Of course you don't, it is my blog after all.
Today was spent in the most unusual manner for us. No school, no chores...everything got blown off in favor of heading to the parents' place. The boys were boys and played in dirt (quite effectively...you should see the bathtub or the mud hole as it is at this moment) while I gleaned the garden. Poor Dad, he just doesn't stand a chance against those green beans. I am forever going behind him to pick at least an additional gallon to the five he's already picked. I then ambled around the fields, eyeballing the plum trees (tiny little plums, so not what I'm used to seeing in chinamart) while debating whether or not to start climbing for picking. Since I will be dog sitting there this weekend, I've decided to put off that task until Saturday.
I glared at the gooseberry bushes, now devoid of most of the berries. I had forgotten how prickly those buggers are and didn't even get enough berries to justify the thorns. The wild grapes have been terrorized by the cattle, so nothing there. The pears in the back field are even smaller than the plums, I'm just hoping they are a late type. We shall see I suppose.
While completing my rounds, I was thinking on future posts here. There isn't much that I can add that hasn't already been covered by someone somewhere, just a hopefully fresh perspective is all. A few topics that have sprung to mind are food storage in a small space (aka the rental), recipes using preps, homeschooling, my personal experiences with hunting game for the very first time (nope, not done it...ever...unless you count the targets on the ranges at Fort Leonard Wood), prepping for making your own clothing, family planning (um, yeah...that will come in handy for those that don't REALLY know anything other than what they teach in school) and all my adventures with teaching the wee screamers all there is to know about life out of the "norm".
I'm open to suggestions, of course, on what YOU would like to hear about. Perhaps you are an ol' pro at this, but want to know what a newbie like myself thinks of one thing or another in particular. Shoot me a line. I'm full of pert opinions and pretty useless facts.
On a food prepping note, I brought home (from the garden) roughly 5lbs of grape tomatoes...problem is, they don't know they were supposed to be grape tomatoes. Think small roma tomatoes. About 2-3 inches long. I'm thinking on drying them, as really the plants are just producing so many that it is hard to know what to do with them. Dry them, cook them down...I dunno. What do you think?
6 comments:
Ahhh, looks like you are having the blogger blahs, fortunately it's usually a short lived thing, at least it is for me...
Wretha :)
Have you ever tried soap making? I'm not talking about those melt and pour things, not really "making" anything except pretty shapes... I haven't tried it yet, but I have several recipes and methods for making soap completely from scratch, making the lye using wood ashes and how to test the lye strength and such... I think that will be something necessary to have (soap) when the SHTF and people can't go out and buy it any more.
Wretha
This was emailed to me and I was asked to pass it on here:
Hi Wretha,
I tried to post a message on She Survives Blog but she doesn't accept anonymous posts. Would you mind passing this on to her? Sorry to be a pain. (no problem! - Wretha)
Karen
You might try making sauce with the tomatoes - or juice. It's frustrating working with small produce sometimes.
The clothing/sewing prep thing - watch for close outs on the kind of fabric you like to use. I once found a bolt of heavy cotton at Wal Mart for $1/yard. I bought it all. I've been packing it around for a few years and have just started using it. It's nice to have the material on hand.
I recently got a new cookbook that has proven itself to be worth its weight in gold. Dining on a Dime by Tawra Kellam. It has recipes for cleaning supplies and lots or things you might buy at the store like granola bars, graham crackers, etc. I used some of the gift jar recipes to make our own MRE's. Instead of putting them in a jar I used our food saver and put them in bags and sealed them up.
Keep on preppin'!
Karen
Yep, a bit of blogger blahs mixed with a mind full of things that I need/want to get done this weekend...should be interesting.
As to the soap, once about 2 years ago. I made a milk soap (used evap and powdered milk) with oatmeal. Had an olive oil base. Wrapped every bit of it up and gave it away for Christmas. Family raved about it, but I've not made any more since, lol. Once we are not in a rental, I'll get back to working on the skills some more. I intend on using lye this time around. I have to re-find all of my good soapmaking links (directions, suppliers, etc) since they went to the wayside with the computer crash this past winter.
Thanks for the forward Wretha! I'm going to jabber a bit about fabric/sewing supplies tonight actually, I do what Karen did...buy it cheap and hold onto it.
And I'll have to find that book...add it to my to buy list!
Thanks for dropping by my place and leaving a comment.
I see that you're just getting started in this whole thing and are looking for tips. I've been doing this for 4 1/2 years now, and have had plenty of ups and downs.
1. Make it about you. I don't mean to publish your real name and address, but to give it your own perspective. We all look at things differently, and people will visit to get YOUR perspective. Share a little about yourself, but always assume that a psycho is reading your blog, and did you give out too much info for him/her to connect the dots? For instance, I post that I live in the SF Bay Area. No more detail than that. I'm one in 5 million people!
2. Pace yourself. You can keep a good readership if you publish at least once per day. It's generally a mistake to publish 3 articles today, and none for the next 3 days. People will see the stale posts, and not come back. If I have a couple of posts rattling around in my head, I'll write them up, then pre-date them.
In case you weren't aware, at the bottom of the blogger New Post screen, there is an 'Post options' link. Simply change the date and time to when you want it to go, then push 'publish' and it will hold it until that time. It helps to cover for those times when you just don't feel like writing!
3. Lastly, write what you know about. Do you can? BBQ? Whittle? Small-plot farm? What skills or cool knowledge do you have? Share it. Are you trying to learn new skills? Share how that's going. Don't discount your experience. It's been your life so it might seem bland to you. But stories of country life are interesting to city folk, and city stories can be interesting to country folk.
Best of luck. And stop smoking those menthols! ;-)
Thanks Mike...I'll have to keep the publishing thing in mind. Most of my writing is done after bedtime for the screamers, so being able to squeeze in that extra entry that's been rattling about without publishing will help!
mmmm...menthol!
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