A Few Lessons Learned

This was a rough year for us as far as homesteading due to the drought and prolonged heatwave in our neck of the woods, but we still managed to maintain in most areas and even slightly improve in others.  Experience is such a great teacher and we definitely learned a couple of things this past year.    

Expiration Dates  They're not set in stone, but there is sometimes a trade-off.  When we initially stocked up in December 2010, we were just guesstimating how much of any one item we would need for a year.  We had a pretty good start on the food storage but our goal was to beef it up to the point we had at least a 12 month supply of everything.  Well, we tended to over buy on a couple of things but so far it hasn't resulted in any waste.  The best example this year was store-bought ketchup.  I'm the only one that eats it, and I only eat it on certain things ...meat loaf and stuffed bell peppers are all I can think of right now.  But Yeoldfurt knows I don't like to eat those things without it, so he set the goal high to ensure I would have it when I wanted it.  Well, we apparently way overestimated because a year later, I have three bottles left that are a couple of months out of date.  They still smell fine and taste fine but it's no longer that bright 'ketchup red' color ...it's more the color of bottled bbq sauce, kind of reddish brown.  It won't go to waste as long as it seems edible, I don't really care what color it is.   But I've also noticed the plastic squeeze bottle it is packaged in has started to degrade.  It is apparently composed of two layers of plastic and they've sort of started to separate.  When you squeeze it and then let go, the outer layer returns to it's originally intended shape but the inner layer is much slower to go back into shape.  With three bottles still on the shelf and one in the fridge, I'm thinking I don't need to buy ketchup until possibly 2013!

Repurpose Value of Wood Ash   I knew you could make lye from wood ash and I knew it generally wouldn't hurt vegetation so could be spread on a lawn or garden.  But I had no idea it was actually very beneficial to compost pile.  Apparently, high acidity can be a problem in composting, slowing the decomposition process.  Wood ash helps to neutralize the acid, thereby facilitating faster decomposition.  I dumped a bucketful on our compost pile a week ago and turned everything over with a pitch fork this evening ...I can already see an improvement and it's only been a few days.  

Tweaking the Pantry Inventory List  We still use the spreadsheet that Yeoldfurt put together, but added some intermediate steps that make it easier to maintain and (hopefully) more consistently accurate.  I used to print it when I went shopping.  But being several pages long, that was cumbersome and a waste of paper.  Then I started just reviewing it before I went shopping and adding to the shopping list what items I thought we could afford to stock up on.  I still do that but now I also keep a small notepad, a pencil, and a Sharpie marker on the shelf in the pantry.  When I go down there to get one thing, I invariably come back with one or two other things ...spur of the moment.  So now I list what items I'm taking on the notepad as I gather them together so I can take a complete list back to the house with me.  Also, for each item I bring back, I do a quick count of how many are still remaining in storage, then write that number in parentheses next to the item on the list.  That way when I give the list to Yeoldfurt to update the spreadsheet, he can spot check the 'amount on hand' to make sure it's still accurate.  It's not a perfect system, but it's evolving into a pretty good one.

Making Pennies Squeal   I've always been frugal and budget-minded but circumstances the past few years have made me even more so.  If you asked me a year ago whether we were getting all the mileage we possibly could out of every dollar, I would have said yes with very little hesitation.  But we've found a couple of new ways to significantly stretch those pennies recently that make me wonder if there aren't more ways we just haven't discovered yet.  The biggest savings comes from Yeoldfurt and I being able to adjust our schedules so that we can carpool to our jobs 40 miles away.   With each of us driving separate vehicles 80 miles/day five days/week to and from our jobs, our fuel bill was equal to our mortgage payment ...it was outrageous!  But when the transmission went out in one of the vehicles, we adjusted our schedules for a week while the truck was in the shop and were able to get permission from both our bosses to keep our schedules that way.  By doing so, we cut our monthly fuel cost in half.  Over a year's time, we'll also save significantly on replacement tires and oil changes for the vehicle that sits in the driveway most days.  Conservatively, I estimate of our savings the first year to be approximately $5000.  We also started keeping a Walmart gift card with $100 balance on it and using that to buy gasoline.  Walmart's price is always the same or lower than any other stations in our area ...sometimes a dime or more lower.  By using the Walmart card to pay, we get an additional 10 cent per gallon discount.  I paid $2.80/gallon for regular last Friday.  I don't know about prices in your area, but around here, that's pretty darn good.  Since we use about 1400 gallons per year just driving back and forth to work, 10 cents per gallon is significant.  Of course, since we have three geriatric vehicles, all that money saved will probably go into mechanical repairs over the course of that same year ...but at least we'll have the money in savings to take care of those expenses when they come up.  

