Posted in Down The Garden Path
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Ok this is my second try at posting...my pc is eating my posts today. Our spring started of with 2 weeks of nice hot weather and ever since then it's been cool and rainy. So I'm just now starting to get into the garden. I'm working on the shady garden right now. This is my patch on top of the hill that boarders a pine bush. I've found it to be a wonderful place to grow cooler crops in the summer heat. Cabbage, broccoli, and lettuce seem to love it especially and keeps them from bolting. It has just one problem...It's infested with cleavers! If you have never seen cleavers they can be a useful herb but NOT in the vegetable garden! They are very invasive, choking out everything in it's path. It's leaves are covered in sticky hairs that rip your arms like velcro when you try to weed them out. So this year I'm trying something new, fabric mulch! Yesterday it wasn't raining so I got two rolls put down and planted some of our cabbage, celery and lettuce. I hope to finish covering the garden with it soon and get some bark mulch on top to.
Cabbage
Celery
Lettuce
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Posted in In My Kitchen
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Feeding our families healthy food at a good price is always a parents concern. With the rising food and energy crises in the world prices are jumping sharply. While we have seen the increase in food prices in North America it is the developing countries that have been hit the hardest. In North Korea the price of rice is up 186% since April 2007, its overall food price has soared 70%. In Pakistan wheat is up 66% and it’s overall food price has gone up 35%. Many countries are in a similar or worse position and I believe that it will soon be affecting our families more. The bulk store/flour mill I buy from has been affected by the grain prices. For years I had been able to by a 10 kg bag of unbleached white flour for about 4.50, this was half the price the grocery stores charged and the flour was much fresher. Now the same bag is almost 12.00 and the price of name brand flour in the grocery store is around 15.00 for 10kg. It is not only wheat that has been effected but all grains including corn and rice. Many areas of the world have been hit by repeated years of drought and now much of the grain crop in Africa is being damaged by a new stem rust Ug99. The rising prices of grains will effect all areas of our food. As rabbit farmers we have seen the price of our feed jump. Many farmers are dumping pigs and other livestock on the market because of the high price of feed. This is causing a temporary surplus in meat and lowering prices farther. However in a year or so we could see a sharp jump in the price of meat due to both feed cost and a shortage of supply. The best way to find out how venerable your family is to food supply inflation is to ask your self some questions. When most people think about food we tend to think : Am I hungry? What sounds good? What will it cost me? But we need to get much deeper then that. Where does your food come from? Try thinking about the individual items you buy. Where does the tomatoes and lettuce come from? What about your bread, potatoes and other staples? How much of your food comes from your garden? How much does your garden produce? Keeping a garden journal is a huge help here. A small investment in seeds often under 20.00 will return hundreds of dollars in fresh, healthy vegetables for your families table. In your garden journal record what varieties you planted and were. Keep notes on what mulch you used, what the weather was like and how many pounds of harvest you had. Your journal will help you to see what varieties grow and produce best in your location . How much food do you eat in a year? According to the FDA Americans eat 1500 pounds of food per person each year. Do you know were the local farm markets and stands are? While many of our family farms have disappeared, taken over by large factory farms. There has been a resurgence in fruit stand, farmers markets, pick your owns and CSA’s. Find out what is in your area and take advantage of what they offer! Like produce from your own garden it will be much fresher and use less natural resources (transportation and preservation) then items purchased across the country or across the ocean. How much food could your family produce? If you put in a little more time in the garden, how much would your production rise? What about grinding your own flour, baking your own bread, canning and freezing your harvest. All of these things will increase your families food supplies. Does your community work together? Many areas have empty lots, try working together to start community gardens. Working together shares the work load and will increase the amount of potential harvest. It helps neighbours to form close bonds and keeps young people busy and out of trouble. How large is your pantry? Lets suppose that a natural or economic disaster cut off your normal ability to shop how long could you feed your family on what is in your house right now? With world wheat stores at it’s lowest in a decade and prices jumping, countries putting export bands on grains so they can feed their own people each of us should be prepared. Keeping a pantry is not a fad thing nor is it a crazy thing. It is a very practical thing to do and our grandmothers before us relied heavily upon them. A few years ago a major black out hit the Eastern USA and Canada, some areas were with out power for days. Many people lost everything in there freezers (that’s why I prefer canning), people who had gas in there cars were driving long distances hoping to find ice. Not only for there freezers but the temperatures were in the high 90’s F. Most gas bars were shut down, you