When we began this adventure several years back we were the average middle class couple, complete with alot of the trappings. Morgage, car loans, credit card debt, etc. as I mentioned in an earlier post we worked hard to get all except the morgage paid off. We knew that once we did this we would not have a "job" for awhile, so we saved our money and we have been able to build our little house and shop debt free. This is a wonderful thing, but we have to do without a few of the finer things in life, such as TV.........well not everyone thinks TV is a finer thing, but Kirk does, it has been hard for him not to be able to watch it. We were reminded of this today. We went to a "football" gathering in our town and saw some of the new shows that are being previewed for this upcoming week. CSI was one of them, and I realized that I missed that program. One of these days we will get TV..via the dish, until then it will have to be movies, which since Christmas something like 25 have been viewed in our home, sometime 3 a day. So for now Kirk must fall asleep in his recliner with book in hand (oh so very sad), but someday he will graduate back up to sleep via TV.
I wanted to talk a little bit about sand. Sand can be a wonderful thing if your going to the beach, unless of course it gets into your swimsuit. My gardens in Hesperia were very sandy, watering them and keeping amendments around the plant roots was not an easy task, everyone always told me "anything will grow here if you give it enough water" funny, haha. With sand you cannot flood irriagate, the plants will die, why? Sand will not hold water and the moisture just dries right up, the water runs past so fast the roots can't get a drink, I can just see the poor things stinking their tongues out and well pour water over your tongue and see how much water you get, so anyway after some trial and error I figured I had to sprinkle. To keep the soil from drying out so fast you add amendments right? In sand they do the same disappearing act as the water! Ya really. So I figured out that you must copy nature and let the amendments lay on top of the soil and let the sprinkles work them in. There is another aspect of sand, when it rains it then sticks to your shoes and gets tracked all over the house, what a pain..to walk on and to clean up............................So fast forward to Wyoming, I wish I had sand! The stuff here is just that stuff. It holds water, for days and days, I doubt amendments could get down into it, it sticks to shovels, making it nearly impossible to dig wet soil because it won't come off the shovel except with another shovel, thus making this a two person job, one to dig and one to clean the shovel, but who will clean the second shovel? When it is dry, you need a jack hammper or tractor. Now think of how it sticks to the shovel and subsitute shoes, it can rain lightly for 3 minutes and you go out and walk in it, you just grew 5 inches, no joke, the more you walk the taller you get, it then takes 1/2 hour to clean the bottoms of your shoes because it has super glue in it and forget it if you have tracks in your soles (as I do), it is putty knife and screwdriver time. So I say haaray for sand! Oh one other thing about this mud, we have our own personal mud slinging tires, every auto we have slings mud with the best monster truck.
Concrete floors or carpet, no contest here, with the afore mentioned, I own a scraper not an upright vaccume (well I do own the vaccume, but it is in storage).
On a serious note, I would like to share with you the passing of a member of our community. Kelly Dryer passed away this last week. In a small town like this we each touch the lives of those around us. Though we are new here this has been a sad thing for us and I know for all of our friends. I would like to ask prayer for his wife Dee and their family. Kelly is very missed.
Have a wonderful week and remember to hug and kiss those you love because you never know when the Lord will call someone home.
God Bless,
Gail
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Friday, January 20, 2006
Late night? Early morning?
Well another night that I can't sleep. I was asleep, but Lady, our dog decided to bark at something, who knows what, and woke me up.....then I lay there trying to go back to sleep and instead I am hungry. So as I write this I am eating a bowl of shredded wheat cereal.
I have been wondering what I should write about, since it has been a few days.
I have been able to get back to some of my hobbies, things have calmed down on the construction front, so I have been able to return to my 'sane' quilting and to the crazy quilting I have been working on for my DIL, Michele. I took up quilting about 3 years ago now and just love it, then last Feb. Michele asked me to do a CQ (crazy quilt) wall hanging for her, so I have been working on that for about year. I didn't know I would like the needle work so much, so of course her wall hanging is not the only CQ items I am doing. Today I, also, started a baby quilt, for Tesa and Tommy's new baby boy (local friends). Webshots Community - kcoglo's Photo Home Page
You can go to my webshots page here and see several different subjects; quilts, CQ, building pictures and some of Wyoming near our place.
The picture above is something new I have been doing. An artist friend of mine is doing an article on quilted tags...you know like a luggage ID tag? The differance of course is that these are quilty and artistic, I have never done anything abstract before, I am rather pleased with this one. There is also one in the works that is done CQ style, I'll post it here when it is done. I think pictures are alot of fun for a blog.
