Pay Down your Debt and Live a More Fulfilling Life

Years ago I used to shop for my entertainment.  We went to movies and ate out, hired a babysitter, the whole 9 yards.  I bought new clothes because I wanted to impress people with my good looks and I wanted my kids to dress nice so they could make friends.  I bought foods made by other people because I didn't ever have the energy to cook anything myself and it was a fast and easy alternative.  While that stuff was nice I always felt unfulfilled.  I mean, I was working all the time, I had no energy for my family, we never had any money, what was the point?

The last several months have been rocky while my husband has been unemployed, but it really has given me a lot to think about.  It has helped me to think about everything I have done to help us to save money, to hone the skills I have developed over the last eleven years.  Would it have been nice to have another income to fall back on?  Sure!  But we're making it, and you can too.

Eleven years ago I quit my full time job and I've never looked back.  Yes, ocassionally I look at my friends who live the kind of life I used to live and feel a tinge of jealousy.  Really most of them say they envy me, and why wouldn't they?  I set my own schedule, I never have to miss one of my kids' performances during the school day, we have plenty of food, I have time to pursue my hobbies, and we were even able to save some money for a rainy day.  How did I do all of this you ask?  I had to give up a lot, but I think it was worth it.  Read on to hear some of the things I did.

1.  Cut the cable.  Seriously, who needs to pay $100 a month to have shows to watch all of the time when there are plenty of free things to watch.  There are only so many new shows anyway, do you need to pay all of that money to watch reruns?  As an added bonus I have a lot more free time than I ever did before since I had to get my money's worth.

2.  Eat in.  Really it's not hard to throw a few things in a crock pot or roasting pan and just let it cook.  Make extra when you prepare meals and package them in freezer containers or can them for a quick meal when something unexpected comes up.  I know there are places I could take my family of 4 and easily plunk down $50 for one meal.  Do you know how many groceries I could buy with that same amount of money?

3.  Have a staycation.  Sure, it is fun to go exotic places and brag about your trip to Disney land but it costs a lot of money to fly to your destination, eat out, rent a car, plus the hotel stay.  Think about all of the money you could save by checking out places close to home, some of them may even be free!  All of the memories with money to spare!

4.  Lose the home phone.  With the prevalence of cell phones think about how many phone calls you get at home anyway.  Does it make sense to pay $40 per month for another phone when you always have one in your pocket anyway?

5.  Forget the data plan for your cell phone.  Yes, I know it's hard not to check facebook while you're out and about, but is it honestly worth the extra expense when you can just use wi-fi to do the same thing?  Money saved $100 per month.  Apparently smart phones "require" you to have data so I had to take the $15 package but that still saves me $85/month.

6.  Check your phone usage.   Unlimited talk and text? Wow, those plans sure are expensive aren't they?  Why pay $45 per month to have a smart phone with unlimited talk when you only use 300 minutes?  I'd rather add a line to an existing plan for $10 a month.  That's a potential savings of $35 per month!

7.  Quit buying frozen and prepackaged foods.  I'm not going to say this isn't a tough one.  It's great to just go to the freezer and zap up a dinner in the microwave, but you pay a lot for that convenience.  With a little planning you could make your own and consume less chemicals and preservatives at the same time.  (Have you ever looked at those ingredient lists?  Yikes!)  Next time you cook something make twice as much and freeze half of it for next time.  Don't forget to label it!  How much you save depends on how many of these you buy, but I know a family lasagna costs about $10 at Walmart compared to a little bit of flour, milk, and salt to make noodles, (or even $1 to buy noodles) a few tomatoes and herbs out of the garden, and some shredded cheese so the same meal would cost us about $8 less.  Not too shabby.

8.  Make your own home remedies.  I'd be lying if I said I have never struggled with this one, the family took a lot of convincing to get on board.  Obviously there are still going to be times when going to the doctor is a must.  Essential oils can be spendy, but they last a long time, a little goes a long way.  You can use them to make your own cleaning products, soaps, lotions, scented candles, and aroma therapy products too.

9.  Turn down (or up?) the thermostat.  Really a few degrees don't make a big difference in your comfort, but it can really help your wallet save a lot.  Usually we run our air all summer, this summer we have only used it for the hot and humid days choosing to use ceiling fans most often instead.  That has saved us about $50 per month.

10.  Grow your own.  Yes, I realize we can't grow our own oranges here in WI but if you can grow something that is normally an expensive part of your grocery budget you can end up spending pennies for things that can end up costing several dollars at the store.  Buy the rest when it goes on sale.

11.  Take advantage of the sales.  We love bacon in our house.  Who doesn't?  But at $5 per package we couldn't afford it very often.  That's a one pound package.  So it cost $5 for one meals' worth of bacon.  Then I learned that there is a butcher who sells their ends and pieces of uncut bacon for $1 a pound when it goes on sale.  So we could buy 10 pounds for what we could buy 2 pounds worth of packaged bacon for?  Sign me up!  Good thing I got the meat slicer for Christmas a few years ago.  We stock up on our favorite products when they go one sale and freeze, can, or dehydrate the extras for future use.

12.  Buy generic.  I used to be a big coupon shopper, but these days I find even with coupons it is way less expensive most of the time to just buy the store brand.  Most of them are just as good as the brand name, except Pepsi.

13.  Make your own.  Yup, you can.  Recipes abound from making your own soap, deodorant,  lotion, shampoo, body wash, face cream, moisturizer, laundry soap, toilet bowl cleaner, you name it you can find it on the internet.  Of course some of them require more work than others, but start slow and find others who make the same things you do.  Compare notes to find the best recipes.  Instead of paying $5 for one bar of soap you can spend that much for enough olive oil to make a couple of batches of soap.  If you don't want to store it all they also make great gifts, which you also won't need to buy!  Double bonus!!

14.  Fix your clothes or repurpose them.  A pair of pants is expensive.  I have seen many people throw them away because the got a hole in them when a simple repair job could have saved you from having to pay another $20 (or more!) on a new pair.  Grease stains can easily be brushed away if you cover them in baby powder, pants that are too short can become great shorts or even bags.  There is so much you can do with this "garbage"!

