johnson Family Farm blog. Never thought about posting about soap until Johnson's made some soap using the tried and true melt and pour method. They did a good job, the pictures are great. My last melt and pour attempt didn't come out anything like that. Good job Johnsons!

I started my quest to make soap because my daughter hit puberty and was covered with acne. Store bought remedies were not working and were just plain expensive wastes of time. We tried every kind of soap made and nothing helped. It took around 3 weeks or so I guess for her skin to clear up and she's been blemish free ever since. We've never bought another commercial bar of soap again. Guess it's just one of those things we do and don't think about, like doing laundry or washing dishes.

Memories of days gone by

I often miss living in Chicago simply for the food. I grew up in an Italian/Greek/Irish/Bohemian community and did we ever eat! My Gramps had a double lot for his home and the one whole lot was a great big garden. Gramps used to give me a quarter for every rabbit I shot with the pellet gun. I'd go to the corner market and buy ice cream with the money. Grandma cooked those rabbits with gravy and dumplings my brother fondly called "sinkers". Bohemian flour and egg dumplings, they go great with roasted pork loin.

Those foods I can easily duplicate on the farm. I raise the rabbits and the occasional hog. That's not what I've been craving tho. I have the urge to have a big fat greasy Gyros, true Greek style comfort food with the cucumber sauce and onions. One can simply not find something like that in southern Illinois. So, I hunted down a lamb so I could try to duplicate those fond memories of years gone by....

Alas, my search ends at my Amish neighbors' place. He has a couple sheep on his place. He doesn't eat them, he shears them and uses the sheep as lawn mowers! I bartered him out of a lamb and he delivered it to me this morning. The man looked around my farm and said to me "You don't need a lawn trimmer, why do you want a lamb?" Needless to say, he stuck around for the dispatch of the lamb, he did not believe I was really going to eat it. I hope I did as gentle a job as my Scottish Grandmother did. Anywho, I mixed up my ground lamb with a little deer meat and some fresh herbs I grow in containers in my windows. I just pulled the steaming pan of my concoction out of the oven and sliced myself some. Not quite Petes Gyros on Roosevelt in Cicero, but close enough! I even managed to whip some cucumber sauce up from fresh sour cream I made yesterday. Now I need to learn to make pita bread.....


Ah, the fond memories of childhood and the dreams of eating all those wonderful things again on the farm........


Oh, I almost forgot, the recipes for both the meat and the Gryos cucumber sauce came from Allrecipies.com, it's a great source for good recipes.