Homesteaders

[lazy gardener]

Well i have some sad news, Grandpa passed away on Saturday. So my life is almost at a stand still for the next couple of weeks. I am currently writing this with my dog on my lap and friends surrounding me.

Raech, so sorry for the loss of your beloved Grandpa. Having loved ones with you to help with the mourning and remembering is very important. Take solace in that comfort. Will pray that God will surround you and your loved ones with His comfort.

Re: Kim K. I wouldn't recognize her if she knocked at my front door. But, I'd love to see her and Martha Stewart come join any one of us for a typical day on the farm. My only requirement of them would be that they wear sensible boots and leather gloves. Beyond that, they would have to put in an honest days work for an honest home cooked meal. Here, they could help me cut dead wood, cart it to the HK, and mound it up. Then, they could clean out some of the leaf litter under the perches in the coop, and dump some fresh bags of leaves to freshen up the coop for winter. They could also help build the solar cabana in the chicken run to get it prepped for winter. Then, they could cut the lumber for a new cold frame. Then, I'd take them on a leaf collecting expedition through town. Then, they could harvest fresh greens from the green house, and they could make home rolled tortilla shells and have tacos with meat base of home grown chicken. What would they do at your place???

 

[Beekissed]

Should they follow me or the Ol' Bat?

 

[Beekissed]

I was chatting with a friend the other day and telling about my garden and meat-raising plans for next spring. She asks, "What're you going to do with all that food?" Really? I responded that I planned to stop buying most of my food at the grocery store and know what's in my food! Maybe someday I'll learn to just keep quiet. I'll come here for support!

To most folks, home canned foods are just a novelty...jams, pickles and such like that you'd give in a gift basket. They can't imagine having your own grocery store in the pantry with practical food items in it. Work has become a dirty word in this country and all my homesteading efforts have all been greeted with the same comment~"Just seems like a whole lotta work to me!" stated in a tone that implies that one is just silly to be expending that much effort for mere food.

Well....yeah.

Work can either be paid for or done yourself, but either way it is going to be done before a person can eat and work has to happen, be it on the regular job so you can get money to buy food or on the homestead in growing food and preserving it. Some choose to invest work into their food and in their fuel for heating the home~ rather than money. The food and fuel I use are of a higher quality than what they can purchase, for various reasons.

I eat gourmet quality foods here and they are well worth the work...that work serves many purposes that they are paying tons of money~and working for that money on a job. Physical labor is good for the health and so are the better quality foods~the savings on health care alone are immeasurable. I save money in the process of growing my own foods and canning them, so that's like money earned rather than saved....less money going out equals more available money in the pocket. When I harvest wood here, it warms me over three times and also serves as a health benefit...for us and for the land.

It has a spiritual benefit, as I practice good stewardship of what the Lord has provided for me. That stewardship, that obedience to the Lord, offers another immeasurable benefit that cannot be calculated in dollars...it's priceless and stores up riches in Heaven of untold amounts. It feels good to please the Lord in the things I do every day, as I love Him and He loves me and that relationship is the most valuable thing on Earth and Heaven to me.

That whole lotta work? I do it as if unto the Lord, so my burden is light, my yoke is easy to bear....in other words, I delight in that work! While others see it as a curse and a drudgery, I see it as a blessing and a gift.

What else should I be doing with my time? Watching TV or spending my time bent over a smart phone?

Those are some huge wastes of one's life, right there, and I can't imagine anything more useless and futile.

 

[GardenNut]

Thanks for that inspiration @Beekissed! I enjoy a day of productive, physical labor so much more than my previous job in front of a computer all day. I really did love my job, but I never felt that sense of accomplishment I do now.

 

[Chicken girl 15]

@Beekissed My day consists of physical activity from sun up until well after sun down but I don't see it as work nail it's time to do laundry. The firewood, the yard work and building projects, aLL the care for the flock and attention to my produce, the days on end of canning and processing everything. Nope I'm not moving to town any time soon. In what town could I possibly ( especially with 8 of us) live a good life for less than $1000 going out per month. That includes everything. That even includes annual taxes and kids school clothes. We don't want for anything simply because we work for what we want. Therefore it's never really work it's progress.

Sorry if that made no sense I'm scattered today.

 

[Beekissed]

Makes sense to me! I belong to a canning group on FB...a fairly recent thing for me, that whole group thing. One post was pretty much a brag on how much they all spend on canning, not including the foods they buy. Some of them ladies were talking into the thousands...and that's not counting the food they BUY from the store to can.

It sounded much like when folks on BYC brag about how many thousands their first egg cost them. What in the world????

I can because it's frugal, not as a hobby. I keep chickens for the same reason, among others, but certainly not as a hobby. This is a lifestyle and a frugal one, which I love and I can't imagine homesteading as a mere hobby, no more than I could imagine canning or keeping chickens as one. I've never really had extra money for a hobby, but if I did, I'd not spend it on a hobby. Other folks out there struggling too hard for me to throw money down a toilet for entertainment...I'd just give it to them instead.

