Garden update and apple tree

I have ears of corn forming!  Green beans are coming into full swing, as are the cucumbers and tomatoes.  THis is another exciting time for me – time to start feeling better by eating veggies fresh off the vine, and time to start saving money from outragious food prices. 

My birthday is coming up next week and my hope is to use birthday money to buy an apple tree.  From the reading I’ve done, a dwarf variety can be kept in a container, and considering we’re renting this house and not sure how long we’ll be here I don’t want to plant a tree that we may not be around to eat from = it can take 3-5 years for some trees to bear edible fruit.  If I get a dwarf variety that has more than one variety of apple, I should only need one tree for pollination purposes.  Or I can get two or more trees.  I have yet to see if any local nurseries carry them other than WalMart and The Andersons, but I’d rather support a locally owned private business before a big box store and I’d probably get better quality and service, also.  Trees look to be around $24-35 each, I don’t know what a container is going to run me I’ll see I guess.  Considering apples are the most expensive fruit we usually buy (aside from grapes!) I’d love to have a way to cut that cost in the fall, also.  Speaking of grapes, next year I want to get a couple grape plants to start, my husban wants some berry bushes and all of them can be kept in containers and move with us whenever we move.

I’m imagining no dependence on the local store for vegetables and fruit, at least in the summer/fall.  I’ll let you know this year how well my indoor garden works out to provide us with fresh veggies through the winter and maybe, just maybe, I can have no dependence on the local store for vegetables year-round.  Fruit, probably (unless I freeze a ton of fresh fruit during harvest season once we get fruit trees/bushes).  But we’re going to see how sustainable our little city dwelling can become because I’m getting fed up with the cost of food and this is one thing I know I can do to help recoop SOME of the cost (if only to put it in our gas tank!).  We have a nice walk-in attic with a lot of space in it for tables and lights if I end up needing to use it.  I’m hoping that with all the windows in this house (18!) I can find enough good sun spots to not need extra lighting but with the amount of veggies I want to grow, I may very well need extra lighting.

As I am forming this homesteading ministry I’ve mentioned before, I came across a thought… The word self sufficiency, to me, brings up an image of someone living life dependent only upon themselves.  I desire a self sufficient lifestyle.  Then I realised I cannot be truley self sufficient without the Lord.  I depend upon Him for so much… Maybe that term doesn’t fit into my lifestyle.  With this being a ministry I want to include the love of our Lord into everything I do.  I’m trying to write down my goals and description of what i’m trying to form, utilizing bible verses to show people how the Lord has designed us for this type of a lifestyle, and how it is pleasing in His eyes.  I’m having a lot of fun finding suitable chapters and verses in the bible that apply for examples.  I’ll share my findings one of these days, and more of my thoughts on a Christian and homesteading lifestyle.  For now though, it’s time to rest my weary eyes.  It’s been a busy past week or two and everything is starting to catch up!

Why I think things are only going to get worse

A reader questioned why I felt things would get really bad and asked me to blog about it.  So, in the spirit of homesteading here is why I think things are going to get worse, and what we are going to do about it.

 

The cost of everything is rising, while jobs are being lost, overtime is reduced/impossible to obtain for those who have jobs, and it’s hard if not impossible for people to keep up with the rising cost of everything, especially those who were living paycheck to paycheck before.  Businesses are going out of business, crops are being flooded out, massive recalls on meats and produce are making people sick and costing businesses lots of money, our dollar is weakening and no one is doing anything about it.  I’ve never been the type to expect someone to make things easier for me, so now the prices rise and instead of asking what is the government going to do, I’m asking myself what can *I* do to ensure my family survives, and what can *I* do to help those in need who live in my community.    I don’t read the books and articles about peak oil, ‘the long emergency’, or any of the things people predict will happen to our country.  I do read threads on forums where people are commenting, but I see enough around me to know what is already happening.  I truley believe that the economy is going to continue to get worse for quite some time.  I’m not surprised to see the cost of gas continuing to rise.  Instead of complaining about it, we limit our trips or simply don’t go places if we can’t afford it.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see gas get above $10 a gallon, and soon.  Even the prices of bare basic food necessities (milk, vegetables, flour, meat, etc.) are rising, making it hard for those who have always cooked from scratch, to be able to do so.  While cooking from scratch is something that people are turning to now to save money, unless you garden and grow your own meat your grocery bill is STILL going to continue rising with basic food needs.