I'm sure there were other little bits of knowledge accumulated this year, but these were the ones that stood out to me when I was contemplating writing this post.  It seems to me that the intangible things we gain every year ...the knowledge, the skills, the little tricks that make every day tasks easier ...are the real bounty in homesteading. 

I hope the coming year is better all the way around.  I hope we have normal temperatures and rainfall so we can have a garden, fewer mechanical crises so we can get a break from diverting so much to vehicle repairs, and a decent man in the White House so we can as least slow the decimation of our economy, our country and our values ...maybe even begin to rebuild some of what the past four years has destroyed.  I don't know what the future holds, but I never want to become so discouraged that I no longer believe a bright future is possible.  So at the close of this year and hopefully the beginning of a better year, I leave you with this poem that says better than I can what I feel and hope for tomorrow.

Yesteryear's

In between cycles of messing up and cleaning up my kitchen on Saturday during the canning project gone awry, I loaded the trunk of my car with merchandise for the booth space I rented at the antique shop.  I was supposed to meet the owner there at noon Sunday to set up my space.  The plan was to have all of the non-edibles loaded in the car the day before so that all I had to do Sunday was pack the jars and go.    The shop is open from 1:00 to 6:00 on Sundays so arriving at noon would give me about an hour to set up my space. 

The reason I only loaded the non-edibles on Saturday was because the recipe ingredients for the Cookies-in-a-Jar were not yet in the jars.  Instead, they were all over the work table in my office.  Ingredients for a dozen different recipes in unopened packages were all over my work table.  Wide-mouth canning jars, still in the shrink wrap cardboard flats they came in, were setting on the floor underneath the table ...ugh!   So I was up early again Sunday morning, determined to take care of all my normal weekend chores and still make my goal of meeting the shop owner at noon. 

This whole idea of renting a space to sell things sounded so simple in the beginning.  But jumping through all the hoops to get it off the ground has been a little wearing.  The first step was a trip to the tax office for a permit.  That was a little bit of a hassle as most permitting things tend to be ...but I got it done.  Then came what I thought would be the fun part of finding recipes.  Most any recipe can be adapted to this form of packaging but the more varied the colors and textures of the dry ingredients are, the better it will look in the jar.  Sugar cookies, for instance, would be visually boring ...just flour, sugar, baking soda, salt.  Boring. 

Finding recipes has been fun but it's been time consuming too.  When I found a recipe I wanted to use, I added it to my 'inventory list' and then added the ingredients to my shopping list.  I have a document set up in Publisher to create the instruction cards that are attached to each jar.  I created a new page for each recipe and set up a theme-appropriate border or a graphic for each different recipe.  Four 'instruction cards' fit on a page, then I cut them apart using these fancy little craft scissors designed for the Scrapbooking crowd.  It's all fun and appeals to my crafty/creative side ...but right now, it's time consuming. 

So far, I have collected a dozen or so cookie recipes with dry ingredients that include oatmeal, M&Ms, chocolate, white or butterscotch chips, raisins, and dried cranberries.  I found a couple of fancy brownie recipes too and some flavored hot chocolate recipes.  At the suggestion of the owner, I will stock two jars of three different varieties for now.  Today I put two jars each of Cowboy Cookies, Cowgirl Cookies and Mississippi Mud Pie Brownies on the shelves.  The six jars I put out are all I have made up so far.  But the plan is to make them ahead so that restocking will be quick and easy.  I'll generally stock the same varieties for one month.  When the weather cools down, I'll use pint jars to stock flavored hot chocolate mixes.   These are the three varieties I put on the shelves today. 

Mississippi Mud Pie Brownies

Cowboy Cookies

Cowgirl Cookies

The only differences between the CowGIRL Cookies and the CowBOY Cookies are the color of the M&M's,  whether I put Chocolate Chips or White Chocolate Chips in the jar, and what color bandana I cut up to put over the top.  The lids are vacuum sealed onto the jars to keep the ingredients fresh. 

