Indoor veggies have been planted

Today I got my winter garden planted - which will be housed in my office through the winter.  I have: spinach, tomatoes, green peppers, banana peppers, acorn squash, butternut squash, cucumbers, green beans, peas, carrots, leeks and celery.  Some of these will need to be hand pollinated.  I am laying a waterproof mat under my small greenhouse to catch water drips, and plan to let the squash climb my windows and the greenhouse its self.  The carrots and tomatoes will eventually move to a container on the floor near the window when they get big enough.  Now the only thing left to do is fix the zipper on my greenhouse cover as it is broken.  Then we’ll be all set

My latest research here on the homestead is on raising milk goats and my husband has shown interest in raising one or two at a time for meat.  I’m pretty sure they’re probably against city ordinances but it’s fun to learn.  And who knows – if I talk to my neighbors and they’re favorable, a little milk and eggs (from chickens, of course) go a long way to keep them from complaining…  I’ll let you know what I come up with.

Canning more applesauce!

We went to that small family orchard near where we used to live again and brought home 3 bushels of apples.  We bought one bushel specifically for canning slices and pie filling, and the lady there offered me other bushels of a type of apple I can’t remember the name of, but she wanted to get rid of them for $2/bushel and she said they make great applesauce but aren’t good for baking or canning in slices.  Sold!  Tonight I’m slowly working through one bushel of those apples (roughly one bushel has yeilded 10 quarts of applesauce tonight) as I also finish the October issue of From Scratch which should go out tomorrow. By the way, you can download a free copy of the newsletter at that link, or e-mail me and I’ll e-mail it to you.

I was blessed today by someone who just had a baby shower and had too many things – a bunch of baby boy clothes, pacifiers, and a bottle of shampoo were giften to me today.  We really think our next baby is another boy, so the clothes will be put to good use.   I was also given a ton of pants (jeans and dress pants) and cute shirts for after the baby is born.  Everything is in my size!  I am the type who has a handful of T-shirts, a nice shirt or two, a couple skirts and a pair of pants or two… Now I have a handful of nice shirts, a bunch of nice/casual shirts and way more jeans than I could ever need at once.  But I use them hard – every pair ends up with a hole in the knees within a few months so it’ll be nice to have a decent supply for a while. LOL. 

Today was shopping day at Sam’s club and tomorrow it’ll be regular groceries and picking up water.  I brought in the rest of my soil yesterday to warm up, and will be starting some more seeds in the next day or two for my winter garden.  I’m a bit late getting these planted, but it’s better late than never.

I am beginning to save the non-glossy bits of junk mail we recieve and will be using them for mulch next year.  We don’t have a paper shredder so I’ll likely put the kids to work tearing the paper into strips!  They’ll love it.

It’s also time to begin making homemade holiday gifts.  I have a lot of things I want to sew this year, so I want to be sure to set aside plenty of time for that.  Once my main canning season comes to an end I’ll be in a much better position time-wise to tackle sewing in the evenings.

Well that’s about all from my neck of the woods, I’ll let you know what I’m planting when i get around to deciding!

Fall happenings

Life has picked up its pace quite a bit!

I have a few more heads of broccoli I’m waiting on in the garden.  Some carrots are ready to pull I’m sure.  My husband already wacked the corn stalks down (we left the roots to rot over the winter and provide nourishment for the soil for next year) and the kids love having a little fenced in area to play.  The corn is drying in my backyard and will be taken to my church to be used as decoration for an outreach project they’re doing on Halloween.  My tomatoes won’t quit producing - I have new blossoms and tons of green tomatoes growing but I think our first frost is going to happen here in the next couple of weeks.  I am going to be growing a garden indoors over the winter and my husband suggested uprooting a couple tomato plants from outside because they’re still producing and see if I can’t transplant them in a container to make use of all those tomatoes I’ll otherwise miss out on.  if I use some of my tomato cages in large pots, I should be able to keep them upright.  Whether they’ll survive the transplant or not is another story.  I’ve never heard of anything like this, but we figured what have we got to loose?

I plucked the heads off my sunflowers and have them drying on my back porch.  I’m not sure if I can keep them there because the birds will find them soon enough.  the heads are  HUGE and there are tons of seeds.  They’ll finish drying in the basement if birds become a problem.  I have a few sunflowers that I let sprout from the birdfeeder, I cut the heads off and am going to dry the seeds and put ‘em back in the birdfeeder.

We’re going to get another probably 2 bushels of apples in October.  My husband loves the apple pie filling I put up (using tapioca instead of corn starch), so those jars are quickly disapearing.  I want to put up more apple pie filling, applesauce and more slices.  We opened a jar of pears that I put up a few weeks ago and they were SO GOOD.  The lady we bought them from told me she has tried to can them season after season but they go mushy on her.  I told her how I can mine, hopefully she’ll have better luck and be able to enjoy the fruit of her orchard over the winter!

