Teasing rain and thanks

It's sprinkling rain here. Hardly enough so far to even knock the dust in the barn lot down but it sure cooled off nice! The poor rabbits were huffing for air this morning. I feel so bad for them wrapped up in fur coats like they are. The fan doesn't seem to be helping at all but the 20 degree temperature drop will help.

I spent the morning smashing cans. They're back up to .55 a lb here, much better than the .30 a lb they've been all summer. I took some in and made $35! Now, thanks to 2 great people, I'm $100 closer to that jersey cow. Thank you to both of you, God bless for your love and help.

I've got the canner going on the stove, it's full of corn from this years harvest.

I may get a batch of soap done this weekend if the cool weather holds out.

Good news and bad

Some good news and some bad all wrapped up together today. So, I'll just share what's new and let the news fall where it may, LOL. My daughter got herself a job with her college education. I'm so proud of her. It will be tough for her to juggle it with her basketball scholarship and classes starting soon but I think she will do fine. I am still waiting for a call on the applications and resumes I already have out there.

I spent a little time on Monday catching up with some old friends and helped out at a food pantry this morning. 231 people came to the pantry this morning. I was pretty surprised and a little disappointed all rolled up into one. Every single person that came thru there had a cell phone and several had those bluetooth ear things. I helped people to their vehicles with the food and every vehicle out there was newer than mine. Way newer than mine. If they can afford the monthly phone bill, why can't they buy food? The bad economy is hurting everyone and now on top of it, food inflation is coming on strong. Check out this article about price increases on food at of all places, walmart. I despise Walmart for many reasons but the biggest one is- where ever there is a Walmart, there is no other venue to shop. Walmart wipes out every bit of competition, leaving you with no where to shop but there. Anyway, the food pantry was giving away a bag with 2 cans of corn, 2 cans of peas, a can of green beans, a can of pork, a can of chicken soup, 2 loaves of bread, a box of mini corn dogs, a bag of powdered milk, a box of doughnuts and some cookies. Folks, this country is in trouble. That is a 30 day food bag, one visit per month allowed.

We've not had any rain and this heat is really drying everything out. I have run out of rain water and have not watered the garden in almost a week now. It's dying and there's nothing I can do about it. I have even put off cutting the hay because of the lack of rain. I hope we get some this weekend like the weatherman says we should. We need some. The critters are all hanging on thru this horrible humidity. They aren't moving around too much and I can't blame them. Even the poor rabbits look rough. I broke down and put a fan on them after I lost a breeding doe to the heat. I can't afford to lose any more, they are part of my winter meat supply.

I have a line on a Jersey milk cow. I just need to figure out where to come up with $200. Such a small amount to stand between me and a constant milk supply for drinking and cheese but broke is broke. I'm doing all I can to make it work out.

One small blessing is the chickens. They are really coming thru for me with their egg production. I lost a few hens to a neighbors dog so I was worried for a bit when they all quit laying from the trauma. A couple days and I am back to a dozen and a half. The dog deprived me of 7 eggs a day. The owner of the dog passed away and her son decided the best way to care for her dog was to turn it loose and I paid for his ignorance. I so hate that. Seems to be a trend lately tho.

The field corn is coming close to harvesting. The crop looks decent too. I should start harvesting in the next 2 weeks....

This weeks happenings

We got a nice cool off following a tiny bit of rain this week. Of course I have been spending some time in the kitchen. I mashed up a ton of tomatoes and have a 5 gallon stock pot on the stove simmering down into sauce for canning. I picked up a big box of bananas from a church food pantry close to me. They were going to throw them away! Yes, some were past good but the majority of the nanners didn't have a blemish on them. I dehydrated this gallon bag plus I have 2 gallon bags in the freezer for banana shakes if I can ever afford to buy milk to make ice cream. The peppers plants are doing great even with the horrible heat we've been suffering thru and a couple 3 gallon buckets full are waiting in the kitchen for me to do something with.

I mashed a couple gallon bags of blackberries yesterday but forgot to grab the camera. I will be cooking it all into jam this evening since it's still a decent temperature in the house. Sunday brings more mid 90 degree weather and the house will be back to horribly hot so I need to get it done while I can.