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy

Home Made Lip Care Recipes

Ingredients assembled

      Have you ever been annoyed by the high prices of organic products?  Why not make your own?  It just takes a little time and some products many of us already have in our kitchen!
      I will talk about products you can use to take care of your lips first since many of us are suffering with chapped lips in this cold, dry season we call winter.  I found several different recipes on the Internet from lip balm to salve, to chap stick.  I even found some recipes for lip glosses and lip color, though this post will focus on taking care of you lips not making them pretty.  Well, unless you think they are pretty when they are smooth and supple with no added colors and no red skin surrounding them.
       I found many variations of recipes out there, many of them contained several key ingredients: Sweet almond oil, beeswax, honey, aloe vera gel, coconut oil, and olive oil.  These each have their own health benefits so knowing their properties will help you to decide which one to use in your own products.

Wax Melting in Hot Oil

       I can discuss a few of them briefly here, but please do not rely on one source to get all of your information.  Sweet almond oil is, of course, made from almonds so do not use it if you have an allergy to them.  Another note of caution, if you have a condition that involves low blood sugar levels please consult your doctor prior to trying any product containing sao because it is known to help lower blood sugar levels.  It lubricates the skin without giving it a greasy feel, acts as an emulsifier (which binds oil and water together when they normally do not like to be mixed together), and is readily absorbed into the skin.  For more information please google sweet almond oil.  This is a good starting point.  Beeswax is used in place of petroleum products in order to thicken the healthy oils you are using, but it does help the skin to absorb them more readily has some anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, and helps wounds to heal more quickly.  Honey helps skin to heal more quickly and helps to protect skin among other things.  Aloe Vera gel has a great many benefits  as well, but for our purposes here I will just say that it will relieve dry itchy skin.  I can't say enough about the benefits of coconut oil, in fact I REALLY need to remember to use it much more frequently but for skin care purposes used outside the body it is known to help with inflammation.  Olive oil was know to the ancient Greeks as liquid gold, and for good reason apparently.  It has a greasy feel to it though, but it is moisturizing, cleansing, and protects from sun damage.

Added Ingredients
Once Waxes Were Melted

                              Lip Balm
      The first recipe I have to share with you is a wonderful lip balm that makes over a cup, though it would be easy to cut this recipe in half.  It made enough to fill 3 half jelly jars full of lip balm.  I know it's a lot, but lip balm can be used all year round so I am sure it will get used.  You can infuse the oil with beneficial herbs or flower petals prior to using it in this recipe if desired.  If you don't like the tingly feeling of the stronger store brands of lip balms, this is a great one to try.

Ingredients:1 cup of sweet almond oil, 2 Tablespoons of beeswax, 1 Tablespoon of food quality paraffin wax (optional, the original recipe says 2-3 T beeswax I just got tired of trying to chisel pieces of beeswax off my block), 1 teaspoon of honey, 1 teaspoon of vitamin e oil, and 2 teaspoons full of aloe vera gel.  Flavoring or essential oils if desired such as vanilla extract or mint.

Finished Lip Balm

Procedure:   Heat oil, I used a small crock pot that will be reserved for this purpose.  You don't have this, use a non-reactive pan that is large enough to accommodate all of the ingredients and still leaves room to vigorously stir it all together.  If using a stove as your heat source please make sure to monitor your lip balm and keep the temperatures on the lower end of the heating scale.   Add small chunks of beeswax to the oil once it is heated.  (Word to the wise, if anyplace around you sells it is pellet or small chunks you may want to invest in those rather than a large chunks because they tend to like to fly all over the place and it's hardness makes it difficult to shave just a few shreds off).  Okay, really I only threw in the paraffin wax was because it came off the block much easier and I wanted to add more wax to make sure the final product was pretty solid.
     Once the wax is completely melted, remove from heat and stir in the remaining ingredients quickly, then pour into containers to cool.  Cover once it is completely cooled down.
     In retrospect I am wondering if I should have tried pouring some of this mixture into some old chap stick tubes or an old Carmex jar to make a more portable lip balm.  It doesn't add a lot of gloss or glamour but your lips will thank you.

Note:  Make sure to label the containers clearly, I bet you would just hate to put your home make vapor rub on your lips.

Chapped Lips Salve

      Okay, so I called this salve on the container that I put it in though upon reflection it is really more of a gel.  It works great and adds some shine, well, provided you don't lick it off.  The aloe makes it taste not so great though so that shouldn't be a huge problem.   This one is super easy and doesn't require any heat or equipment really, um mm, other than the jar you are storing it in and something to stir it with...  In fact, you just put some aloe gel into the container, add a tiny bit of honey and mix.  You may add a couple of drops of vitamin E oil to act as a preservative if you wish.  Alright, I mixed mine in a measuring cup because I wanted enough to fill one little "pot" for each bathroom then I poured it out into the containers once they were equally full.

Home Made Vaseline

      Vaseline aka petroleum jelly is wonderful to soothe dry lips, but who wants an oil byproduct on your lips?  I haven't technically made this yet; but judging by the ingredients in it, I would say that it should turn out exactly like the lip balm listed first following the same procedure of melting wax in heated oil.
      Use 1/2 c of oil and 1 ounce beeswax.  The recipes I saw online suggested olive oil though I would guess you can use others as well such as jojoba, coconut, flax seed, olive, or sweet almond oil.

Chap stick

    You can bet I plan on making some of these as well, but I've got a busy day ahead so I thought I'd just talk about proportions here.  I believe these will be a stiffer blend than the balm above since the online sources seem to recommend a 1 to 1 ratio of oil to wax for this type of recipe.  I'm thinking these may be a better candidate for my portable home made blends in the old chap stick tubes?
     Use 1 T oil to 1 T wax, melt wax in hot oil.  Once wax is melted remove from heat and add scents if desired.  1-2 drops should do it, there are many great essential oils out there to try.









Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy

Self Sufficiency Update

Okay, okay. I haven't been blogging much recently so I doubt I have any "regular" followers left, but just in case I thought I'd post an update on our attempt to be self sufficient. My new life style has left me much busier than I ever thought I would be!

Several years ago (was it 2008 or 2009?) we started planting some fruit trees and shrubs that we are beginning to get some fruit from. We have expanded our orchard from just a couple of trees in our side yard to so many trees it is hard to keep track of them all. Our orchard has expanded into our front and back yard. Once we filled those areas, we expanded to the area along the front of our tree line up by the road in front of our house. This year we added 2 plum trees as well as a pear and a couple more varieties of apples (like we needed more of those, lol).

My square foot gardens have continued producing a ton of produce to can each year. I have become fairly comfortable with the canning skills I gained from reading library books, blog posts, and other things several years ago. We are getting enough to have to begin making additional areas to store all of our canned goods. Each time I pluck some edibles from the yard I feel so richly blessed.

In 2010 my wonderful hubby built me a grape arbor that has been heavily planted with grape vines that have also begun producing fruit this year. It looks wonderful. On the decorative top cross braces we have hung those topsy turvy bags which provided us with so many tomatoes last year I'm not really sure that we needed to plant more tomato plants this year.

We have begun working on an area in the back yard where we are moving our strawberries, raspberries, asparagus, and rhubarb to so they get more sunlight. That will be a lot of work. It had been difficult this year to have enough cool days to do such intensive labor, but I am still hoping to get it done this year.

Another venture I began last summer was to add a bunch of herbs to my garden. This year I began drying them for future use. I have even added them to my containers as accent plants instead of the traditional varieties that we have used in the past.

The negotiations continue for getting bunnies and chickens.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Doing What we Can to Save the Earth and our Health

Our wonderful friend Jan is once again hosting the Gardener's Sustainable Living Project in which we can share what we are doing to protect our environment. Check out her link for all of the details on this wonderful project that helps encourage us to even just do one thing. Thank you Jan!!!

This is my post from last year's event in which I won a cobra head weeding tool in the drawing she had once the project was completed. It is a pretty neat little gadget, though I don't get many weeds to pull with it. This is in part because of my mulching efforts that save me a lot of back breaking labor. It's always very nice to have a backup plan though, just in case.

In addition to the composting, reusing plastic water bottles, canning, buying gently used items in place of brand new when possible, my gardening methods, and the conservation efforts that help to conserve our precious resources I have added some new activities to my efforts over the past year.

1. I have tried to limit my use of commercially prepared products. Not only because the packaging that these products come in, but also because of the way that chemicals and preservatives may affect our health. Some of the things I have begun making for my family include making tooth powder, cleaning supplies and laundry detergents, soap, and pet food. I may have forgotten a few things, but you get the idea...
2. Using less disposable bags. Not only can I use the bags that you can buy at the store for putting my purchases in, but I have also made some of my own bags. I just got done making some reusable produce bags out of a sheer fabric remnant that I bought about 6 years ago. The remnant that I found downstairs in my fabric stash only cost me 75 cents for almost 4 yards of fabric. So far I have made 4 of them, but I am sure that I will need many more than that before my garden veggies start ripening this summer.
3. Reusing creatively. Many of you may know about ways to reuse paper and cardboard, but what about those styrofoam packing peanuts? We used ours to revitalize a flattened pet bed. Word to the wise, if there is any scent on them at all do NOT put them in a beagle's bed... My husband had planned on throwing these away so he put a piece of aluminum foil that he had used on the grill on them. I thought I avoided all of the pieces that came in contact with the offending aluminum foil, but apparently he must catch a whiff of something and tries to tear the bed apart.
4. Replacing paper towels and paper napkins in most circumstances. This is a no-brainer. How often do we instictively reach for a paper towel when we go to dust? You spray the cleaner on the surface, you wipe with a paper towel, and when the towel starts to fall apart because it is too moist or whatever, we throw them away. What if we only used paper towels for something really nasty and gross (like a cat's hairball)? Do you know how much less waste we'd be sending to the dump just by using cloth instead?
5. Ditch the wrapping paper. Okay, it is fun to rip wrapping paper off of packages, but is it worth garbage bags full of trash to the dump? How many households are there? Even if you "only" send one garbage bag per holiday celebration, how many bags of trash will each country send? I made cloth bags simply because they're more durable than the paper version, but it's the same idea. I tried to make the bags more fun by using cartoon characters on my reusable gift bags. I will also add a draw string to the top of each bag to eliminate peeking as well as feeling the need to use reams of tissue paper to hide the gift inside. This picture shows my Finding Nemo gift bags, cloth placemats and napkins, and the produce bags I made.
6. Less plastic bottles. Not only can we reuse our bottles for water, but we can also use less bottles when we drink soda. We all know we really shouldn't drink soda because it's not good for us, but I know many of us give in to the urge once in a while anyway. I got this great solution for Christmas this year. Carbonate your own water in a reusable BPA free plastic bottle, add soda flavoring, and make your own. Not only does it have less environmental impact in the number of bottles, but the cola has only 35 calories in an 8 oz serving. If you compare that to Pepsi which has 150 calories in a 12 oz can you can see it's also "better" for you. Let me do the math for you. 150/12=12.5 calories per oz 12.5*8=100 calories in an 8 oz serving. It also has less than 1/3 of the sodium and less caffeine as well (it's lower on the ingredient list). If you want the true Pepsi taste though, this isn't it since the cola has more of a coke taste to it. Most people won't really notice the difference though.
7. Using less canned goods. Alright, I know it's not quite as "easy" as canned good vs dried, but there isn't the amount of salt in the dried goods either. To keep them fresh I store them in airtight containers. The dried good also cost less than canned goods do. If you buy a 15 oz can of beans, you know you're not getting 15 oz of beans, you are also paying for the liquid that the beans are packed in. If you rinse and drain the beans then that money is also being washed down the drain. Add to that the effort you go through to dispose of the cans those beans come in and it's another no-brainer. As an added bonus if you run out of seeds for your garden, you can plant these beans and grow some more food. You can't plant a canned bean because they have already been heated and will not grow into a new plant. Once the dried beans are rehydrated the beans will weigh more than 15 oz too, usually at least double the amount of the beans in a can.