I have a couple Morning Glory plants on my back porch.  I thought I’d be cute and train the plants to grow up the rails on my back porch.  Well now they’ve nearly enclosed my back porch for me.  it looks pretty, but those vines are stuck everywhere and it’s going to be a bit of a pain to remove them!  lol.  They have engulfed the watemelon I had growing from a pot on the back rail, and my aloe plant hanging from the support beams of the roof. 

My mind has turned to what I’ll do next year to maximize the harvest and make the best use of my space.  I’ve decided on the ‘three sisters’ method of growing corn, squash and beans/peas.  Somehow or another they all work together - the beans nourish the soil for the corn, the corn provides a natural trellis for the beans or peas to grow up, and the squash provide natural ground cover to keep the weeds down.  I like it!  That will free up a few rows and my squash plot for something else next year.  I’d love to grow some sugar beets and experiment with making our own sugar.  I need to move the carrots away from the tomatoes – I had no idea how bushy and big my tomato plants would get.  They’re huge!  And have shaded my carrots nearly completely.  I’ll move my cucumbers to the side of my house and train them to grow up the side of my house.  I just hope they don’t get too high so the point that I can’t reach them to get the cucumbers.  Maybe i can grow them up my porch where the Morning glories are growing instead.  I will train my squash to also grow up something, somewhere (though preferably not along my fenceline… I don’t want my neighbors thinking I’m rude for overtaking the fenceline) to maximize space.

I will be doing more succession planting, start a spring garden outside earlier (remember I moved here in May, so I didnt’ get my garden in as early as I like to), re-use that space later for fast maturing vegetables once the spring stuff has been harvested.  I’m also going to expand my garden space.

‘Sugar pie’ pumpkins will be going in so I can make use of pumpkin, and some larger pumpkins will be going in for roasting seeds and having out front as a harvest decoration.

Anything that dies will be hacked off at the ground and the roots will be left in to nourish the soil.   My husband is going to try and build me two shelves to hold some of my herb plants in one of my kitchen windows, high enough to keep out of the reach of our kids and to keep out of my way (I use suction cups with hooks on the lower window panes to hold lightweight but frequently used stuff)

Next year I’d like to grow a butterfly garden for my daughter (well, I’ll actually make this her garden, she wanted something of her own so badly this year!).  My chinese lanterns never took off this year (I wonder why?) but I want to try again next year so I can dry the lanterns and add them to our fall/harvest decorations!

I’ll also need to look into space to grow food for rabbits – one more hutch and we’re good to launch our meat rabbit production and start stocking our freezer.  Chickens may come next spring if we have the coop ready.

Preserving the Harvest

Boy has our kitchen been hot the past few days.  We visited a family orchard near where we used to live in Erie MI and came home with tons of potatoes, apples, pears and peaches that I’ve been putting up for the pantry.  Tonight I promised my husband an apple crisp, then I want to make some pies to freeze.  I’m also going to can apple pie filling.  I may be out of apples at that point, but on Tuesday we’re going back to pick up another couple bushels of apples.  I’d like to also make apple sauce, fresh juice (to drink now, not to can), and put up some apple slices.   We tend to only buy in season fruit, so apples are one of those treats we usually only buy in season beacuse they’re so expensive any other time of the year (not to mention not fresh!).  If time permits, I’d also like to put up the rest of the tomatoes from my garden I have sitting here before it’s too late, then I have 60 lbs of potatoes to peel, dice and can!  I finished the peaches we had yesterday, and finished the pears this morning.  I’d like to cook up a few whole chicken, shred the meat and can it as well for an easy grab when it comes to chicken salads and pot pies.

If anyone is familiar with the Erie area, this orchard is small and family run.  They have amazing prices on their fruit.  They are located on S. Dixie Hwy near the I-75/Summit split.  Go S. on Dixie and they’re right before the split on the right.   Please visit them if you can, I’m sure you’ll be pleased with their pricing and the fruit is just delicious!  They’ll continue to have more apples and other produce, and plenty of pumpkins as they become available.

Where has she been?

Free time on the computer has been extremely limited.  It’s harvesting and preserving season here in the Kostyu household.  I’ve been tending to the garden, harvesting vine ripened produce, canning for the pantry, and putting out my extra on my porch for my neighbors to pick at.  We began homeschooling my oldest daughter in Kindergarten last Monday and that has gone nicely so far. She is sooo motivated to learn.  The weekend came and she realized each day with surprise and disapointment “oh no! mom! we didn’t do school today!”