I've seen similar jars with cookie ingredients in specialty shops being sold for $15 and up,  but I don't have any real overhead.  I've kept careful track of my costs and only have $2-$3 in each jar so I intended to price them at $8 each.  The owner talked me into putting $15 on them though.  She said she has been in business in the same location for over 9 years.  She knows what sells and has a feel for pricing things.  According to her, there's already a lot of interest even from the other vendors in the store and she doesn't want me to be afraid of making a profit. 

O.K.A.Y.  Feels like a lot of profit to me but I guess if they sell at that price, that's the market.  I might splurge and fancy up the fabric tops a little if I'm going to be making $12 per jar!  Other vendors at the shop that purchase from me get a 10 percent discount.  I get a ten percent discount on their merchandise as well.  So worst case, I will net $12 per quart.  Wow.  That still boggles my mind.   

This is what my space looked like when I left the shop today. 

It's just a bookcase, not a whole booth space but it's a good start.  I am in a good location in the shop and now that the preliminary legwork is done, I think it will be fun.  Especially if she's right about how much those jars will sell for ...wouldn't that be a nice little bonus! 

For Me, It's Saddle Time

Most people have one thing that makes them relax and rejuvenates them from the daily stresses of life.  For some, it's a place.  For some it's an activity.  For me, it's saddle time. 

Horses are a lot of work to take care of every day, whether you ride or not.  With the demands of a full time job and the chores that come with our homesteader lifestyle, finding time to just have fun can be a challenge.  Most of the big chores have to be done on the weekend and somehow the To Do List always ends with more things than can be accomplished in one weekend.  So you learn to prioritize.  You learn to pick ONE THING that has to happen on any given weekend.  When it's done, you do as many of the other things on the list as time allows.  Having things still left on the list at the end of the weekend just means next weekend's list is already started. 

Yeoldfurt works on Sundays, so that's generally my day for housework.  Domestic drudgery like laundry and scrubbing floors.  Those things that are hardly ever noticed ...unless they're not done.  But I try to accomplish at least one non-housework project every Sunday too.  Today it was riding.  I had not been on my horse since the grandsons were here in July.  It was too hot most of July and August and I have been out of town for two weekends in September already.  But the mornings lately have been downright pleasant and the evenings are starting to get bearable.  So I was up before the sun this morning and was saddled up as soon as it was light outside. 

I was only in the saddle for an hour, only rode in the round pen and the front paddock, but it sure felt good.  When we were done, I let my mare 'mow' the grass in the chicken yard for an hour before I turned her out with the others.  There are four fruit trees that we keep watered in the chicken yard so it's the place we have any grass right now.  My mare enjoyed it. 

That hour I spent in the saddle must have done me good because I've accomplished everything I normally accomplish on Sundays and then some.  The sheets are changed on the bed, the laundry is washed, dried, folded and put away, the bathrooms have been scrubbed and the rugs are washed and hanging outside to dry.  I also made a batch of liquid laundry soap (four months worth) and raked the leaves in one of the four flower beds.  The horse blankets we cleaned up last week are folded and bagged up to be stored until cold weather comes.  Yeoldfurt's dinner is in the oven (slow roasted pork ribs) and I have five pints of homemade split pea soup processing on the stove.  Yeoldfurt won't eat it, but I was cleaning out cupboards and found a pound of dried split peas I needed to use up.  In pint jars, it's just enough for me for supper on a cold winter day with enough left over to take to work for lunch the next day.

So even though I took an hour to just play with my horse this morning, I got a lot accomplished today.  Yup, for me, it's saddle time!

Worth Every Stitch

Keebler was a big hit with the granddaughter
so I guess maybe my first sewing project in 30 years came out okay! 

As you can see, they are already best of buds!

I was gone for four days and three nights and Yeoldfurt did an outstanding job of taking care of himself and the homestead.   He did a fine job today of spoiling me rotten too.  This was his regular day off and my last day of vacation and we took full advantage of the opportunity to spend time together. 