What are you doing to help? To join this project create your own post. For a chance to win her awesome prizes you'll need to leave a link to your post on Jan's web page.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy

Home Made Tooth Powder

In my quest to be more chemical free, I found so many interesting things that I could make with the same base of ingredients that I thought why not try to make some of these things. The problem is to actually find the products that I am looking for. I mean one recipe calls for powdered calcium carbonate. What the heck is that, why do I need it in my tooth paste, and where do I find it?

It turns out that calcium carbonate is in lots of stuff. It's in the lime we use to neutralize the acidity of our soil. I don't think I want to use that though... Those OTC antacids have it in there and they are already flavored so that's a bonus. That's what I ended up using since my choices are limited around here, but ideally I wanted to use something without any additives. I hear you can get it at health food stores so I may have to look into that next time I'm out and about.

The recipe in Home Made, Best Made from Reader's Digest called for 13 TBSP calcium carbonate (used as an abrasive to clean the teeth), 4 TBSP baking soda (detergent), 1 tsp salt (? more abrasive perhaps?), and essential oils of 12 drops cinnamon and 25 drops mint (to cover yucky taste and to soothe sensitive gums).

Well, I don't like to be wasteful so I used my berry flavored antacids. I used my pill crusher to turn it into powder. Somehow I don't think that would go well with cinnamon or mint, so I skipped that. It took a lot of work so I wouldn't recommend that unless there are no other alternatives. By the time I was done crushing all of the purple ones I had 4 TBSP of powder so I cut the recipe by 2/3. At least you could use the tums for their intended purpose though if you would choose to use them. I think I will also skip the salt next time. It does not taste the best though, so I will be doing some tinkering with the recipe. I also used too much baking soda in it. Blah!

It works well as far as cleaning the film off your teeth goes. I have used it twice. The first time I wet my toothbrush before I dipped it into the powder. Don't do that, it's messy and may leave clumps of nasty stuff in your powder. It is stored in a tightly sealed container and it's supposed to keep well. That's one of the reasons I made the powder first.

I think next time I may try to make a paste so I can add the fluoride that I keep forgetting to use. Save your smile says it's the most important ingredient in toothpaste. It's not required in the recipes I found, but it is supposed to help strengthen and protect our tooth enamel.

I will also need a humectant such as glycerin if I am going to make toothpaste. I would chose glycerin because it is also used in lip glosses and lotions so I would have it for more than one purpose.

I will not use a thickener, preservative, sweetener, or a coloring agent though. I am thinking that as a flavoring agent I may use some dried sage or mint from my garden. What would you use?

The actual paste in the book also called for wights of items, a few ounces of this,... so I want to get a digital scale before I do that. It will also help me make my soaps more accurately.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!Cindy

Stepping Slowly Toward Self Sufficiency

When we moved here almost four years ago I had no hopes or aspirations of trying to produce anything of my own except beautiful plants and flowers to landscape my yard with. It sure is funny how time can change our attitudes.

I am used to being a city girl, I've lived in town my whole life. I never dreamed or imagined how so many things that we use are made, they just came to our house from the grocery store shelf. Well, obviously we all know that's not true. It seemed like such hard work and really we should leave cheesemaking to the experts, right?

As I've lived in the country new insights have come to me through many avenues including nature, new friendships, and checking out books from the local library. Our health has continued on a gradual decline and I have begun to search for alternatives that do not include taking pills for the rest of our lives.

It occurred to me as I was reading one of the many diet books from my own personal library that many people are declining in health, and it's not just the unhealthy people either. What's the cause? I am no scientist, nor have I done any experiments to confirm my theory, but the more I think about it the more I feel that chemicals in our every day products are part of the blame.

What better way to begin thinking about self sufficiency? It's not a program that a bunch of hippies are attempting to implement going back to the 1800's, but it's a way to provide some things for ourselves and to know what's in the products that we consume.

When we moved here we found that we had an abundance of wild blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries growing in the fringes of the woods surrounding our house. It was a nice bonus since my children tend to prefer sweeter fruits to the healthier vegetables. We have since added plenty more plants to help provide us with inexpensive, chemical free food. (To see a list please check out my side bar.) Last year I decided to take it a step further and planted a veggie garden. After much research, I combined a bunch of different organically based garden styles into one with which I had tremendous success. It was so successful that I added two more beds which I just finished filling with dirt this spring. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that this dirt was as rich as the last batch that I used, but I will continue to enrich it and hope for more future successes.

My nine year old daughter has begun to "bud" as well. This perplexes me since no one in our family was early to develop that I can recall. I was talking with a bunch of mothers on one of my many recent field trips about this fact. We came to the conclusion that it's probably due to the growth hormones given to animals whose meat and milk we consume. These same animals are also fed lots of antibiotics which we feel is contributing to the antibiotic resistance that we hear so much about these days. These conversations got me wanting to raise my own meat and milk products as well. I know that this can't happen anytime soon since we can not have livestock in our development, but once we move I think I may just have to look into the possibilities.