 

We live on a fixed income due to my husbands disability.  I have to be home to care for my husband and have been asked not to work outside of the home by his doctor.  As a result, this severely limits the income we have each month.  The income we have is less than what my husband had coming in when he was able to hold down a job, and we were living paycheck to paycheck at that point. Occasionally he’d score some overtime and we would have some extra cash coming in but more often than not, the paycheck would be spent before payday was over, on bills.  Now we’re living on less with no chance for ‘overtime’ or extra cash.  I run a business from home which thank the Lord has been helping us get by.  We moved to the city, in a not so nice part of the city to save money on rent, be able to walk to stores or use public transportation to avoid having to travel 15-20 minutes to do grocery shopping or run errands.  Living in the city allows me a backyard, in which I can grow a big garden to feed my family, and raise small livestock (rabbits for meat, hens for eggs) to provide meat for my family.  The main cost of our grocery bill always has focused on vegetables, meat and the items I can’t make such as milk, flour and sugar.  I preserve as much of my garden harvest as I can by canning or freezing but have not been able to have a garden to sustain me until the next harvest.  Hopefully this year will be different.  But by being able to cut out vegetables (at least during harvest season, and cut out canned goods from the store and use homecanned) and meat (at least the bulk of it) we’ll be able to save money for the higher prices in everything else.  

 

How bad will things get?  No one knows.  I just need to be content with what I am doing right now to help my family and stretch our dollar, and not fear the future.  The Lord will NOT give us more than we can handle, I am confident of that.  We have to remain obedient and willing to be used by the Lord for His purposes.  At this point I am learning all I can about the things we can make and do ourselves.  I am also looking into the future and considering ‘what if’ we can’t afford to pay our electric bill or our heating bill.  How will we get by without electricity and heat?  There are many things I am learning about to ensure we CAN do without, heck our ancestors lived like that every day.  We can do it!

 

I was at the grocery store today and was stunned over the price of vegetables – two small green peppers were $1.99, a small bag of green beans were $3.49, cucumbers were still at an alright price at 2/$1 (however Walmart is charging them 78 cents each!!).  It’s obvious that ‘things’ (in terms of prices rising, jobs lost, businesses going out of business, income lowering, etc.) are going to continue to get worse for quite some time.

 

My biggest comfort in all of this, however, is knowing that the Lord is going to bring good out of this in some way.  We can’t guess, we can’t fight it, we can only do what we can to help ourselves and help our neighbor and be secure in the fact that God is allowing this for whatever reason, and He will not give us more than we can handle.  We have to set our sights on Him and live only for Him and not for the things of this world.  After all, for those who proclaim the Lord to be their Savior have a wonderful home awaiting them in Heaven.  A place where pain, suffering and sadness don’t exist. 

An unexpected sighting

Sometimes I don’t understand what people are thinking.

Since moving to the city, I’ve never seen so many young children and babies being driven in cars without being strapped into a careseat.  For that matter, few are ever actually buckled in.

Or, children are in a car with a carseat or booster, but they’re not sitting in it as the car is driven down the road.  Never looks like mom or dad (or whoever is responsible for them at that time) even care.

Do these people realise the sort of danger they are putting their innocent children into??  I remember an accident last year where an infant died in a car accident because she was being held in her grandma’s arms instead of being kept in her carseat.  It’s such a simple thing, but something that can save a life: put your kids in carseats!!

Today had to be the most surprising, however.  A mother pulls up to this store (I was waiting with the kids in the parking lot while my husband ran inside), parks her car, and walks into the store leaving her young toddler (not in a carseat), and an infant (in a carseat – bonus) in a running car that was unlocked and unattended.  My eyes couldn’t leave the car and I wanted to go stand near the car so no one would steal the car with the children in it, or to make sure the toddler didn’d open her door and walk out or worse yet get into the drivers seat of the RUNNING CAR and put it in gear… But if I did that, I’d be leaving my own children unattended in the car and I wasn’t willing to do that.  What are people thinking?!?  When my husband came out, we waited until the mother came back out before leaving.  I wanted so badly to say something to her, but I knew that in the state of mind I was in, it would not be well recieved nor would my words be the ones I’d want her to remember me by.  

