Want to Save Some Money? Have I got a Few Websites for You!

Many of us want to be able to live frugally and be self-sustaining rather than depending on the store for everything we use. I know to most people that is a foreign concept - I've heard horror stories of people going to a school to chat with students about where their food comes from and they will argue with the presenter that it comes from the store; not the farm. How ridiculous is that? One of my 'things' is being able to make as much as I can for myself, but I am not all-knowing, so I rely on websites of those who know what they are talking about for a little assistance. Here are a few that can help you out too.

Budget101.com
Actually, Liss Burnell, Budget 101's founder used to live in the same town I do and I got to know her. She helped me get my website moved to a different host company. She's way more tech-savvy than I am. She is also very good at budgeting and making things one would think they could only BUY at a store. I have been looking for a way to make laundry detergent, for instance, and low and behold she posted one on her website, and it uses an ingredient I already keep on hand- Fels Naptha. Another recipe I have used over the years is for that coffee creamer we like to get in the store. Now, I must admit it is less expensive to buy this, but if you run out and are not able to get to that store (I live a long way from the store) this recipe uses ingredients already on hand, at least at my house, and it works well in a pinch.

Liss has recipes for all sorts of products we usually buy from household cleaning products to quick mixes for dinner and everything in between. She has great homemade gift ideas too. You just have to check out her website to see what all you can find as they are too many to list here. http://www.budget101.com 

There is a Facebook page called Homemade Living Frugally. People can ask questions and Suzanne will do her best to get them an answer from other readers. She also has in lieu of a website (or as a website) a forum board, http://homemadeliving.freeforums.net/ where you can ask questions and find answers, or give the answers if you have them to others' questions. Great concept!

There are a number of blogs out there too if you want to cook really great food or for farming (small and large) that I like to visit. 
http://sweetteaandcornbread.blogspot.com,
http://jimmycrackedcorn.wordpress.com,
 http://adventuresinthegoodland.blogspot.com

Of course, you can use a search engine for frugal living sites on your own and find a plethora of ideas. That is how I usually find them.Some ideas I get from actually talking to people who have done it so don't be afraid to go up to that farmer and ask them how they get that particular plant to grow so well or where they came up with the idea for something. I recently subscribed to Farm Show Magazine. It has ideas on how to make things (or remake things) useful for farmers that either are not available in the stores or may be too expensive to buy. Some people just look at and say, "Why didn't I think of that?" I do.

You can also find a number of books and e-books on the subjects you seek. They can be found at retailers such as Amazon.com ( I have a handy page you can use too!).

*No one in this article has asked me to recommend their websites or blogs. I was not paid for any recommendations either. For Amazon.com, if you use my link I make a small amount of money, but it does not cost you anymore and they do not tell me who bought anything (or what they bought) or who may have used my link.
                                    

Oh My Goodness- That Snow is Deep

When my husband left for work this morning he told me to have a good day with the dog because there was no way my car was going to make it down the driveway. He has a four-wheel drive GMC Sierra and it sits fairly high. Within ten minutes I couldn't even see his tracks where he walked to the machine shed where we park and after daylight I looked out the kitchen window and said, "What driveway?" Even the dog got buried trying to get through it. I thought I was going to have to dig her out.

At chore time I finally ventured out and shoveled off the porch and then used that big snow shovel to go around the house as if it was a ski pole and found I was right in spite of the hubby stating the heater vent pipes (intake and exhaust) did not need shoveled out because he did just two weeks ago. That should have been my first clue it needed it. It had about a foot of snow over it. The exhaust pipe sending out warm air had actually made a small path, as it were, for the fumes to get out, but the intake pipe had snow caked inside. It shoveled it out all the way to the ground and a fair bit around it and then took the ends off and cleared all the snow out. This is something everyone should check every time it snows. Carbon monoxide will build up inside your home if that exhaust pipe is plugged and the heater will malfunction if the intake is blocked. Other than the fact that the CO can kill you if you don't get it cleared, it can be very expensive to get your furnace repaired from that blocked intake pipe. I couldn't even get around to the side where the dryer vents and I asked my husband when he got home if he would plow a trail so I can. I don't need that blocked up or frozen shut either. It can start a fire from lint that blows out that pipe if it gets plugged and too hot. Check that often also. It can ruin your dryer.