While I will never produce my own beer (I hate the stuff and don't feel that it's worth the effort), I can see myself doing many other things on our little homestead. What's even better about this approach to living is the fact that we can all do little things that fit into the lives we want to lead and we don't have to wait for any government's slow wheels to bring a change about.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!Cindy

Living and Gardening Sustainably

My blogging friend Jan is running this great little giveaway over at her blog. For details please click here. It is a sustainable living giveaway in honor of Earth Day which is on April 22 this year. To see what other garden bloggers are doing, please visit Jan's page.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has put forth an effort to help make our earth a more sustainable place to live in. I want to do all that we can to help preserve the pleasures we have been able to enjoy all of these years for our future generations. It's all the small things that can really add up to make a huge difference for everyone.
One of the many things I have been diligently working on is reducing the amount of trash that my family creates. At the rate some of our landfills are filling up we will run out of room in no time. I am doing my best to keep things that will break down quickly out of them altogether. My husband built me this great compost bin last summer to aid me in my efforts. In it I place all fruit and vegetable waste as well as leaves, hair, dirt that I sweep up, small pieces of cardboard, shredded up paper, and grass clippings. I am also trying to produce more of our own food so we don't have so many cans and plastic bags to recycle since that also uses precious energy. This food can then be frozen in plastic boxes or canned in my reusable glass containers. Reducing the number of plastic bottles that my family uses is also a major feat I am working to accomplish. We do this by reusing them and drinking water from our faucet whenever possible. Anything that we get rid of that is still in usable condition is donated to a charity such as Goodwill as well. I send less meat fats to the dump too as I am saving them to try to make my own soap. I have yet to get to this, but I'm sure I'll get to it eventually... I'm also still working on trying to figure out if it would be possible to ground the animal bones down to make my own bone meal too, if I find a good, practical way to do this I'll be sure to let you know. Cutting down on frivolous waste also slashes our bills by large amounts because we are sending less to the dump and buying less from outside sources. It's a win-win!

Often we waste precious resources as well. Think of all of the back breaking work it takes to make a traditional garden work. You need to till up so much soil, pick all of the rocks out of it, and dig through copious amounts of tree roots. So many people think that it's such hard work that they often give up altogether only part of the way through the summer. I mean think about it, there's weeding, watering, fertilizing, and thinning the plantings not to mention all of the space a garden takes up it the first place. My garden beds were so successful last summer and required so little time, attention, or resources I decided to add more of them this year. These gardens are modeled after Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Garden method with a lasagna style layering design to it as well as integrated pest management. The amount of water needed is drastically cut because once your seedlings emerge you simply mulch bed with grass, paper, leaves, pine needles,compost,... whatever. This mulch helps the soil retain moisture in the hot summer months and also adds nutrients so no artificial fertilizers or pesticides are needed. Not only does it decrease the amount of time we spend, but also water and money too. It also limits our exposure to chemicals that are abundant in many commercially prepared foods. Could there even be a better idea than that?

Conservation has always been pretty high on my list of priorities as well. Part of that tendency runs in my family, I think. We have a long line of frugal people that I am perpetuating by teaching these same values to my children. I don't like to use more of anything than what I need and I look for the cheapest possible way to get a job done. Let's think about water for a minute. If you live in town, you pay for sewer and water usage, but if you live in the country you want to be careful not to use too much water or your well may run the risk of running dry. We turn out water gets off when not in use, the water heater and hot water pipes have blankets and/or wraps to retain their heat (I'd also like to purchase a recirculator but I can't afford it now), I wash most clothes in cold water, and we use low flow shower heads to cut back on the amount of hot water used when showering. Then there's the whole issue of electricity which costs everyone everywhere money no matter where you live. Some of the steps we take to conserve energy include keeping the refrigerator and freezer full so they run less often, I use energy saving light bulbs which I try to use only one of at a time whenever possible, we live on a heavily treed lot so our central air is rarely needed since I artificially shade the house from the sun's rays when trees aren't blocking out the heat using blinds and curtain, I keep most appliances unplugged and put away when not in use, and I have installed power strips on the electronics I do keep plugged in so they only use energy when the power strip is turned on. Then there's gas for both our cars and heating our home in the winter. I try to plan my trips to town so I go as few times as possible, I keep storm windows closed in the winter to keep out additional cold but open the sun facing windows' blinds to let in as much light and heat as possible during the day, and we bought a programmable thermostat so we can lower our home's temperature when no one is up and/or home. I'd love to be able to afford a rain barrel to water my gardens with so I can conserve my well water for family drinking too someday, but they're not cheap to buy.

What are you doing to make our world a better place for our children and grandchildren?

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Inexpensive Greenhouse Lighting

As I was surfing the internet the other day, I got a great idea from one of my blog roll buddies. I don't seem to get much of a chance to read blogs much anymore, somehow I always seem to be busier than ever even though most of our major household projects are getting wrapped up. I read Cheap Vegetable Gardener's Blog and he had this great idea for using LED lights for starting plants in grow boxes. Since we were just in the process of putting away our Christmas decorations, I thought now would be a perfect time to start that project. I decided that would be a wonderful idea for how to solve my issues I had last year with my table top green house.

If you recall, I attempted to start my own seeds last year for my brand new raised lasagna style square foot veggie garden. I had attempted to use my table top greenhouse once before when we lived in MN to start my own flowers, but I had little success. Last year I used a reflective light, heat mats, a timer to turn the light off and on (I tend to be a bit forgetful sometimes), and domes to help the seedlings keep in the moisture better. Apparently they were a little too toasty in there since all of the seedlings shriveled almost as soon as I used my new setup. I think the bulb I have can be used as an incubator bulb, so I'll keep it just in case Cheesehead ever changes his mind and lets me get those chickens I'd like to raise.

I needed a new, inexpensive way to light my small table top sized greenhouse. It isn't long enough to fit those nice conventional sized grow lights in, so I had to be creative. These LED lights I got on clearance at Menards a few years ago seemed like a good solution. I still have 3 boxes I had never even opened. They had only been $3 per box, so I guess I went a little bit crazy. They are much cheaper to use than conventional lighting too, which is a big bonus when you are looking for ways to save money. I think I would have bought some now if I didn't already have some as most stores are clearing out the leftover Christmas stuff this time of year.

To attach the lights to the frame, I used some of the smaller sized zip ties I had sitting out in the garage. I simply wrapped the ties around the wire racks twice, once on either side of the bulb to direct the light in the proper direction. Twine would have worked too I'm sure but I like the sturdiness of the plastic ties as well as the ease of securing them tightly to just about anything.