My other intrests include, gardening, interior design, stained glass, scrapbooking, mosic, painting, soap and lotion making, study of herbs. I am sure I will get around to talking about them, as well. The soap and lotion thing is getting going, I hope as a business and I plan to launch a website (one of these day...soon I hope).
How do these things relate to homesteading, they are definitly a part of this life, most people who are homesteaders are DIY types and alot of the time these become sources of income for the homestead. In the early days quilts were very important items, they had the job of keeping the family warm, gardening of course fed, soap and lotions were also hand crafted, herbs were used for cooking and for medication, scrapbooking would be more akin to keeping the family records in the Bible, and just as beautiful scraps of fabrics turned into wonderful blankets or rugs to warm the home, scraps of other things like glass turned into things to beautify the home. Today is no different, except that we have easy access to the supplies to do these great things.
I hope to learn to ID and harvest mushrooms this spring, and to learn the local plant life so I can use the herbs for my family. I had some really wonderful native herbs at our old place that I can't get here, I will miss them, but I have a whole new world of herbs here to discover.
Well, I think that is it for tonight.
Until next time.
Gail
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Its the small things
Laundry. What is so great about laundry? Dirty laundry is not very nice and if you don't do it very often it can really become a smelly situation. Here on our little hill, which I call "Strawhill", we don't get to do laundry all that often, and depending on the weather it can be sometimes 3 to 4 weeks before we get to do the wash. One really does take having running water for granted until you have to 'run to town' to get the water, not the kind of running we are accustom to. What determines if we can get enough water to do laundry? Weather of course, weather or not it is freezing-frozen hoses don't work to well, rain-creates such mud that we can't get up our hill with the truck , much less with 250 gals of water. We have been having beautiful weather this last week and our mud hill is mostly dried out.....weather report: SNOW ....so we (rather I) had better get the laundry caught up so we can get the water tank filled back up (Kirks job).
Now it is rather important for 2 things to happen when you have to do laundry this way, besides running to get water. First, you have to have alot of cloths, think about that one. Second, you must wear your cloths more then once, some of them are changed once they can stand up by themselves....VBG. Really, none of this wearing them once and tossing them in the laundry.
It has been 3 weeks since I last did laundry, and I did 6 loads including sheets and rugs (rugs, now there is a topic).
Another issue of not having running water, is showers..........oh I love my HOT, LONGGGGGG showers, sometimes twice a day. No, not, nada. Now we are not the one shower (bath) a week type as you can see, but depending on what we have been doing, twice maybe 3 times a week and short little showers. I must tell you though, that this is an improvement......when we were residing in the 5th wheel the hot water tank was only 5 gals, now I have 40 gals so I do get to wash my hair twice and instead of a 4 min shower I take about 8 minutes. Improvements!
No, I don't have a dish washer anymore, except me of course, but I am not minding that, gives me a chance to get the dirt out from under my fingernails.
Toilet? You wonder if we have a flush one, yep....but that has not always been the case. When we first started this homesteading thing, we realized that we would not have this item. We had the 5th wheel of course and it has its head, but you have to dump that thing and it is 23 miles, one way, to the nearest dump station, which means alot if you have ever moved one of those puppies. So, we started looking into compost toilets, and we found the bucket. What is a bucket? A bucket compost toilet, it uses sawdust or ashes, you put a layer over your deposit each time and it really works, no smell whatsoever. Ok, that is all well and good but where do you put a bucket in a cramped trailer? You don't, so it goes outside.....which worked out just fine where we are located, we put it out back where no one could see, except maybe the deer, it was really quit nice one really could enjoy the stars on night visits. All went well as long as the batteries in the flash light worked and it didn't rain. The rains did come so we moved the bucket under the part of the trailer where the 5th wheel is and that was fine, too until it started getting colder and colder, and we had plywood proped around for some privacy and we could park the truck or quad around for this purpose too. Does this ring of REDNECK to anyone, LOL. Then another problem besides the cold came along, it is call HUNTING SEASON...so it was time to move the 5th wheel to a better position where we could put the bucket inside the shop, which was now up and inclosed, besides it would be closer to where we were working and we wouldn't be using the gas in the quad to go back and forth. So we moved and we bucketed in the shop, behind things to give a little privacy. Ok now I can hear you asking the question, how do you sit on a bucket? We built a little box to go around the bucket and attached a seat, the bucket is inside. So when we finially got "indoor plumbing" we were quit excited, we moved up in the world. We have not retired the bucket, cause sometimes nature speaks to us both at the same time. LOL. Don't worry though, if you come to visit, you can use the indoor plumbing.