We went into the Big City to pick up a few things he needed for his shop and he treated me to both lunch and dinner.  Lunch was a sit down meal, but dinner tonight is a box of spicy fried chicken and dirty rice from Pop-eyes.  If you have never had Pop-eyes chicken, you will just have to trust me ...it's good!   

While we were in town, we got an estimate on painting my little car and were pleasantly surprised at the quote.  Looks like it's only going to cost a little over half what I thought it would, so my overtime money
will take care of painting the car and buy us that deep freeze we've been wanting. 
Ahh, life is good!

Keebler, the Lion

I did not know when I started this project quite how challenging this pattern would be or quite how rusty my sewing skills have become.  It has been thirty-something years since I really did anything more complex than a hem.  But perseverance won out in the end and I finished the project.  This is Keebler who I hope will end up being one of my little granddaughter's favorite cuddle buddies.

My granddaughter may come up with her own name for him and whatever she wants to call him is fine with me.  But he will always be KEEBLER to me.  I will explain why later. 

The nose gave me fits from the beginning and I'm not sure I understand what I did to make it work well enough to explain.  But I was finally able to fashion a nose out of the odd shaped bit of fabric and get it sewn in place so that it actually looks like a lion's nose.   It even looks like the nose on the on the front of the pattern envelope.  I would have settled for it just being recognizable as a nose.  To have it end up looking like the one on the picture is unexpected bonus.  I did have to deviate from the instructions quite a bit as they said to baste the nose in place on one side of the center of the muzzle and then stitch the two sides of the muzzle together with the nose sandwiched between them.  I have a fairly nice sewing machine but it's not industrial strength.  I was pretty sure it wouldn't be able to handle two layers of fleece (the two sides of the muzzle) plus four more layers of fleece made up by the folds in the nose.  So I used the machine to make the seam up to the nose, then finished it by hand.  I used heavy coat thread for the hand work, so hopefully it will hold up to the rigors of a toddler.  Handwork is my comfort zone, so it was fun to include some of that. 

The day I finally conquered the nose, I also lost my head ...for a while anyway.  I got the nose firmly attached to the muzzle and started looking for the pattern piece labeled 'head' ...but it was nowhere to be found.  I always pin all the pattern pieces before I cut to make sure I will have enough fabric.  Then I always cut all the pattern pieces at once and leave them pinned to their piece of the pattern until I'm ready for them.  But I searched through all my cut pieces three times and NO HEAD.  Each pattern piece has a number and the head was number four.  I even took all the unused pattern pieces out of the envelope and made sure I had not just failed to cut that piece.  But there was no number four in the envelope.  Ugh! 

I knew the pattern company had not shorted me.  Pattern pieces come all printed on one or two big sheets of tissue paper.  You have to cut them apart to make individual pieces so you can arrange them on the fabric.  I knew the missing pattern piece for the head had to be around here somewhere but I was running out of time to get this project done. I have my sewing machine setting on my grandmother's old writing desk which is tucked into a shallow alcove in my office.  I thought the missing piece might have slipped off the desk while I was wrestling with the nose so I got out the flashlight and looked behind, under and on both sides of the desk. I didn't find it.  I did find my cloth measuring tape though ...so the effort wasn't totally wasted.  

Frustrated and baffled, I went back to the instructions to see if I could improvise.  This pattern has four variations ...a lion, a monkey, a dog, and a cat.  The lion is the only one that calls for the number four pattern piece for the head. The other three variations have a similarly shaped head, with only a minor difference on one end.  I figured that, in a pinch, I could substitute the pattern piece for the head that the other variations called for and just 'eyeball' the minor difference to make it work.  My only concern was that though the two 'head' pieces might be shaped very similar, I would have no way of knowing until I tried to attach it to the muzzle if the scale was the same.  But I was running out of options so I got set up to cut a 'head' from the other pattern piece. 

I have a 75 watt halogen bulb in a floor lamp beside the cutting table and wanted to turn it on so I could see better while I was cutting.  I had to walk around to the back of the table to reach the switch on the floor lamp and as I stepped behind the table, I heard the familiar rustle of tissue paper.  My missing pattern piece ...the number 4 head piece!   It had apparently slipped off the table when I was laying the pieces out on the fabric.  I didn't notice it was missing when I was cutting out the other pieces because there are 13 different pieces to this variation of the pattern and they are not consecutively numbered.  The carpet in my office is circa 1985 which was smack dab in the middle of the 'earth tones' era in home decor.  Typical of the 1980's, the carpet is a deep sculpture in a sandy tan, almost taupe color ...very similar in color to the pale tissue paper pattern piece.  So I was able to cut the head from the correct piece of pattern after all. 

