Out of the Loop

I guess you just never know what your going to find when you follow Homesteading Blogs. Today at Backyard Farming the title of the post is chicken saddles.....? A WHAT....? Yep, chicken saddle.... Still no idea what it was I went as directed to Louise's Country Closet. While looking at the chicken saddle I found out that if a rooster is to randy he can hurt the chicken or if another hen is bitchy then it can attack. WOW! Who knew this stuff and didn't tell us Urbanites.... Never in a million years would I think that you had to dress your chickens to protect them. 

So glad I don't have chickens yet or they might not be at the height of the fashion world.... LOL!

Yart

10 minutes of free time

I need to share some of the really cool things I have found... There is no rhyme or reason.... Just thought they deserved to be shared!

Frugal by Choice made these great Vick's Vapor Shower Disks. The recipe can be found here. I need to make a bunch of these for Mouthy who always ends up with a dry annoying cough that lasts most of the winter.

Next we have the bow drill to make fire! I think that me and the monsters are going to learn how to do this. This fall will be the best time as we can have bon fires in the backyard.

.

The last recipe site I shared for dish soap, well lets just say we didn't like it so I found a new on at Frugally Sustainable. You can find the recipe here.

Next we have homemade fabric softener. I haven't made it yet but it looks like it might be nice to have on hand. You can find the recipe here at Fabulously Frugal.

This Mexican Black Bean Lasagna can be found at Woman's Day.com 

Yart

Crochet School

Since I have been doing all of my yarn work, I thought that others might be interested in learning how to hook! So if your interested then head on over to the Crochet School to have a look around!

Yart

Lesson Learned

We welcomed Tickety-boo into our home yesterday. I went and only got one female because the whole herd came along with me. Everyone was so excited to see all the baby bunnies and get to pet each one. That I even said which one do you guys like. The pretty faun one that I had my eye was not the choice. Tickety, hopefully is a female... I'm not sure what type of rabbit she is or how old. Thanks monsters for distracting me.

That's ok because I will be going back to get the faun one that I wanted in the first place and I will find out then what type and how old Tickety is... LOL!

This is a live and learn situation. Tickety is settling in quite well, she has been eating and drinking like crazy. But that could just be because she is use to sharing her food. There were 3 others in the cage with her.

Yart

Newest member of the family

Please help me welcome Tickety-boo! She is the first female in my breeding stock.

This heat

With the drought that's hitting most of the nation and the upcoming price increases, its time that I re-evaluate my pantry. We are pretty good on staples, but since this is harvest time and there isn't a lot to harvest. Its time to get creative. I have decided to get big bags of frozen corn and peas and dehydrate them. (saves freezer space). Since my farmer said that he is praying for the corn (or it might be a total loss) and that the tomatoes if we're lucky will be in, in about 2 more weeks.... I'm on pins and needles.... tomatoes make up a majority of our yearly food supply. If tomatoes were to be bad this year I have enough to almost make it through another normal year, but since this is anything but normal I'm not sure it would last that long.

I saw a place that had rabbits for sale... I need to go out there next weekend and see them for myself. But if they are in good condition I should be coming home with two females. I hate to do it in this heat. I have the monsters putting any space plastic bottles filled with water in the freezer to help the Buns, once we get them.

And for the first time in over 20 years, I went and put in for a deer tag for this fall. I'm not a hunter by trade or even hobby. I know how to hunt, and have done it in the past... (cried and threw up).... Now instead of remembering how I reacted... I need to remember that this is now to feed my family. They need me to be do the right thing and get food for the table.... ( not that Grim can't do it, just that its time for me to help out a bit more in that department. )

We have no apples or nectarines, there are 4 pears on the tree that I keep watering like crazy. I try to beat the heat with the grapes, but I think I might be losing that battle... They look good and then they start to wrinkle.... I would like to keep the sprinkler going all the time but that can't be good for them either. Keep hoping that we get some grapes this year.

I need to make laundry soap and dish soap also. The laundry soap I got the recipe here. The dish soap will be made from a recipe that I found here at On the Little Acre.

Yart

Temps and TV

With the temps soaring here, I have had to find things to do. So I rented the entire first season of Falling Sky's... Loved it... Once that was over I needed some other Apocalypse type show to watch... Just to get me ready for Revolution this fall. While perusing Netflix I stumbled across Jerico. I had always wanted to see it but there was some type of conflict with the time and I never got to see it. The last couple days I have tossed myself into it. There are 29 episodes and I'm on 21. I love this show. I really love Skeet Ulrich. I'm going to be so disappointed when its done. 

Almost all of my plants are dead. I still have a couple tomatoes holding on, the grapes are still trying and the blueberries just might bring in a harvest. Even with frequent watering they are barely holding on. All I can say is I hope next year is better. 

I'm hoping to make it out to one of the upick places to see if tomatoes are in yet. I'm hoping to get a couple bushels. Clean, core and freeze until the temps drop. I'm afraid not to get them now. This winter is going to be a nightmare for food prices. So the more I can get done the better. I hope to make it down to the Amish community to pick up a few staples. But that depends on the weather and time.

Yart

Boo-Berries

We hit the patch around 10:30 and picked till 1. It wasn't to bad until the end. Then it got so hot you couldn't breath. Beautiful bushes, small berries. No rain still. The monsters and I got 26 pounds. They all went into the freezer. Maybe once it cools down in december ( I kid ), I'll make something out of them.

Then of course we couldn't be done. Nope we went to another place to see if the blackberries we ready. They were! What a horrible year. Two years ago the berries were only a couple dollars a quart and pleniful. This year they were 4.75 a quart a scarce. We were able to get 4 quarts in about an hour. Everyone was attacked by the throns and have the war wounds to prove it. I didn't get any pictures...by the time we got to those I was exhausted. Those also went into the freezer.

I have to use my phone to post as it is to hot in the house to run my laptop. I still go and visit everyones blogs. Its just really hard to comment. So I will say it here, hey Skippy glad you made it home safe and sound.

Yart

Happy Friday 13th

Next Project

I love this!

I think I need to make several of them... LOL! To find the time first though!

Yart

Work in progress

Since it has been so hot, I've been busy working on the 99 squares. I've got 32 centers and 4 full squares done. I love this piece work in the summertime.

Yart

Despicable Me - Clip: "It's So Fluffy"

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day!

Yart

Pride

Why don't we have pride in a job well done? Why do we make products that are suppose to fall apart? Why do we not have the common cortices of dealing in a timely manner with a customer? I am getting really tired of being a consumer in a disposable nation. Tossing good money after inferior products.

Grim's bike has been in the shop twice at one dealership and they didn't even look to see that there was a problem. They only fixed what they thought was wrong... Bike down time 5 weeks. Now the bike is at a new dealership, they at least listened to us. They found that the bike is leaking somewhere in the crank. They have had the bike for going on 4 weeks now. So we are looking at not having a bike for the entire season. This sucks so bad. He is so pissed at the BS of the situation and I don't have anything to say other then the workmanship of HARLEY DAVIDSON SUCKS! All because its a warranty issue, they fit us in when they have a minute. Instead of getting the damn job done and getting us back out on the road.

I can say that I won't be spending the money on a new Harley ever again. This is the second bike, that we have had nothing but issues with. Buy American when the product is sub par to foreign. What the hell has happened to us as a nation?

Yart