I am planning on lining the top of the greenhouse with cardboard backed aluminum foil to add extra brightness for my plants as well as prevent the remote possibility of melting the flimsy plastic exterior cover with the low powered bulbs. I also think I should have some protection between my grow trays and the electrical wiring, so I will line the middle shelf with towels on top of the cardboard backed aluminum foil sheets to absorb any possible spills.

The seed starting will actually have to wait quite a while though since winter has just begun here. I'll have two additional veggie beds to fill with seedlings this spring too, for a total of three raised beds. I am also trying to do everything with home made organic products and ideas to save even more money as well as freeing us from the use of potentially harmful chemicals. I'm sure hoping this scheme of mine works out!

What are some of your winter projects you are working on?

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Heaven Sent Harvest

We really didn't have much of a summer here, it was more like a really LONG, not to mention dry, spring with just a couple of short weeks of mildly warmer temps thrown in. Now that fall has arrived, summer has too. Heat, but still extremely dry. We have only had one day with any measurable amounts of rain in the month of September. Hence the title of this post.

Add dryness to the fact that I have never once had an even reasonably successful harvest from any attempts at veggie gardening and I'd have to say it's miraculous. Thank God I mulched or I'd probably had yet another miserable failure!
My tomatoes are finally kicking it up into high gear. I was wondering if it would ever happen. This is my third harvest of the year of tomatoes. I am quite pleased with my first attempt at growing them, although I will not be using those flimsy store bought cages next year. There's got to be some sort of crazy artistic sculpture or something I can make with those useless things!
My hand pollinated apples that showed such promise this spring were a rather miserable failure. I guess next time I'll do better at keeping them watered. Now I'm listening to the kids argue over who gets to eat it. I sure wish I'd had enough foresight to see this train coming. Hopefully we'll have better luck in the coming years.
The zucchini practically grew itself. I've had so much of it I haven't known what to do with it. Apparently the only thing the family likes that's made of zucchini is bread. Any creative ideas of something not so boring would be greatly appreciated. I forget, have I ever mentioned that my family is just a wee bit picky?
The cucumbers could have done better, but this is my second decent batch. My family only likes pickles although MIL said they tasted really good. I wish I had done a better job of exposing my family to these things earlier in life. Maybe I wouldn't have all of these health issues now, not to mention complete and total food boredom for the most adventurous eater of the house. Sigh.

We had quite a few green beans though I think I will use the square foot garden method with them next year so I can squeeze a few more plants into my garden plan. I loved these beans fresh from the garden. I'd love to have some for canning purposes.

I must say my green pepper experiment taught me to not plant them so close to the tomatoes next year. It was way too shady for them to do much of anything productive. Better luck next year.

I also had some success with my potatoes that otherwise would have landed in the compost pile. I am wondering if some of the small ones can be saved as seed potatoes. How small is too small for a seed potato anyway? Anyone?

Now I suppose I better get working on my canning and preserving skills. Who would have known you could burn watermelon in a food dehydrator anyway? Oops! I love being able to reuse my glass jars and not having to send store bought cans to the landfill or recycling too. I feel like we're making great strides in being more earth friendly, chemical free, and building a healthier household. Yay us! Too bad some of this stuff is so time consuming, I bet more people would be going back to the old ways if they could.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Waste Not, Want Not

With these more difficult economic times, it is making some us us reflect on our past behaviors. Things that annoyed us, we find uses for and maybe have even come to like, use and depend on. Things we may have once thrown away become valuable decor. Take a look at some of the things I've been working on lately.

Let's first think about rocks. I'm sure we all have plenty of them, they can be dug up from just about any corner of any . Usually they're piled in a corner of the yard once we run out of uses for them. I've been known to throw a few into the woods around here. I hated digging these things up in my yard and I didn't knew what to do with them. Sure I had a couple of uses last year that I shared with you such as filling in the bottom portion of a raised bed, edging a garden, and filling in the window wells so sand would stop splashing onto my basement windows, but then the ideas ran out.

Today, I found some more uses for them.

They make great weights for the bottoms of flower pots when you don't have enough soil to fill a whole pot. Who ever said the whole pot needs to be filled with soil anyway? Some pots are quite large. Why not fill the part that no roots will grow into with those extra rocks? They'll also help keep the plant from drowning in too much standing water. They promote good drainage in those pots.

They also keep out mulch in place around our plants. These plants need plenty of TLC while they become established. Sure, just mulching them will probably work just as well... Unless you live here with oblivious children playing in the yard or people who don't watch what they're mowing down. They serve as great garden markers to call attention to sticks that may otherwise be destroyed.


Did you run out of mulch? Rocks can help shade the soil, keep it moist, and prevent weeds too. They work in containers as well as gardens.

Do you need splash blocks? Why waste your money on those store bought ones? Just arrange as many rocks as you need at the end of your downspouts to divert the water.

Let's not forget about the soil we used in our containers last year. Cheesehead used to throw the containers, soil, and all out every year. How wasteful was that? If your plants were not diseased the soil can be used again, but it may need some rejuvenation.

I dumped all of my hanging baskets out into my wheel barrow, broke up the clumps, and added some leaves, compost, perlite, and spaghnum to the mix and refilled the baskets. Not only did I avoid buying $10 hanging baskets but look at all of the stuff I kept out of the landfill! I'll show you my filled baskets on bloom day.

Memorial day is coming soon.

What do you do with your cemetery flowers from last year that have faded in the sun? Why not repurpose them?

I placed some of the stryofoam over the rocks in the clay pot I showed you earlier, cut stems from various faded cemetery flowers, and rearranged them into a plant to place in my wishing well. After all of the flowers were in place, I weighed down the styrofoam with more rocks.

I seemed to forget to water that a bit too often. With the roof on it I can't count on rain to keep it watered either! I don't need to remember to water fake flowers.

Sprouted potatoes? Don't throw them out. I was thinking about placing mine into my compost pile, but I decided to see if they'd give us some potatoes to eat instead. Mine were rather large potatoes, so I cut them into smaller pieces. You should let them cure prior to planting to help prevent disease.