In retrospect, the only parts of this lion that I made by following the instructions exactly were the legs.  I modified the tail to make the fuzzy end more 3-D and fashioned furrowed 'eyebrows' from remnant fabric rather than just embroidering them as the pattern suggested.  I did embroider the eyes and used the same brown embroidery floss to fashion the toes on the end of his floppy legs.  Thinking back on the process, he's about 50 percent 'by the book' and fifty percent me figuring a way to make it work or a way to make it work (look) better.  And that brings us to the story of how he got his name. 

A friend of mine left a comment on my first post about this project, suggesting that if I ran into problems with the pattern, I should just 'Fudge, fudge a lot, you're a big girl now, you can fudge the pattern, the girl will never know!!' 

Well, fudge I did.  First with the nose, then the tail, and almost had to fudge the entire head.  I fudged on the assembly process, stitching by hand almost as much as on the machine.  I even fudged to create a 'suspended' stiff interfacing in the mane so that I could stuff on both sides of the interfacing and it would feel soft all the way around, but would have an inner support that would keep it from being floppy.   Yes, this lion is the product of a whole lot of fudging.  Get it?  Keebler Fudge?  I know, I know ...I have a warped sense of humor. 

I am pleased at how he turned out and even more pleased that I got him finished with a whole day to spare before I leave for my weekend with my granddaughter.  I work all day tomorrow but then I'm on vacation until next Wednesday.  It will take me most of the morning Thursday to clean up my sewing room and turn it back into my office ... and the rest of the day to pack and put some meals in the freezer for Yeoldfurt to have while I'm gone.  Assuming the threat of fires has lessened by Friday, I will leave early that morning and be back Monday before Yeoldfurt gets home from work.   I will miss him but I'll make sure he has plenty of clean laundry and plenty of meals in the freezer until I get back.  I'll have a nice supper ready for him when he gets home Monday evening and we'll be able to spend Tuesday together since that's his regular day off and I'll still be on vacation.  By Tuesday, we will have been apart just long enough to miss each other's company and we can spend the day spoiling each other rotten.  Life is good. 

The True Blessings in Life

Sometimes the child that remains in all of us wants to look around at what we have and where we live and what we're able to do based on our finances, and then use those things to measure whether or not we feel blessed.  But the older I get and the more 'stuff' I manage to accumulate, the more I realize things don't matter nearly as much as the people God puts in our lives.  Sometimes they are our friends, sometimes they are our relatives but people are the true blessings in life. 

Granted, everyone you meet and everyone you happen to be related to won't exactly make your life more enjoyable.  At times it's a test of patience just to remain civil to some of these folks.  But every once in a while someone comes into your life, and you just can't help but count them a blessing.  No, I'm not talking about Yeoldfurt this time, although he is my best friend and an enormous blessing to me.  But in this case, I'm talking about my son-in-law, Marc.

He is a very gifted musician who recognizes the true source of his gift and, in turn, uses it in the ministry at their church.  He is extremely intelligent but very quiet most of the time and totally unassuming.  Then when you least expect it, he says something outlandishly witty.   Marc is very protective of his own.  He is a caretaker by nature which is a wonderful trait in a husband and father.  But he also has a keen sense of humor and a flair for adventure and spontaneity ...a fabulous combination of traits in a soul mate.

Marc is a blessing to my daughter and granddaughter as a husband and father and, in turn, he is a blessing to Yeoldfurt and me who want nothing more than to see them happy and thriving as a family

Today is Marc's 30th birthday ...
the 'BIG THREE OH' as the younger set says ...
as if 30 is a big number.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARC ...
please know that you are a blessing to this family ...
we love you!

Pictures from the beach vacation they took last month in celebration of their third wedding anniversary.

Daddy and Bella... not sure who has who
wrapped tighter around the other's finger.

Mommy and Bella ...
shopping, shopping, shopping!

Bella, just chillin' on the sand.