can’t pump gas with out electricity and generators were almost impossible to find. Many people had little food in the house because they like to shop every day and had no way to cook. Grocery stores were forced to destroy there supplies of meat, dairy and frozen items along with much produce. I remember it was weeks before the stores started to be normally stocked again. Why did it take so long? Because it was a wide spread problem! ALL the stores needed to be restocked, so supply was limited. These things really do happen! Maybe not every day but we still need to be ready when it does. How much energy does it take to produce your food? It takes a small amount of labour to care for a well planned garden. But commercially prepared food takes 10 kcal of energy to produce just 1 kcal of food, not including home cooking energy. That means that the USA food production system uses 10 times more energy then it produces in food energy. This is only sustainable while fossil fuels are cheep. Making a huge difference in your families food bill and health is not as hard as it may sound. Even in a small lot or patio you can use intensive method to get high yields. Wide rows, square food gardening, mulching are all things that help to reduce the work load and get the maximum potential from your soil. Learning to use whole grains, cooking your foods from scratch will all help save you money and boost your nutrition value. |
Posted in The School Room
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Have you heard about the Ultimate Homeschool Expo 2008? It is an AMAZING online homeschool convention hosted by Cindy Rushton. I find many conventions in my area imposable to get to, either a family commitment comes up or they simply don't allow children to attend. Being a mother with 4 small children if my kids aren't welcome neither am I! You see one of the neat things about the Ultimate Homeschool Expo is that everything is ONLINE. Cindy builds a private, exclusive Membership Site that includes everything from the UHSE in one place--it has audios (from all of the sessions and from the bonus gifts that her speakers give to us), ebooks, complete unit study guides, articles, printable notebooking pages, cookbooks, on and on. I can't believe all of the things that we receive for only $40. It is truly ULTIMATE! Since EVERYTHING is recorded and saved online it gives me the freedom to join in live if I can or download all the sessions and free gifts when it's convenient for me. Cindy has given me permission to give you a sampler of one of her free gifts that is included on the Membership Site. I am so excited to share this with you! It is a audio and ebook set that she sells on her website, but she is giving away on the Membership Site. Here is the link:
Need ideas for encouraging your young writers and QUICK? Ready for a FUN way to encourage your most reluctant writer to write AND like it??? This fun-filled, hands-on workshop is one that you simply CANNOT miss!! Cindy Rushton, who has become known through the years as THE BINDER QUEEN, uses Notebooking for EVERYTHING! She will show you how to begin whether your child is a toddler or the most skeptical high schoolers. This workshop is sure to light a fire that will equip YOU to help your children deepen their studies and document learning all along the way! TOPICS FOR THIS WORKSHOP INCLUDE: Hey! Do I Have A Chance At This??; Why On Earth Notebook???; Down to the Nitty Gritty...WHAT Do I Need and HOW Do I Do It?; Step-by-Step Through Notebooking; Scrapbooking! YES! You CAN Have Fun Homeschooling; Hey? What is Legal? What All Goes Into A Notebook???; Developing FUN Studies That Teach and Inspire!!; Copywork...Answers to ALL of Your Questions; Taking the Writer From Reluctant to Researching; Ideas, Ideas, Ideas, There’s Gotta Be One for You; PLUS Much, Much More! PLUS! Cindy doesn't stop with the workshop, she also includes the Q/A Session after the workshop AND her handouts/samples of student notebooks. Awesome! Let’s Try Notebooking Audio Mp3: (Questions and Answers)
Samples of Student Notebooks:
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Posted in Just Thoughts
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I'm so excited to share that I'm not sick with the flu! I've been down with morning sickness LOL Yup we are expecting another sweet little one! |
Looks like we are due mid Nov.Posted in Just Thoughts
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I saw this on the news last night. Baby/toddler pear juice is being recalled because there might be arsenic in it! This is for the PC organics brand and Beach Nut brand. Here is a link to more info. |
Posted in Blogger Friend School
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Our assignment: I thought this week we could write something fun or just take a look back at our lives and what we wanted to do when we were so young! It'll be fun to read about what everyone thought they would be doing when they were young...did you ever think you'd be homeschooling? When I was a little girl I always wanted to work with animals. I dreamed of living on a farm, being a vet and breeding Arabian horses and Germain Sheppard's. I changed my mind on the vet idea when I was in my late teens. I simply didn't have the money for university. I'm sure glad I did or I would never have met my wonderful husband!! We both love the farm/homestead life. We've lived on big farms, in apartments and on a big lot like we are now. Still working to get back to a large land base. I don't breed horses or dogs. Maybe someday When I was little I never wanted to get married or have children. So no I didn't think I would be homeschooling! But thankfully my life changed on that! But I did know that IF I had children I absolutely would homeschool. Thankfully dh and I have always agreed on that.