Look what's popping up already. Looks like we should be getting some of our very own potatoes soon!


Cardboard can be used in places other than lasagna gardens too. I cut pieces to place into some of my containers to help the plants retain a bit more moisture. They dry out very fast in the summer. It is my hope that this will help them have a happier home.

Broken clay pots? One of those pieces will make a nice toad house I think. The rest...
can be broken down further and help keep the roots of the cardboard lined planters dry and happy.

The bluebirds really did a number on my coco lined basket. There were a few places that were getting rather thin. Cheesehead wanted to throw it away and buy a new liner. Not me!

I made those thin spot into holes where more plants could round out the fullness of the planter. I tore up some leaves and placed them around the holes I cut to help the soil retain some moisture that might try to evaporate out of those holes.

What about all of those pesky pine needles?

Why not use them to mulch your acid loving blueberries? The sand looses moistures pretty fast so the pine needles also make a wonderful mulch for that blueberry patch. Maybe I'll add some rocks later....

Lots of lumber but no place to burn it?


Then cut them into thinner pieces and make them ready to be used as stepping stones for your garden. I haven't had the time to get them dug in yet. So many projects, so little time! I'd better get back outside and get back to work.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Building My Accidental Lasagna Garden's Soil

Upon the well-educated advise of my wonderful blogging pals, I have foraged ahead with my lasagna garden. I started to fill my new veggie bed with inexpensive, good soil and other free amendments found laying around my yard. Not only is this a cheap way to build up dirt for my garden, but it will help to suppress weeds and gives me some organic fertilizer too.

I didn't want my new garden to be any wider than 4 feet wide so the soil wouldn't get compacted when I work in the garden. I can work from the edges and reach the middle without a problem. I was told to make my garden small, a 4x4 area and work my way up from there.

Those of you who know me know that I can never do anything small. It's only 3 times larger than the advised size at 4x12. If all goes well, I will expand next year, adding 2 more raised beds. If you're wondering why I am doing raised beds I have a lot of tree roots in my yard. Along with the fact that my "soil" is pretty much pure sand so amendments need to be added no matter what.

The carrots and potatoes will be kicked out of the garden this year, I hear they do well in sandy soil anyway. I want to save space for the plants that need better soil.

Would you like to see my work?

I raked the area I wanted to place my garden in order to eliminate grasses and other weeds from the garden. This isn't necessary with the lasagna-style garden, but the weeds were easily pulled out of the sand with two swipes of a rake.

In order to suppress weeds, keep in moisture, and attract earthworms to my veggie garden, I added a bottom layer of cardboard. Newspaper is another alternative that can be used. Either of them should be wet ted down before proceeding. I used small buckets to catch the snow that was melting off my roof since it is still cold outside and didn't want to turn the exterior spigots on just yet. Hopefully someday I will be able to get rain barrels.

After wetting the cardboard, I added a layer of pine needles, leaves, and grass clippings. They had begun to decompose in my new compost pile. It smelled wonderfully rich when I was pulling the materials out to put into my garden. I also grabbed several loads of leaves from the woods. Such a sweet, earthy smell, it was like heaven on earth!

After putting in a nice layer of mixed browns and greens, I started to use my reserves of topsoil topped with sphagnum. I didn't have much of either leftover, but it was enough for a thin layer. I also emptied any containers I wasn't planning on using this summer to add to my topsoil layer.

As I was emptying my 2 bags of sphagnum that were both half full, I found a mouse nest in one of them. There were 4 babies in it along with their mom. Cheesehead wanted me to kill them but I refused. MIL thought I was crazy, but I took the bag off into the woods and released the family quite a way from the house. What an ordeal!

Working in small sections, I added a thin layer of sandy soil from my yard onto the soil that I had placed in the bed. It took quite a bit of time to dig up this soil from my yard, especially when I couldn't get to my wheelbarrow to make the job easier. I only did one corner with this sand since I was using our spreader to carry the dug up dirt. It worked okay for a small amount, but I really wouldn't suggest using it for a big job like this. How could the shed be so messy after such a short period of time? I had to take some time off to uncover my garden tools by cleaning out the shed.

After all of that hard work I got my new plants so this project was put on hold for a few days.

On top of the layer of sand I added another fine layer of pine needles, grass clippings, and leaves. Then it rained for several days.

Today I finally got a break from many days of rain, so we got back to work on the garden. After I got back from my second day of full day subbing in a row, I saw a wonderful present was waiting for me in the truck. (YAY!). I needed the garden cart for the surprise Cheesehead brought home for me, so we had to empty out the rocks. Wasn't Peanut helpful? I think she's getting too big for this job anymore.

What was my surprise? A pallet of broken bags of miscellaneous soils, manures, and composts. Hurray! Now I don't have to dig up more dirt. At times like these it's nice that he works at the garden area of his store! He told me it only cost him $12.50. Not bad for so much good soil and stuff, right?

The whole family pitched in this afternoon. Son was more than happy to putter around on Cheesehead's tractor while hauling the dirt. It took much less work than the wheelbarrow would have.

Peanut helped me even out the piles of poured broken bag contents in the garden. Isn't it wonderful? Whew, is my back sore! Tomorrow night it's supposed to rain off and on for a few more days. I'm hoping to get some of the direct sown seeds into the ground tomorrow morning.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

One Step Closer

It is my goal for our home to be as self sufficient as possible. In order to do this, I need more trees. Why? Well, I hate to tell you this, but I don't think pine trees produce enough edible fruit for us to munch on. I DO like the pine straw I get from them though.

These last few days I have been as busy as ever. Doing what? Why planting of course! I really shouldn't have bought so many plants from those dang catalogs, but the sooner I get them planted, the sooner we'll be eating our own home grown food. Right? I'll figure out how to pay for them once the bills from the credit card companies get here. I know, it was a VERY bad idea. I don't use them much anymore except to buy gas (so I don't have to go inside to pay) so it shouldn't take long to get them paid off anyway, I hope.