I’m going to be praying that the Lord open some eyes here and help parents understand the importance of a carseat for their young children…

Fencing around my garden is nearly complete – remember I told you we were building a fence from previous porch planks that were under our back porch.  I got three fence portions made so far.  Then the twin headboard and footboard my husband found in someones trash got pounded into the grown on side of the corn.  He was going to build me a ‘flower bed’ from the frame and plant a bunch of flowers in it but we didn’t have the resources this year and it’s falling apart now so I decided instead of just throwing it away, it would make two great sections of fencing, although it won’t really match the current look… I don’t care at this point.  The dogs have run through my garden so much they killed all of my garlic, some of my tomatoes, a lot of carrots, and a bunch of my corn.  My garden is planted against a fence line, and the neighbors next door have a dog so our three dogs always run through my garden to greet that dog, then run the fenceline a few times……  Luckily now most of my vegetables are grown large enough to keep the dogs out (sometimes) or are staked so they dogs can’t trample them but then there are things like my beets, lettuce, spinach, corn, etc. that isn’t staked or large enough to prevent the dogs from running through.  Oh – to top it off, i’m picking up some fencing tomorrow from a freecycler who is getting rid of her garden fencing.  I don’t know if it’ll finish the rest of my garden or not, but every section of fence helps!!  It’ll be nice to not have to spend a dime building the fence.

Yesterday I made bagels (yum) and attempted to make rye bread for my husband. This was my second attempt and it flopped just like my first attempt.  It doesn’t rise (my yeast is fine, water wasn’t too hot, etc, etc.) and just sits like a brick while it’s supposed to be rising.  I threw it out and just told my dear husband to buy the rye himself like he wants (he was going to humor me by letting me make it to see if he’d like it) I don’t have enough bread flour to keep wasting to figure out what i’m doing wrong!  lol.

Today we went out on the boat for a few hours.  It was soooo nice.  For my high school graduation my father bought me a 14 ft. Lund Sea Nymph.  For a few years I kept the boat at my dads and this is the first year it’s been with us (we’ve space to store it now!).  It doesn’t use a lot of gas and we were going to a little beach about 15-20 minutes out on Lake Erie, and it was free to launch so we went out there. The kids had an absolute blast running in the sand, we took my Vizsla who loved the freedom to run and play and finally get into water (he’s a hunting dog but he was afraid of water his entire life… We took him with us and forced him into the water, he figured out how to swim and had a blast!), Kaitlyn figured out how her feet are supposed to work to get her to walk (supported… she really wanted to get into that water! LOL).  Alexis was collecting shells and at the end of the summer we’ll make a necklace with all the shells she’s collected, and on a small peice of drift wood I’ll woodburn ‘Summer ‘08′ and attach that to the necklace also.  We’ve decided that a weekly trip should be planned through the summer, providing fuel doesn’t rise too high. 

My husband is taking a nap, the kids are coloring, the big dog is snoozing on our bed (yes, the one who came out to swim with us today), and I’m going to figure out something quick for dinner, then head off to bible study tonight with everyone.

Holiday Happenings

Well the 4th is over… I think.  I’m still hearing a ton of firecrackers through the afternoon and through the night.  It’s rather annoying now, because the holiday is over and we’ve been listening to fire crackers for about the past month to begin with!  Every time a fire cracker goes off, my youngest (Kaitlyn, 11 months) wakes up.  I’ve gotten very, very little done the past month during the evening hours.  I was rather disappointed to wake up on the 5th and find my street lined with paper from fireworks, beer cans, clothing and other trash.  Most of it is still in the road.  Remember, I come from the country.  We shoot shotguns on the 4th (at targets… we won’t fire into the air uncontrolled) and except for maybe a few firecrackers, we’re done celebrating until next year.  We clean up after ourselves and don’t waste a bunch of money on something we’re going to light on fire anyway.  We’re supposed to be living in the area with the highest poverty rate in the county but there sure is a lot of money being blown up around here on a very frequent basis!  I’m trying not to judge, maybe the 4th is the holiday everyone saves up for and they go all out buying nifty fireworks and firecrackers but I could think of much better things to spend my money on.  For us and the kids we only spent about $5 (and opted out of shotguns this year… LOL)

We did see the city fireworks on the 4th.  We parked on the side of the road and got great ’seats’ and the kids enjoyed it.  We also did a little garage saleing.  My husband was going to buy me a dehydrator or a pasta machine for my birthday, and I managed to find both for $4 total (I prayed before we went, asking the Lord to show us our needs and help us be wise with our spending).  Another woman was offering two big totes of maternity clothing for free, so I picked out a whole new wardrobe (a very nice feeling considering my maternity wardrobe for the past three children has been the same 3 summer shirts, two winter shirts, a pair of shorts and a pair of pants!) That same woman also had a big tote of boys toys for free, so I picked out a play tool belt, tools and a construction hat for my son, and a baby toy for kaitlyn.  There wasn’t anything in the way of girl stuff my daughter would be interested in, but she has had a blast sharing the tools with her brother.  I also found clothing in the next few sizes up for both the older kids at a sale where the woman was having everyone stuff a grocery bag for $1.  I couldn’t pass that deal up – I even got a few shirts for myself once I have the baby and everything fit into one bag.  Another woman gave away a bunch of plastic plant pots (large ones, perfect for herbs and smaller vegetables).  I couldn’t believe what luck we were having, but I realised I DID ask the Lord to guide us, and I praised him every step of the way.

