Lancelot Acres

A little about us 4/2/2008

{ 09:08, 2008-Apr-21 } { 0 comments } { Link }

A little about us...(ignore this if you already know us :)

{ 8:54 AM, Wednesday, April 2, 2008 } { 0 comments } { Link }

To those of you who don't know us, my name is Lisa. I've been married to the love of my life (Lance) since November 1999. We have two little angels, Lillianna (6/2001) and Lauren (10/2006). DH is a pipefitter/plumber and I'm a SAHM.

Lilli is 6 years old and in Kindergarten. She does wonderful in school. She likes it but has reached that point in the year where she doesn't like getting up and going anymore. She does well though. She has Acro (gymnastics) on Monday evenings and starts T-ball in May.

Lauren is 17+ months and is quite a character. She is a little daredevil and will climb on the kitchen table or the back of the couch the second we aren't looking. She is our little early bird and wakes at about 5 AM every morning. She says a few words and is starting to repeat what we say. She says, Mama, papa, baba (bye bye), nana (night night), zizz (sissy), dog (was her first word LOL). She signs for food, drink, milk, thank-you, please, rain/snow, and all-done.

We live on 10 acres in Southwest Michigan. We have slowly worked our way up to raising a good part of our own food. Gardening and canning, freezing and dehydrating are all a big part of our summer.

We also raise beef, pork, and chicken. DH goes on a week-long fishing trip once a year and that gives us a year's supply of fresh-frozen panfish. We have 3 freezers BESIDES the one in the kitchen and they are usually all full. Right now is the only time of the year we start getting low on things, but not low enough to unplug one of the freezers (yet).

We don't currently have chickens, but plan on getting a few laying hens in the next week or so. I've missed having chickens over this last winter. It's the first time in a very long time that we didn't have ANY poultry at all. I've missed them and look forward to watching the chickens in the yard and to our fresh eggs again. We also hope to place a chick order soon so we can build up our egg laying/pet flock.

We sold all of our goats last fall too, but just bought 2 Alpine does. One was in milk but is drying up from the move. We have decided to let her dry up rather than try and milk more often and build up her supply. We've had a few things come up recently and milking twice per day is getting tough for us right now.

We just made our own Maple Syrup this last week. We had a lot of fun and hope to make a year's supply for our family next year. We just decided on the day before Easter that we wanted to try it. So we bought a few supplies and tapped 5 trees. We weren't expecting the amount of sap we got! It was a lot! I overcooked the first batch and made maple rock candy (it tasted good though:). The second batch turned out great though and was very yummy. We made about a quart of syrup. It takes 10 gallons (2 of the 5-gallon buckets) of sap to make a quart of syrup. It sounds like a lot of work, but DH just set it up outside on an outdoor fire and we just kept the fire going all day while the sap boiled down. Once it got to the end stages, we brought it inside and finished it on the stove. I have pictures of the entire process and I'll post them when I figure out how to post pictures and such.

We are working on being green, but it's a process. We have used cloth diapers for well over a year now and we LOVE that. We also use cloth wipes, cloth napkins, cloth (unpaper) towels, cloth hankies, and cloth grocery bags.

We are working on BPA-free water bottles and sippy cups. DH and I use Kleen Kanteens and both girls have them too. We just found Foogo and Thermos brand sippies that we like better for the girls though. They are stainless steel and insulated, so the metal doesn't feel cold at all, yet it keeps drinks cold for hours. We have the straw kind and LOVE them. The plastics used in the lids are BPA-free/safe plastics.

We bought a Laptop Lunchbox for Lilli to use at school. She takes her lunch EVERY day because she is very picky and it's rare that she likes what they are having for lunch. I love the Laptop Lunchbox...it really helps her to eat better because she can open the box and see most all her food at once, instead of opening all the little Tupperware containers or baggies, etc. There is very little waste with the Laptop Lunch.

I'm currently working on using the dryer less. I dry most of our things on a wooden drying rack and on hangers, as we don't have a clothesline yet. DH is going to put one in when the weather breaks (soon!!!). I dry jeans, sweatshirts and towels on a hanger or rack all day/night and then throw them in the dryer for 5 minutes the next morning so they soften up a bit. I do have to dry my diapers right now, as they take too long to dry in the house and I need them before they get dry. I'm hoping they dry faster outside in the sun so I can stop using the dryer so much.

That's about all I can think of for now. I'm going to try and figure out pictures so I can post a few. I look forward to posting often and getting to know other homesteaders :)

Talk again soon :)

~Lisa