So you see, sometimes it is the small things that mean the most, because they really are not that small after all.
Watch for PART II of Its the small things.
Now it is rather important for 2 things to happen when you have to do laundry this way, besides running to get water. First, you have to have alot of cloths, think about that one. Second, you must wear your cloths more then once, some of them are changed once they can stand up by themselves....VBG. Really, none of this wearing them once and tossing them in the laundry.
It has been 3 weeks since I last did laundry, and I did 6 loads including sheets and rugs (rugs, now there is a topic).
Another issue of not having running water, is showers..........oh I love my HOT, LONGGGGGG showers, sometimes twice a day. No, not, nada. Now we are not the one shower (bath) a week type as you can see, but depending on what we have been doing, twice maybe 3 times a week and short little showers. I must tell you though, that this is an improvement......when we were residing in the 5th wheel the hot water tank was only 5 gals, now I have 40 gals so I do get to wash my hair twice and instead of a 4 min shower I take about 8 minutes. Improvements!
No, I don't have a dish washer anymore, except me of course, but I am not minding that, gives me a chance to get the dirt out from under my fingernails.
Toilet? You wonder if we have a flush one, yep....but that has not always been the case. When we first started this homesteading thing, we realized that we would not have this item. We had the 5th wheel of course and it has its head, but you have to dump that thing and it is 23 miles, one way, to the nearest dump station, which means alot if you have ever moved one of those puppies. So, we started looking into compost toilets, and we found the bucket. What is a bucket? A bucket compost toilet, it uses sawdust or ashes, you put a layer over your deposit each time and it really works, no smell whatsoever. Ok, that is all well and good but where do you put a bucket in a cramped trailer? You don't, so it goes outside.....which worked out just fine where we are located, we put it out back where no one could see, except maybe the deer, it was really quit nice one really could enjoy the stars on night visits. All went well as long as the batteries in the flash light worked and it didn't rain. The rains did come so we moved the bucket under the part of the trailer where the 5th wheel is and that was fine, too until it started getting colder and colder, and we had plywood proped around for some privacy and we could park the truck or quad around for this purpose too. Does this ring of REDNECK to anyone, LOL. Then another problem besides the cold came along, it is call HUNTING SEASON...so it was time to move the 5th wheel to a better position where we could put the bucket inside the shop, which was now up and inclosed, besides it would be closer to where we were working and we wouldn't be using the gas in the quad to go back and forth. So we moved and we bucketed in the shop, behind things to give a little privacy. Ok now I can hear you asking the question, how do you sit on a bucket? We built a little box to go around the bucket and attached a seat, the bucket is inside. So when we finially got "indoor plumbing" we were quit excited, we moved up in the world. We have not retired the bucket, cause sometimes nature speaks to us both at the same time. LOL. Don't worry though, if you come to visit, you can use the indoor plumbing.
So you see, sometimes it is the small things that mean the most, because they really are not that small after all.
Watch for PART II of Its the small things.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Homesteading
What is it about homesteading that caught our attention and caused us to change the course of our lives?
Really, I am the one who has always longed to live on a farm, some of my favorite memories are the trips we took when I was a child to visit my Grandmother, Aunt, Uncle and cousins in Nebraska. The wide open spaces, crops, clear air, animals, just being in the country away from city life. When I was a young mother I began growning plants, any kind I could get my hands on and foods for our table. Though I never did anything on a grand scale, I loved it all. My choice of a home was always away from town.
At one time we had a cow....now picture this.....it is about 6 am, I look out the window and see Baby (the name our daughter Samantha gave the, now, 900 lb beef) had gotten into my veggie garden, he was having a grand time. Out I went with a broom, in my robe and slippers chasing this big animal back into the area he shared with the chickens and pig. LOL. What a sight that must have been.