Meanwhile things have been going great at our new church.  I think we will be joining officially soon.  My husband missed todays service because he wasn’t feeling well but I took the kids and learned a lot.  The older two went to Sunday School and the Toddler nursery (Alexis is in Sunday School preschool, Andrew is still in the toddler nursery), and Kaitlyn fell asleep as usual during the service (it’s her naptime).  Todays sermon was on integrity and idolitry. Very good points were made and I was all the more inspired to continue doing right and not fall for the way the world does things (the best I can!  I still make a lot of mistakes), not push God off for something that seems more important, and not giving in to do worldly things with the plan to ‘repent later.’    We’re going to start a homeschooling meeting later this month and figure out what the moms want to do in terms of the support group – is it going to be a coop where we teach the kids, just a support group for the moms, or both.

And the Lord has put a ministry on my heart that is slowly coming along – one in which myself and anyone else with the desire to help can help people in the city learn how to become more self sufficient.  I’d like to see more gardens, more cooking from scratch, more basic skills coming back into every day life.  I’d love a chance to talk to people about God, and be a blessing to those in need of help.  I dont’ have all the details yet, those are slowly being ironed out according to Gods timing.  I would love it if you could pray for me about this though.  Titus 2 meetings will also be a part of this ministry, to help encourage Christian women (and those curious) in our lives as wives, mothers and women, teach one another frugal living, homesteading and other skills we can use every day.  We’ll see where the Lord leads this.  It’s all in His hands, I’m just trying to make it happen as He sees fit.

Do It Yourself Rabbit Feed

While looking into growing/making our own rabbit food for meat rabbits, I was pleasantly surprised by this:

http://homesteadingtoday.com/showthread.php?t=211220

The whole homesteadingtoday.com forum is SUPER!

Meat Rabbits – How to YouTube Videos

I think I’ve mentioned somewhere on this blog about my husband and I considering meat rabbits as well as chicken.  If not here, I know i’ve talked about it on my other blog as we were planning on doing it at our country duplex before moving.  Rabbits are not considered ‘livestock’ so they won’t fall under typical city bans like that of chicken.  They are a very healthy, very lean, and very easy to raise yourself meat. 

The only reason we haven’t gotten them here yet is #1 I want better fencing around our yard to keep stray cats and other nusances out of our yard, and #2 we need hutches.  Once we get those two things taken care of, we will begin.  My husband doesn’t like the idea of butchering rabbits we’ve raised – I can understand because I had them for 13 years as pets.   I dont’ like the idea of butchering anything, but to be quite honest with as bad as things are going to get I’ve been talking to my husband about hunting with him so we can get double the bounty (to our limit) on whatever we’re hunting.  He’s been good with duck and rabbit, and I think I could accompany him and handle killing something that we are going to use as food.  Better yet, I really think I can kill our own rabbits now.  A long time ago when we first began thinking about meat rabbits someone suggested that instead of breaking the neck or knocking them on the head, use a .22 and shoot them.  Put them in a box so they can’t move (a narrow one only as long as they are) and shoot them in the head.  Brilliant!  No big chance of a unclean kill and my BIGGEST thing about meat animals is I dont want them to feel pain before they die.  This is one way in which that can be accomplished, and I don’t need to worry about not hitting the right way, or not yanking hard enough, and no bruising of the meat.

We would most likely get a pair of lop eared rabbits for my children, something they could love on and have as pals so that they didn’t try to love on, play with or cuddle our meat rabbits.  I don’t want their hearts to be broken when the rabbits start getting butchered and the easiest way I can think of to prevent that is to give them their own pet rabbits, so they understand that the rest are for eating.  Then again, there may be no easy way to prevent a broken heart, but I am going to do what I can.  i also feel it is important for our children to know where meat really comes from, and to have the skill and thought to be able to provide for themselves.

Anyway, to help prepare me a little more I found these on YouTube tonight (my first time really getting into YouTube!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpwhOE74TMA Butchering and Skinning Meat Rabbits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3alV5xwwyE How to kill & prepare a rabbit part one (shows actual kill, may be graphic but if you’re planning on raising meat rabbits you’ll have to learn sometime!)