Now to the part where he got home. Sometimes a wife just knows her husband will try, in spite of the obvious obstruction to the driveway, to drive through it. I saw him coming and just told the dog to stand back out of the way with me (we have a long driveway but she would have charged out there to greet him). I waved my arms and shook my head 'no' and then all I could do was hang my head and laugh. He tried to come up the driveway and barely got the length of the truck before it refused to move another inch. He tried to, which means it is stuck really bad. He finally gave up and tried to walk the rest of the way. Now, he is fairly tall, six-one or so, and he about couldn't make it. It went up to his backside. He struggled mightily and laughed a lot, because I was laughing at him and was sort of contagious at that point.The dog in all her Labradorean exuberance tried to get to him and fell so far down I couldn't even see her tail. I don't know how she managed to get out of that drift but she did right about the time he got to her to dig her out with his hands.

Below are some pictures!

                                    That sure is a lot of snow on the barn roof. I hope it holds up.

     There is an LP tank under there somewhere. We're running out of room to put all this snow!

                                    I don't think my farm truck is moving out of the shed until spring.

                                       Yup, he just had to try to get through all that snow.Oops!

THINK SPRING - PLEASE!!!!

Seed Catalogs

With all the freezing cold outside (and trust me; it is freezing cold outside) the thing that helps save my sanity is the flood of seed catalogs I get every winter. (Odd considering I usually hate junk mail.)

The good old fashioned seed catalogs 1) Remind me what growing things look like, as opposed to all the white frozen stuff around me. 2) Causes me to think about experimenting with varieties of vegetables I haven't tried before. 3) Offer help with problems I have growing things.

Case in point: a good many of my neighbors seem to be able to grow strawberries and blueberries. I have spent a shameful amount of money trying to do likewise to no avail. I have yet to harvest a single berry; just a lot of dead plants. (hangs head in shame)

We received a nice big seed catalog from the Jung Seed Company (No, I am not affiliated with them in any way!) and my husband got to it first. He suddenly says, "Hey, I think I found your problem." (This could cover so many things!) I raised an eyebrow. "What?" He smiled. "Your dead blueberries," he elaborated, and handed me the catalog. 

Now, aside from the numerous seeds and plants offered in seed catalogs, they also offer tidbits about why one might be having a particular problem and of course the products they sell to remedy the situation. We had our farm soil tested last year and they all had pretty much the same result: our soil is neutral, as in, not acidic at all, especially around where I plant our food. Blueberries need acidic soil to grow. Well, I'll be. I have some work to do this spring and I will be getting the suggested products either from the catalog or locally if I can find it. Quite frankly, plants seldom survive the journey from any company to our farm anyway (like sweet potatoes-ahhh!), but the seeds and other products do well and if not available locally, I will go to the catalogs.

                                                   

                                    

            Image courtesy of Grant Cochrane/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net 

             Stock Photo - image ID: 10090261

What I have started is my own gardening book of sorts and you can too. Peruse the catalogs for the types of produce, flowers, bushes, trees, etcetera, you prefer and see if they have growing tips and troubleshooting tidbits. Cut them out of the catalog and put them in a binder by category. That way you can find them easily when you run into something with your plants. This is fairly inexpensive –you still will need a binder and something on which to collect the articles. Print off articles you may find online or cut out agricultural articles in magazines and trade newspapers (I have done this for animal health) and add them to your binder. You can also obtain leaflets from your state's university extension service. It is way less expensive than buying an entire book, or books, just for one or two problems and you have what you need at your fingertips. 

Now, if someone could just help me with those strawberries! 