Nope...I understand you completely. It's just easier and cheaper to live out in the country, raising your own foods and cutting your own fuel than it is to live in the 'burbs, especially if you have a large family. To me, cheaper is good, but pile it on top of all the other things I love about this life and it's downright priceless.

 

[Chicken girl 15]

Oh!! Don't forget NO CHEMICALS!! Chemicals cause medical problems and requires more chemicals to be ingested to fix the problem the first chemicals started.

I also have my lifestyle the way I do because I love the freedom of knowing that I can go months (probably close to a year) without buying food . I am proud to say that every bit of " spare time" my family has is used to learn more about working the land for God to help us have great harvest, and lots of bugs for the chickens to eat. I am not 100% sure what I believe in, but I do know there is a higher power. I figure if I help nurture what I was given on my little plot of land then what I get back will be enough to get my family from today until tomorrow. As long as I have the next meal for my kids I don't stress tomorrow. One of the great things about my lifestyle is I have no one to please but my own. My neighborhood thinks we are crazy. At the turn of every season we feed everyone a season appropriate meal. The first time we did it they were all shocked. We don't buy Christmas for people we bake them goodies. We also make crafts for them. Who needs expensive plastic crap when you can have a free craft made of stuff from the land by your kids..

Oh speaking of kids.. I accidentally found a way to help clear skin bumps. Sorry I can't think of the name. Leaches. My family went swimming, where else but a river. My youngest son has strange little bumps on him that look like bug bites but not. 4 different doctors said use hydrocortisone, no good. We go swimming and goofy found a leach family. 3 days later his bumps start clearing up. SWEET free cure for "bumples " as he calls them. I say great and my family who lives elsewhere and depends on society for everything said I'm nasty and I better get him to the ER Haha joke is on them. The er said absolutely no chance of leaches causing illness but they are good for curing things.

Ok I have to stop now. I feel better though. Thank yall for being friends.

 

[lazy gardener]

Oh!! Don't forget NO CHEMICALS!! Chemicals cause medical problems and requires more chemicals to be ingested to fix the problem the first chemicals started.

I also have my lifestyle the way I do because I love the freedom of knowing that I can go months (probably close to a year) without buying food . I am proud to say that every bit of " spare time" my family has is used to learn more about working the land for God to help us have great harvest, and lots of bugs for the chickens to eat. I am not 100% sure what I believe in, but I do know there is a higher power. I figure if I help nurture what I was given on my little plot of land then what I get back will be enough to get my family from today until tomorrow. As long as I have the next meal for my kids I don't stress tomorrow. One of the great things about my lifestyle is I have no one to please but my own. My neighborhood thinks we are crazy. At the turn of every season we feed everyone a season appropriate meal. The first time we did it they were all shocked. We don't buy Christmas for people we bake them goodies. We also make crafts for them. Who needs expensive plastic crap when you can have a free craft made of stuff from the land by your kids..

Oh speaking of kids.. I accidentally found a way to help clear skin bumps. Sorry I can't think of the name. Leaches. My family went swimming, where else but a river. My youngest son has strange little bumps on him that look like bug bites but not. 4 different doctors said use hydrocortisone, no good. We go swimming and goofy found a leach family. 3 days later his bumps start clearing up. SWEET free cure for "bumples " as he calls them. I say great and my family who lives elsewhere and depends on society for everything said I'm nasty and I better get him to the ER Haha joke is on them. The er said absolutely no chance of leaches causing illness but they are good for curing things.

Ok I have to stop now. I feel better though. Thank yall for being friends.

I think the bumps you are talking about are swimmer's itch. It's caused by a little parasite that has duck and snails as intermediate hosts. They are invisible to the naked eye, but produce exactly what you are describing: looks like lots of bug bites. You can grease the kids up with vaseline, and that will help prevent them from getting into their skin.

 

[Chicken girl 15]

I think the bumps you are talking about are swimmer's itch.  It's caused by a little parasite that has duck and snails as intermediate hosts.  They are invisible to the naked eye, but produce exactly what you are describing:  looks like lots of bug bites.  You can grease the kids up with vaseline, and that will help prevent them from getting into their skin.  

no it starts with an e. It's sadly one thing he inherited from my family.

 

[GardenNut]

Eczema?

I know how it feels to tell folks about using herbs and other natural remedies. I've used herbs, tinctures, etc. for years. I get the same reaction about chiropractors. But I've always been "different," and I'm healthier for it. I still haven't been able to control my high blood pressure with herbs though, but I continue trying. Until then I rely on prescriptions, which I hate.

I'd enjoy reading about other folks' herbal and natural health practices. My mother taught me that fresh air and sunshine are the best tonics!