Each day we read a chapter from Proverbs.   Surprisingly each chapter so far has had something to do with wisdom or obedience, two things she has been most needing to learn about or hear about (I, myself, have needed to learn more about wisdom and what the word means, so I’ve been learning a lot right along side of her!).  I do believe through our discussions that she is learning and her heart wants to please God.  We bring up what we’ve read in the bible that day often throughout the day, using life lessons as reminders and examples.  Her acceptance of discipline has also hightened, as she understands discipline has its purpose and she willingly listens to us as we explain why something she did was unnacceptable and she really makes an effort to not do it again.  Lying was a problem we came across, and something I really felt was a phase.  My husband would have none of it though, whether it was play or a phase.  We will not lie in our household.  I followed his lead when it came to this and did not allow lying.  When my daughter is responsible for bad behavior, she owns up to it.  She understands lying is a sin, and is in fact one of the 7 things the Lord hates (when we came to this section in Proverbs, I drew a stick figure and we labeled the 7 things the Lord hates – haughty eyes, lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, etc.), we’re also commanded not to do it, etc.   I am so proud of her for wanting to please the Lord.  I enjoy homeschooling tremendously at this point, because I can see the fruit my daughter is beginning to bear as a result of our studying of the bible together and the way we choose to live our lives.  I can see how excited she is to learn, and BE THERE when she finally gets something she’s been having trouble with.  I like seeing the determination in her face to conquer something she’s stumped on.  And I really love to see the way she embellishes her letters with eyes, ears, hair and smiley faces….  I like being able to connect our lessons to real life examples.  I like being able to teach her God’s word straight from the bible, and teach her the values *WE* feel are important.

Anyway…  I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it here or not, but I’ve begun publishing a monthly newsletter on cooking, doing and making from scratch.  In fact, the newsletter is titled ‘From Scratch’ and while it focuses on cooking, there are also columns on gardening, preserving, raising meat/eggs, making things from scratch and doing what we can to reduce our dependence on stores and spending money.  Cultivating the skills of our grandparents and great grandparents and bringing them back into use.  What had once been a lifestyle we had to choose for survival, has now become a lifestyle I’ve grown passionate about.  I love to share what I’ve learned, and learn from those who care to contribute their knowledge.  I hope you’ll join us!  I’ve made a free issue available to download. Just click on the ’subscriptions/newsletters’ category.

In addition to writing my own monthly newsletter, I’m writing a ‘From Scratch’ column for New Harvest Homestead which is a 6x/year publication for Christian women who desire a simpler life.  This newsletter is also a great resource, an awesome inspiration, and something I highly recommend.

Homeschooling set to start

My oldest daughter will be entering grade K here at our home.  She’ll be 5 in February but has shown so much growth and interest in learning.  I’ve evaluated her and found that she’s more than ready for K, so here we go!

In the ‘do it yourself’ type spirit that I am, our homeschool is eclectic and I’ve planned on making our own curriculum for the first few years.  There are so many resources available for free online, and at the library, that for me it would be silly not to take advantage of this money savings.  I’ve put together our curriculum focusing on suggested topics for grade K.  For each subject I have a folder with her work in it – I found a free phonics workbook that I printed out and put in the folder, a bible based book for K’ers to teach them about God and Jesus, which goes in another folder, etc.

FInished work that she does and is particularly proud of has always gone into page protectors in a binder, once it comes off the fridge or the back door.  That will stay the same. 

My son is turning 3 and while he wants to have work to do while she is working on schoolwork, he’s not yet ready for Pre-K.   I’ve got coloring and activity books he can work on if he wants to though.  When we were doing Pre-K with my daughter, he always wanted to participate in some way.  hehe.

This year will be very interesting.  My youngest daughter will begin toddling around any time now so I’ll have two toddlers underfoot, and a new baby coming in November.  Part of our schooling will again focus on birth and babies as my daughter really, really wants to be at the birth and cut the umbilical cord. She wanted to for my last birth also, but I tend to labor and birth in the wee hours of the morning and I didn’t want to wake her up.  She’s already seen the videos I use in my classes, and i wrote a homebith book for her that I’ve made available for free at Motherhood Naturally Publications.  So we’ll once again do that, and take this opportunity to go a bit more in depth on some things and help her learn anatamy and the birthing process a bit more so she can be ready to expect the noises, blood, visions, etc.

My youngest daughter celebrated her first birthday today.  I can’t believe she’s 1!!!  I also can’t believe how hard it was to find toys that #1 we didn’t already have, #2 didn’t light up/move/make a ton of noise, #3 weren’t made of plastic, #4 weren’t made in China, and #5 weren’t from a TV show.  maybe I put a lot of barriers on gifts but we dont’ watch TV so my kids dont’ know the characters anyway (and I dont’ want to pay for a name), I want to support toy makers in my own country who aren’t trying to poisen my children with lead, and I refuse to buy toys that are overly done up with lights, music, noise, movement, etc. We don’t buy batteries in bulk, so batteries are at a premium around here. LOL. 

We did find a couple of things, but I’ve decided that for the next year or two, and for our next baby, once toys are outgrown they go in the attic.  Once a bithday comes along for the younger kids, they get toys from the attic because they’ll never know the difference and pretty soon we won’t be able to find toys to buy our kids that we don’t already have anyway.  Ok, maybe that’s going a bit too far but do they really NEED new toys?  No way.  They’ll never know the difference, and if they did, chances are good they wouldn’t mind anyway. 

‘Maters are large and green… Can’t wait for them to turn red!

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!

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.