Kirk was happy with the way things were, he lived out of town, too, but hates gardening, and loves cars, and not to keen on any animals but perhaps a cat. When we married, things started changing around the house. I started raising some of our food and got some chickens and he began hunting, something he had always wanted to do, he started liking these things and homestead are about. Now mind you he still won't garden, and the animals are my thing, and he still likes his cars, what did get his attention were things like, not depending on anyone else, if the stores are empty we can still provide for ourselves, so we began to study and learned about all the differant aspects of what one does to homestead, the more we studied, the more we knew we had to do this while we are still young enough to be able to. Now there are differant levels of homesteading, from living off the grid, grinding your own grain, milking your own cow, etc. as well as growing some of your own food in the city. Homesteading is a mind set, a different way of going about your life, is it slowing down, no not really, in some ways it is much more work, it is a differant way of living from what most people do, getting back to the land if you will, beyond the sidewalks. We fall in the middle of this large scope someplace. We like being on the grid, having electricity and the things that affords, we heat with wood and cook with propane, our home in Ca had a well for water, here we don't know yet how we will go, a well or a tap, for now we haul water it in. Kirk hunts and fishes, I will garden and will have another greenhouse, more chickens, perhaps a goat. I'd like an angroa goat, and to learn to spin and weave the wool. Kirk has built a saw mill so we can cut our own lumber, to build our house with. Homesteading is very hard work, to say the least and sometimes I wonder if I am up to it.
We are glad to have the small house up, and now must look to earning a living. I think, one of the most important things one can do to prepare for the homesteading life is to become debt free. I know this is not an easy task, but it can be done, we have done it. It takes detimination and a change of direction in ones life decissions. We came to that place about 5 years ago and with this move we no longer have a morgage. Paid off our cars and other loans several years ago. Alot of people go into this with lots of bills, we decided we would rather work when we need to and then go fishing. Our house is not big and fancy, but it is paid for, so don't laugh.
I would like to suggest some reading material that we have found to be helpful
Backwoods Home Mag.
Countryside Mag.
The Encyclopedia of Country Living, by Carla Emery
These will get you started, check the libary and of course the internet for information on homesteading.
Really, I am the one who has always longed to live on a farm, some of my favorite memories are the trips we took when I was a child to visit my Grandmother, Aunt, Uncle and cousins in Nebraska. The wide open spaces, crops, clear air, animals, just being in the country away from city life. When I was a young mother I began growning plants, any kind I could get my hands on and foods for our table. Though I never did anything on a grand scale, I loved it all. My choice of a home was always away from town.
At one time we had a cow....now picture this.....it is about 6 am, I look out the window and see Baby (the name our daughter Samantha gave the, now, 900 lb beef) had gotten into my veggie garden, he was having a grand time. Out I went with a broom, in my robe and slippers chasing this big animal back into the area he shared with the chickens and pig. LOL. What a sight that must have been.
Kirk was happy with the way things were, he lived out of town, too, but hates gardening, and loves cars, and not to keen on any animals but perhaps a cat. When we married, things started changing around the house. I started raising some of our food and got some chickens and he began hunting, something he had always wanted to do, he started liking these things and homestead are about. Now mind you he still won't garden, and the animals are my thing, and he still likes his cars, what did get his attention were things like, not depending on anyone else, if the stores are empty we can still provide for ourselves, so we began to study and learned about all the differant aspects of what one does to homestead, the more we studied, the more we knew we had to do this while we are still young enough to be able to. Now there are differant levels of homesteading, from living off the grid, grinding your own grain, milking your own cow, etc. as well as growing some of your own food in the city. Homesteading is a mind set, a different way of going about your life, is it slowing down, no not really, in some ways it is much more work, it is a differant way of living from what most people do, getting back to the land if you will, beyond the sidewalks. We fall in the middle of this large scope someplace. We like being on the grid, having electricity and the things that affords, we heat with wood and cook with propane, our home in Ca had a well for water, here we don't know yet how we will go, a well or a tap, for now we haul water it in. Kirk hunts and fishes, I will garden and will have another greenhouse, more chickens, perhaps a goat. I'd like an angroa goat, and to learn to spin and weave the wool. Kirk has built a saw mill so we can cut our own lumber, to build our house with. Homesteading is very hard work, to say the least and sometimes I wonder if I am up to it.
We are glad to have the small house up, and now must look to earning a living. I think, one of the most important things one can do to prepare for the homesteading life is to become debt free. I know this is not an easy task, but it can be done, we have done it. It takes detimination and a change of direction in ones life decissions. We came to that place about 5 years ago and with this move we no longer have a morgage. Paid off our cars and other loans several years ago. Alot of people go into this with lots of bills, we decided we would rather work when we need to and then go fishing. Our house is not big and fancy, but it is paid for, so don't laugh.
I would like to suggest some reading material that we have found to be helpful
Backwoods Home Mag.
Countryside Mag.