Just Like Zikan's

There is no getting around it; when you live out in the country, as I do, when you go shopping, you get enough to last a while. There is a store in a spot in the road town nearby however, and though it's not a big box store that can get the super low prices, you can still completely survive using it.

The other night my husband was looking for a can of olives. I have a habit of buying extra items when I go grocery shopping, especially baking ingredients since he also has a huge sweet tooth. This led to his using the at-a-glance method when he looks for anything in the cabinets because he can just declare it not there and I'll find it, which I did. I reached in behind all the baking supplies and pulled out the can. "Just like Zikan's!" I said. He laughed.

What is Zikan's? Think of the general store in all the old westerns you ever saw. It is jokingly (and lovingly) referred to as the Catawba Mall. They sell everything you could possibly need. In one side is clothing, chore boots, baby clothes and items, cloth, sewing notions, cleaning supplies, groceries, even a small old fashioned meat counter. The other side and the basement has everything else: fan belts, small appliances such as radios, coffee makers, waffle irons and the like, dishes, glassware, cutlery, utinsels, pots and pans, paint, plumbing and electrical supplies, sporting goods, bicycles, stove pipe, mops, brooms, buckets, nuts, bolts, nails, tools, garden supplies, fans, small farm supplies like fence wire and insulators, chicken feeders and waterers, even hunting and fishing licenses and gear. There is not much this place doesn't carry and has for more years than I've been here. Considering how much they have, the building is not that large, so they stock things in front of and on top of other items. All you have to do is ask and they can reach, unseeing, into a pile and pull it out. Very few times I've gone in there and they were out of something or didn't carry it at all. Thus the joke, "See, just like Zikan's!"

I'll tell you what; you can shop the Wall-Marts of the world all you want, but if you really want that hard to find, unique item, you need a store like Zikan's.

Wintertime Preparedness on the Farm

The calendar says today is the first day of winter. I wonder who thought that up- it's been winter here for weeks. The snow is very deep and of course it is very cold. I live in northern Wisconsin, though, not Hawaii (although that is a dream of mine someday) so snow is expected, if not appreciated.

                                            To give you an idea of how deep it is already.

Most people know to keep gear in their car in the wintertime such as cat litter for traction, a shovel to dig out if necessary, a blanket, a spare pair of socks (important to keep your feet dry and warm), some food that won't ruin like nuts or granola bars, and water. A small board is also useful in case you sink in and need to put it under the tire to help you drive out. But are you prepared for just going outside? Case in point below.

Last year we had issues with the waterline freezing and we had to get a water tank to go get water for the cattle. Unfortunately, the tank was frozen to the ground and had about ten inches of snow around it. We had to get that tongue unstuck and attached to the truck, but I had the wrong gloves on. I was wearing leather chore gloves instead of insulated gloves and let me tell you, frost bite is not fun. I didn't have it severe enough to loose fingers, but it was excruciating when my fingers started to warm up and now I have issues with pain in my fingers when they get even a little cold. I'm lucky I didn't get it on my face too, because I wasn't exactly wearing the right protection there either. I was wearing a large knit scarf, however, and that is probably what saved my face.

Now when I go out in the cold to do chores, or hunting, and it is cold, as it has been here since early to mid--November, I gear up. The tractor we use for feeding hay has no cab and so we are exposed to the elements. I wear a mask to protect my face, along with a hooded coat, and if I am wearing a hooded sweatshirt, that hood is up too. I also wear some seriously insulated gloves. The kind I have is actually for hunting. They have individual fingers, but the ends are cropped off so that one can pull the trigger and get a good grip on the weapon. However, they also have a thick mitten covering that folds back out of the way to keep the ends of the fingers covered when the fingers don't need to be exposed.

                           A good stocking hat is needed when exposed to the cold to protect your face.

 Gloves are important to protect your hands at all times.Thin leather gloves are NOT appropriate in freezing weather. If your gloves get wet, change them immediately.