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Posted in Just Thoughts
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I've been knocked out with the flu for the last week or so. I'm just starting to feel half human again LOL. So now I'm working at getting caught up with all my chores! Dh and the kids have kept most of the laundry done so I just have a few loads of that. But we have a huge pile of clean to put a way. That will be tackled this afternoon. But I just finished washing just about every dish I think I own LOL!! Our kittens are doing grate and I'll be posting more photos soon. There eyes are open now and they are crawling around their box. We were hit by a good winter storm on Sat. It took dh a long time on Sunday to dig out. I'm so ready for spring!! But we didn't get the storm as bad as the people south and east of us. They got 2 to 3 times as much snow eeeks!!
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Posted in Just Thoughts
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Pumpkin had her kittens last night! 3 sweet little ones have been added to our house. 2 orange ones like their Momma and one beige one.
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Posted in Just Thoughts
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Our sweet Manx cat Pumpkin came into labor this afternoon. I'll hopefully be sharing photos of happy and healthy mom and babies soon! |
Posted in Just Thoughts
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Well we have been working on the hallway this week. Yesterday dh ripped down the old ceiling. Instead of plaster most of it had been replaced at one time by flattened cardboard boxes LOL! We found this in one bedroom we did last year also. They look like they are at least 50 year old bear boxes. This pic dh took after getting one sheet of drywall up. Forgot to get some shots before he started to work lol. The ceiling was slightly unleval so to avoid bumps he added a layer of strapping.
Then we found THIS!
Yup it's a yellow jacket nest at least the size of a basketball, up in the attic. This WHY we did NOT do this renovation in the summer LOL. Can you just imagine if dh had started ripping down the ceiling in the summer and found a live nest this big??? YIKES!
This is one side of the hallway ceiling. We drywalled yesterday afternoon.
Yup that's REAL horse hair LOL. Dh was surprised when I showed him the old plaster really had horse hair in it. He's seen plaster houses before but never one that actually had horse hair. Dh also ripped the plaster off the walls yesterday. Today we are putting up new drywall and wood on the bottom.
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Posted in In My Kitchen
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Cooking oils quickly go rancid. To save money and quality buy cooking oils when on sale and store in the freezer. Unlike water and milk, oil contracts when frozen so you do not need to poor some off before freezing. |
Posted in The School Room
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I forgot to post this, this morning! If anyone is interested in watching there will be a full lunar eclipse tonight! I'm hoping the clouds clear so we can watch and get some photos.