Things around the farm are the same as they have been for the last year. I have several resumes and a few applications for work outside of coal mining. I hope I can find work quickly as my husband has decided to do nothing about us not meeting our financial obligations. I just can't make enough farming and selling produce I should be storing for us to eat to cover the taxes and mortgage. Farm business is incredibly slow as no one around us has any money to spend. It's not really a big surprise since this is a pretty poor area even before the economy took a dive. I'm doing everything I can......

Slow thought process

I've spent quite a while focused on myself and my little farm, removed from the general realities of what's going on around me in the world. Not necessarily a bad thing, LOL. As usual, it takes the latest issue of Mother Earth news to remind me that even tho we may be struggling from week to week to keep the bills paid, we are pretty fortunate to live way out in the country. while this country setting may not be the optimal place for an internet connection or finding decent work, it does allow us to provide healthy, clean food for ourselves.
I spent a little time this week sweating under a tree in the town closest to me, connected to an unsecured wi-fi feed. Sticky and uncomfortable but I had a serious urge to read a little news. I found this story about the Raw Milk police once again attempting to control free will. Plus, another new story I just found today. Honestly, I drink raw milk all the time and with the exception of some sort of udder infection in the cow itself, the rest of the bacterias the government claims will harm me all come from poor hygiene/cleaning practices and poor milk handling. I view the USDAs attempted control over my personal diet to be a serious threat to my freedom. Now that I have made my own cheese, there is NO WAY I will ever go back to eating the store bought crap sold as cheese. The simple thought of drinking BGH laced milk makes me shudder. The difference between store bought and home made yogurt is amazing. But, of course, the government thinks we are too stupid to think for ourselves and it's only going to get worse if we do not fight for our right to choose what we eat and when we eat it.
Mother Earth news has an article in this months issue talking about Living on less. I thought overall it was a pretty good article. A reminder for me though, since i do almost everything here myself already. There's also a neat little chart based on an average gross income of $63,000 a year (yah, I wish). It shows where the majority of expenses for the average family are. I found it pretty interesting with housing being the biggest expense, transportation being second and food being third on the list just slightly above insurance. That of course leads right into the very next article- Save Money on Groceries. This article I found to be kind of neat too. the price comparison charts are a big off but maybe they are area specific. I would love to find organic sweet corn for $2.00 a dozen around here. Even at the farmers market where it was picked the day before and sitting out in baskets prebaking in the sun, they still want $1 for 3 ears which is double what the article quotes sweet corn at. I wish I could find peaches so darn cheap too, LOL. $9.00 for a peck of "2nds" from the local orchards here. Since that Dericho, I don't have any fruit trees left and do I ever miss them! But the whole idea is to buy in bulk and preserve it for later use. That's what I do with my garden produce. No doubt I get it in bulk, LOL. No matter what you do tho, the best deal you'll ever find is the cost of what you can grow for yourself.
I once tried to figure out how much money I would spend to stock my pantry with purchased food in the amount equivalent to what I produce for myself. It gave me a migraine headache and I gave up. I did figure out that we saved more than $500 a year just in cheese. Of course, if we had to buy cheese, we'd not eat nearly as much as we do when I make it for us. LOL The way we eat around here, I could easily spend more than our mortgage payment every month buying food from a grocery. We eat pretty well most of the time. I say "most" because every now and then we run out of meat before something else is ready to butcher or a hunting season comes around. We're meat eaters here and not having meat makes us a little cranky, LOL.
I even learned how to make my own laundry soap this year. Thanks to some survival/prepper friends a bit north of me whom I am very fond of and wish I could visit more often, I have a great washing powder that costs just .09 a load! It really does a great job and the clothes have never smelled better. I'm always up for learning something new. Any new little trick to save myself some time and money, make life easier.
I look back over the last 12 months and realize how truly blessed I am to still have a home to live in. Still be here on the farm, thanks to some wonderful people and I am truly grateful. So, all in all, even with this economy and unfriendly job market combined with a government denial of recession, the price of things we need about doubling in the past 18 months, we're still very fortunate folks to be able to provide for ourselves in ways others can not. I pray I can continue to live this free for a long, long time to come.........