One problem of course with wearing all the gear is that when turning to back up the tractor, the hood gets in the way and I end up pulling it down so that I can see where I am going. That is where having that stocking hat helps tremendously.

During hunting season we had to have all orange clothing, so I had the insulated coveralls, the scarf (close enough to orange), a knit hat, a billed hat (I attach a clip-on flashlight to the hat), and the hood of the coveralls to protect my head, and the gloves for my hands. I have some thick insulated coveralls that look like overalls and a big coat for farm chores. Because of their color, which is brown, they were not a good idea for any out of doors activities during hunting season.

It was very cold- below zero- during hunting season, but I was warm in my insulated clothing. I wondered if maybe I had on too much, but I never broke a sweat, and it was a quarter mile to my hunting blind walking though a good four inches of snow. Always carry water with you when you will be outside for any long periods of time during the winter. The air is dry and you need to keep hydrated. As an asthmatic, the cold air is dangerous for me to breathe and water can prevent the dry air from causing me to cough and inhale more freezing air into my lungs. On a lighter note: being bundled up like this also caused my glasses to fog up and then the fog froze. It's a little hard to see that way!

Always let someone know where you will be so if you get stuck or stranded somehow, even on your own property, they will know where to look. You should let them know approximately how long you will be gone as well. I know from experience that just because you have a cell phone, does not mean you will have a signal to call for help. Stay warm and stay safe.

Boy is it Wintertime!

Living in the country the way I do one really knows it when winter hits, whether the calendar agrees or not. This morning it was -17 when I got up, and the wind is blowing. There are several inches of snow that has accumulated over the week out there and somewhere in the middle of it is at least a quarter-inch of ice. It froze the barn door shut. Now that will be a trick getting open!

As I might have mentioned, I work off the farm as well as on the farm and I have to drive thirty miles to get there (sixty round trip). Let me tell you it is no fun driving on the ice. Even though I am going slow (really slow) my car with brand new tires does not like to stop and it is all over the lane. The wind was so hard the other day it created high drifts in our driveway that I had to just stomp on the gas to get through because I knew, unfortunately from experience, that if I went slow or stopped, my car would be there until the tractor dragged it out of the drift. I'd hate to think how high those drifts would have been had that driveway not been plowed out the day before.

With weather like this it makes me appreciate that I have put up so much food from my garden. Homemade soup made from ingredients I put up seems to taste better than commercially canned soup, but then I really don't care for commercially canned soup anyway. Baking bread and pie also helps to warm the house and fills the air with delicious smells.

It seems like a good day to work on my book or read one. I have also done quilting and worked on projects for Christmas gifts during winter months, and I have discovered a lot of people around here do that too. The embroidery and knit projects done over the winter is often offered up for sale at the farmer's market come spring and summer. I have seen some fantastic works for sale and when I asked when they had time to do them, they said over the winter when they didn't want to go outside, except to feed the animals of course.

What are you doing this winter to stay warm and occupied?

Apple Butter Making Days

We have a bumper crop of apples this year in spite of the weather. My dear husband has been picking the apples for me since I was working six days a week. He hasn't even scratched the surface of the apples as he just more or less stood in one spot and picked basket after basket. We, so far, have ten quart bags of apple slices for pies and such in the freezer, two quarts of applesauce frozen (I'll some later), a couple pounds dehydrated for snacking, and eighteen pints, and eight pint-and-a half jars of apple butter. I actually am thinking of making more! I am going to can some applesauce. It is really good for baking, not just eating (hot with butter and cinnamon) or cold. I also have four quarts of juice. We are eating them as fast as we can but I think we may get tired of them. Man, they are good though.

                                                  Really big apples from our trees this year.

   Two batches of apple butter simmering. It takes hours to cook it down to desired thickness. It must be stirred nearly constantly. Sure smells good!

Jars of yummy apple butter. Look out biscuits! Yes, those are Blue Ball Mason jars in the front. And the Dehydrator is running in the background. Apples are everywhere!