The kids were excited to help since I bought some of their favorites. We have 2 different kinds of cherry trees, 4 different types of blueberries, 2 kinds of strawberries, 2 kinds of asparagus, 3 kinds of grape vines, as well as Manchurian apricot, paw paw, elderberry, persimmon, cold hardy kiwi, and rhubarb. The raspberries haven't come yet, but that's only two plants worth (BOGOF) so it shouldn't be a big deal.

The packages started flooding into my house the day I began putting the soil amendments into my lasagna veggie garden so that project got put on hold to get all of my lovely plants into the ground. Doesn't it figure? That was good for me though since we were supposed to get several days worth of rain in a row and I needed to work quickly if I wanted to take advantage of God's abundant gifts. I'll finish the veggie beds when it stops raining. (Please keep raining until Monday like it was forecasted!)

I grabbed my spaghnum, manure, mushroom compost, and topsoil from the stash that I bought last year and set out to work post haste. The blueberries didn't get much added to their holes since I have heard that they like sand. We just added some spaghnum and pine needles to the sandy soil we had already, planted the bushes, and mulched them with the abundance of pine straw that was laying in nearby piles. No piles left anymore, it's all either mulch for the lovely blueberry patch or in the bottom of my new veggie garden!

The other plants were treated to my soil amendments to varying degrees. It depends on if the kids were planting them or if I was. I suppose I should have provided them more guidance in this area, but I guess I learned best from my mistakes. I just let them go off and to their own thing with one of the types of cherry trees. I'm hoping that everything takes root and I can show the children some proper ways to care for the trees once they begin growing.

It was a lot of hard work, but we managed to get it all planted without getting rained on. I'll let you know when my little "sticks" (as Cheesehead refers to them) have begun to wake up. He laughed at the size of my plants, but this was the only way to get such a wide variety of plants fit into our yard. Big plants are awfully expensive for a tightwad like me! I sure hope it was worth it.

Looks like I have some arbor building in my future too....

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

My Accidental Lasagna Garden

Well, as you can guess I didn't finish my new veggie garden on Monday. I was waiting for it to stop snowing. I got a bit cold with the construction portion of my garden. (That, plus the CNN film crews were there with their cameras trying to film my crazy antics. I think Nola leaked the news to them!)

Thanks to everyone for your advise. I guess great minds think alike. I never knew my "crazy" plan had a name attatched to it already! I decided to research this lasagna gardening idea I was told about. (Sorry, I can't insert my link. Just google it if you want to find out more!)

It snowed again all day yesterday so my garden project got put on hold. I didn't relish digging in stepping stones past a layer of snow. Luckily it was a spring snow, so most of it has already melted, but I was told we got 10 inches of the stuff. What did I do instead? I tore apart my living room and began painting two walls. I suppose I should finish my painting and put the living room back together before I go out, but I don't think I will. Cheesehead will probably explode when he sees I put those plans on hold to finish something else.

I'm planning on going outside after the sun dries out the spots I will be digging my stepping stones into the dirt. Since I am not starting my lasagna garden in the fall, I need some soil to add to the top of the layers so I'll have to do that before finishing my garden. I don't have boots and I don't want my good tennis shoes completely filled with sticky sand. Thankfully sand doesn't take much to get dried out. I'll supplement the sand I dig up with some of my leftover bags of topsoil. Stay tuned, I'll show you how I built up my garden bed once it's completed.

What a great way to celebrate Earth Day, isn't it? I hope you all have a great one!

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy

Great Garden Markers

I'm sure many of you remember seeing that box of popsicle sticks that were sitting on my table during my Garden Bloggers Bloom Day tour. Well, the project has finally been finished and I am ready to share it with you. Drum roll, please!

Taa-Dah. I think next time I will use paint for my pictures instead of colorful permanent markers. Some of the colors didn't turn out very well on my dark green back ground paint. I also didn't realize how hard these tiny images would be to draw on the tip of a popsicle stick. I suppose if I wanted them to be more cutesy I should have used the larger size. Oh well.

I have used popsicle sticks successfully as markers before, but they get damp and break once they've been sitting in the soil for a while. I was looking for a way to be able to reuse them. I happened to have some extra exterior paint laying around and decided that painting them would protect them from the moisture. Not only that, but it would also add a nice splash of color too.

Would you like to know how we made them? Well, I suppose it's rather obvious, but I'll tell you anyway!

First we painted the popsicle sticks with my exterior paint one side at a time making sure not to forget the edges. I used a cardboard box to protect the table surface. I was also hoping that the paint wouldn't stick to the boxes like it does to newspaper. While it worked a bit easier, I'm not sure that it was entirely successful. Upon closer examination I see bits of cardboard embedded in the paint that I wasn't able to get peeled off completely. I think next time I will place the painted sticks on two unpainted sticks to dry and I'll see if that works any better.

If you use thin coats of paint, it doesn't take long for them to dry. Popsicle sticks can be a bit porous, so if you want an even coat you may want to apply two coats of paint to each side.

Once both sides were painted and dried was time to decorate and label them.

I went through my seed packet collection to see what types of labels I would need when it's time to start my seeds. I started with my vegetables and worked through to the flowers and herbs. I didn't realize I had that many seeds! I decided to use rather generic labels since I plan on reusing them again. If you wanted to you could write out the types of radish or tomato plants you have so they don't get mixed up. I'm not going to be so fancy right now. I've got plenty of extras so I can always go back and add more next year if need be.

To make it look cute, I drew pictures of the vegetables as well as writing out the words on the label. As you can see I didn't do the pictures very successfully so I gave up on the pictures by the time I reached the herbs. I made the outlines of the pictures with black permanent marker (fine line would have worked better) and colored it in with different colors attempting to correspond to the real colors of the vegetables. As I said earlier I think if I did this again I'll use paint and then an exterior varnish over it to prevent chipping. I couldn't skip the words since I'm not the greatest artist but if you have nice clear pictures I'm sure that the printed words wouldn't be necessary.

Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Cindy