The Encyclopedia of Country Living, by Carla Emery
These will get you started, check the libary and of course the internet for information on homesteading.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Happy New Year
I have been admonished for procrastion, something I suffer from quit often. Thank you Robbin for give me a push in the right direction.
I pray everyone had a glorious Christmas and a fun New Years celebration. Ours was wonderful to say the least, we traveled back to California. Our oldest daughter, Samantha and DH- Andy joined us with our two oldest grandsons, Bryce and Tristan, from Oklahoma, we have not seen them in 8 months since their move. Tuesday following our arrival our son, Josh and DDIL, Michele, grandaughter, Destiny and third grandson, Brandyn came to Kirks parents, along with Samantha and family, to join in celebration with our youngest daughter, Alyssa and grandson #4, Konner. Mom and Dad opened their home to the crew and I believe we all had a great day of hugging, kissing, talking, playing base ball, riding bikes, swinging, laughing, crying, eating (of course) and partaking of all a family is. I want to say a huge Thank You, Mom and Dad for letting us use your home since we no long have one to entertain in, in Ca.
We then went and visited with dear friends Gilbert and Cathy and ate again, by the way these are some of the most sharing people we know...............they shared their colds with us. LOL.
Christmas Eve found us at Josh and Michele's so we could all be together for gift opening on the big day...........I think the mounds of gifts were higher then the kids. We were all blessed with such love that day, and were also blessed with Geania (Michele's sister) and her boys company, this gal is a hoot. We once again ate our selves silly, wonderful work my dears and they would not let me help..............I am impressed.
Saying good-bye was very hard, tears flowed.
We then made our way to may parents home in Nevada, where we enjoyed the company of my brother, Terry and SIL Karen with nieces Kasey and Jamie, also sister Nancy and niece Allison, we were also surprised by niece Erica and hubby, Stephen they came to visit too. It had been a long time since were have all been together.
Our travel to and from was truly blessed, the roads were clear and aside for about an hour of rain we had great travel, now when we got home that all changed because you see all that beautiful snow from before, well it melted and made major mud, so much so that we could not get our truck up the hill................after slip sliding my way in the mud to our jeep and then slip sliding my way down the hill in it, we left the truck at a friends a made our way back up home and snuggled in our warm little home. The mud is finially drying out.
Anyway, that is the beginning of 2006. I hope your holidays were wonderful.
I pray everyone had a glorious Christmas and a fun New Years celebration. Ours was wonderful to say the least, we traveled back to California. Our oldest daughter, Samantha and DH- Andy joined us with our two oldest grandsons, Bryce and Tristan, from Oklahoma, we have not seen them in 8 months since their move. Tuesday following our arrival our son, Josh and DDIL, Michele, grandaughter, Destiny and third grandson, Brandyn came to Kirks parents, along with Samantha and family, to join in celebration with our youngest daughter, Alyssa and grandson #4, Konner. Mom and Dad opened their home to the crew and I believe we all had a great day of hugging, kissing, talking, playing base ball, riding bikes, swinging, laughing, crying, eating (of course) and partaking of all a family is. I want to say a huge Thank You, Mom and Dad for letting us use your home since we no long have one to entertain in, in Ca.
We then went and visited with dear friends Gilbert and Cathy and ate again, by the way these are some of the most sharing people we know...............they shared their colds with us. LOL.
Christmas Eve found us at Josh and Michele's so we could all be together for gift opening on the big day...........I think the mounds of gifts were higher then the kids. We were all blessed with such love that day, and were also blessed with Geania (Michele's sister) and her boys company, this gal is a hoot. We once again ate our selves silly, wonderful work my dears and they would not let me help..............I am impressed.
Saying good-bye was very hard, tears flowed.
We then made our way to may parents home in Nevada, where we enjoyed the company of my brother, Terry and SIL Karen with nieces Kasey and Jamie, also sister Nancy and niece Allison, we were also surprised by niece Erica and hubby, Stephen they came to visit too. It had been a long time since were have all been together.
Our travel to and from was truly blessed, the roads were clear and aside for about an hour of rain we had great travel, now when we got home that all changed because you see all that beautiful snow from before, well it melted and made major mud, so much so that we could not get our truck up the hill................after slip sliding my way in the mud to our jeep and then slip sliding my way down the hill in it, we left the truck at a friends a made our way back up home and snuggled in our warm little home. The mud is finially drying out.
Anyway, that is the beginning of 2006. I hope your holidays were wonderful.
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