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Posted in In My Kitchen
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Here is the buttermilk biscuit recipe as promised. Buttermilk Biscuits - Gluten Free 1 1/4 cups sorghum flour 1 TBS salt 1 TBS baking powder 1/4 tsp baking soda 1 TBS sugar 1 3/4 tsp xanthan gum 1/3 cup butter - cold 3/4 cup buttermilk In the bowl of a food processor mix dry ingredients well. Cut butter into cubes and add to the mix. Pulse until the texture of coarse crumbs. Add buttermilk and pulse until dough gathers into a soft clump. Shape by hand into biscuit shape and place on a greased baking sheet. Bake at 375 F for 12 - 15 minutes until lightly browned. Depending on size makes about 12 biscuits. |
Posted in Just Thoughts
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Well we've been pretty busy. Starting to renovate our hallway now. Still a little left to do in the kitchen but the biggest jobs are done. Except for the floor that is but we still need to get that. Dh is cutting the wood for the wainscoting in the hall. He's already cleared everything out of it. It became a catch all for the other rooms that were being renovated LOL. We need to rip down the old plaster and cardboard stuff they used on the walls and ceiling. We've had more crazy weather to. Rain and wind most of Sunday then back to the deep freeze yesterday and today. We were going to go shopping today but with wind and snow squall warnings out we decided to wait. LOL I ordered a bag of sorghum from the health food store that should be in this week. I hope so! It's the only store I can find it in and I like it much better then rice flour for most things. DD3's collar bone is all healed up. We took her sling off last week. And things with Revenue seem to have been sorted out. We are still waiting on some of the paper trail to get caught up but it's in process finally. So now that some of the crazy are slowing down we can get back on track a little. LOL Well I'll be back latter to post a yummy Buttermilk Biscuit recipe I've been playing with, and yes gluten free and yummy! |
Posted in Just Thoughts
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I found this little "test" on a friend blog, though it was interesting.
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Posted in Just Thoughts
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Yup we are getting it again! We had a good cold front go through last night. It dropped the temps down from around 0 C to a -26 C windchill. Burrrrrrr The snow started up heavy this morning and winds to. All the roads are shut down AGAIN. Praying for all thoughts stuck out some were. We are suppose to get 20 to 30 cm today and the high winds are making it white out badly. Our power was off for a while this morning. It was a planned outage though not storm related. It was suppose to be off for 3 hours but it came back on early. I guess with the bad weather they didn't have time to do there normal matinace... It sure was QUIET with it off though! You don't realize how much NOISE the fridge, clocks etc. make! We really miss the quiet of having no hydro in the house. In many ways I'm looking forward to having that season again in our lives. |
Posted in In My Kitchen
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I've been playing around making gluten free banana cake. I've finally come up with a winner. This is soooo yummy!! I'm going to try them as muffins tomorrow. Banana Cake - Gluten Free
Beat bananas and white and brown sugar together. Add remaining wet ingredients, mix well. Whisk together dry ingredients then combine with wet ingredients. Poor into a greased 8 x 8 baking pan and bake at 350 F for 25 minutes. If desired glase top by mixing 1/2 cup of powdered sugar with 3 to 4 tsp milk. Drizzle over top of cake when cool. |
Posted in Just Thoughts
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Well the storm I was talking about the other night sure dumped on us! We woke up to at least a food and a half of snow. It took dh almost 2 hours to blow out our very very long driveway. We were so glad that he had fixed the snowblower just a few days before! This is a pic of our bathroom window (bathroom still under renos). The snow packed down on the roof beneath and came almost to the top of the window!
And this is the dog house. It was buried and had more then a foot of snow sitting on top! Don't worry our dog was in the house LOL.
That trucker that was stuck finally got out and another one got stuck going up the huge hill in town. Eventually they just shut all the roads down until the next morning when the storm cleared.
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Posted in In My Kitchen
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Buckwheat although often considered a cereal grain is not a member of the grain family. It is a herb related to rhubarb. The plants flowers turn into seeds, buckwheat groats. Buckwheat contains no gluten and is considered safe for people with allergies to wheat, barley and rye. Buckwheat has more then 80% of the protein found in eggs and 90% of milk. Buckwheat is a source of quartering and rutin, which are antioxidants. It is high in all of the eight amino acids needed for good health. These are tryptophan, lysine, isoleucine, leucine, methinoine, threonie valine, and phenylalanine. Buckwheat is also a good source of phosphorus, fiber, vitamin B5 and magnesium. |
Posted in Just Thoughts
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Well dh just came in and said we are finally getting some good snowfall. 4 cm in the last hour. There is a trucker stuck at the community hall, dh went over to give him the local tow truck's card. Hopefully they will have him out soon, before the weather gets worse. |
