Urban/Prairie living

Giveaway

2010-07-25T11:33:00.001-05:00

Phelan is having a giveaway over at her blog. You will need to write a story that has to do with bikes, or riding a bike (motorcycle). While you are there, you might want to read her blog from the very beginning and all the way through. It is absolutely the best blog I've ever found about homesteading. She is honest, funny, and very educational. So if you are a homesteader just starting out, or even one in the middle of things, you will find something for you on her site. I highly recommend it.

Until next time.

Off the grid living?

2010-07-23T10:33:00.000-05:00

I've found a great site about a woman and her husband, who live in Texas and their experiences going 'off grid'. It's a fascinating site and she has shared so much.

Wretha and her husband have lived off grid full time since December 2007, there have been ups and downs, but all in all it's been a great adventure. Now Wretha and her husband have been immortalized in an off grid book, click here to learn more about it.
http://wretha.blogspot.com/2010/07/my-wonderful-guest-book-giveaway.html

Please check it out. You'll get loads of information, education and entertainment.

Summertime...and the livin' is easy.

2010-07-23T10:26:00.000-05:00

Well, not quite. Not in Kansas anyway. 100 degree temps for days now, and over 100 heat index. You know we never used to have a heat index to tell us how hot it felt. Anything over about 90 was just hot and once it got to 100? Well, then it was unbearable. I think I like that way of telling us how uncomfortable it is better.

Needless to say, it's hard to work in the garden and hard even to work inside in this heat. I've been thinking about having it all. I have friends who have absolutely beautiful homes, picture perfect, ready for the magazine spread and all of that. But they rarely work outside. I have friends who have beautiful gardens, work outside in vegetable gardens, and their houses inside are nice, to really nice, but rarely picture perfect shape. So the question arises. Can one woman do it all? I don't know. All I know is that in this heat, we either get up at 4 and start work outside, or work after 10 at night until the wee hours of the morning to get things done. I'm a night person, so the after 10 would work better for me. But it blows the day completely and with our grandkids here so much, I've got to get some sleep. Getting older isn't good.

So, what we did yesterday in the garden. We started pulling up the corn that had been shucked, and will cut it to go into the compost heap. Grass had started growing again too (in Kansas that's an ongoing battle in the summer). So I cleared about a five by five area completely. Today I hope to get out later and finish up the other two rows of corn, to get ready for fall plantings of beans.

Yesterday we gathered okra, beans, cukes. There are other things coming on, and I have got to get to cutting peppermint or it is all going to flower out and I'll have to start all over and wait to dry. Chamomile has about had it for the summer, and so we won't see it again until next year. The onions, garlic, elephant garlic were all pulled last week. We clean, and keep the small heads for replanting in October, for next years crop. We got a pretty decent crop over the last few weeks, so will have enough to last us all winter. The peaches are coming on and will be ready in another couple of weeks. Apples will be a little later. So canning time is near for those, and in addition to our apple trees, a neighbor has a standard size that she doesn't want to harvest this year and told us to take what we wanted, so we will have apples throughout the winter when I combine hers and ours, and of course will make her the applesauce, apple jelly, spiced apples, canned apple pie, etc,that I make out of them all, so she can enjoy them too.

Now for the house.... (insert non smiley face here). I did get laundry done. The floors are swept, kitchen is clean (thanks to help from hubby). But we've had two of our granddaughters this week and that's about all that's gotten done. I prefer to play when they are here, and they are so fun to play with, they are 7 and 6 and are fun to have around. So, what's left, I've got to dust...the dust bunnies are winning at this point. I've got to get the bathroom cleaned up today, the floor in there swept and mopped. I've got to get our bedroom and the kids room straightened up, swept, and dusted. The house won't be picture perfect, or ready for magazine cover, but at least if we have company I won't have to be looking around at things that could have been done.

A woman's work is never done. Isn't that the truth? So, right now it's hot outside and I'm sitting here typing, procrastinating. Gotta go get at it. After all, as my mom always said, it's not going to do itself.

Until next time.

Getting back to earth

2010-07-05T12:02:00.000-05:00

Hi all. I've not been posting for a long while now. Alot has happened in our lives and things are not at all what we thought they would be at this point. First off, I had cancer. Not at all fun, but I am surviving. I do not say I am a survivor, because that indicates that it will never come back, and that's something that not even my oncologist can say. It might come back on me some day and if it does, I'll deal with it then. Hubby has had a major heart attack. His life has changed drastically. He is now retired, and is limited as to physical activity. This has, as you can imagine, impacted our lives drastically. I already had health issues before the cancer, and the cancer has made some worse. He didn't have any health issues and for him to deal with what's happened has been hard, but he's getting by and learning his limits.

This impacts what we can do going forward. In a post peak world, I'm not sure how we will fare, so this blog will serve to preserve our work and maybe help someone else think about the unthinkable.

We still have our garden and are working it daily, albeit less work daily, but we do what we can do given our physical limits. And we've been getting some results this year. Quite a bit of produce actually, considering. The weather has helped us out this year too. Kansas isn't known for great springs, and we had one this year. We actually had a spring in contrast to the usual 65 degrees to 90 degrees in one week changes we are used to.

We are learning to do many things for ourselves as we walk this new path. But without modern medicine, what will become of us? We don't know, but can imagine all kinds of things.

So, this is the first post of the rest of our lives, and we hope and pray for the best.

Until next time.

Time to make a statement.

2010-03-25T15:09:00.000-05:00

Ok, with what's going on with the whole 'healthcare" bill fiasco, I felt the need to state my opinion and feelings about what's going on right now. I was not in favor of this bill. In fact, I don't think it will stand. I think enough is going to happen with the state's filing lawsuits that it is either going to be repealed, or changed enough to be something that most of us can live with.

But even though I disagree with it, I do NOT agree with the people who are out there committing acts of violence to make their point. I mean, come on people, it's called civil-ization because it's civilized. Let's be civil about all of this. The white powder, the coffins the threats that I've heard of on the news are WAY over the line. We aren't a people who threaten others to get our way!

Let's allow the powers that be to try to work this thing out without any violence. Violence has never worked in any situation. Let's instead voice our opinions, through the right channels and work with this situation in that way.

The violence has GOT to stop!

Snow......

2010-03-20T22:20:00.001-05:00

More snow. This is the fourth large snowfall this year. Over 8 inches every time. Of course, the moisture is great. But I'm so ready for Spring.

Prima's having a giveaway

2010-02-28T15:29:00.001-06:00

But you better hurry, sign up ends Sunday evening...

http://prima.typepad.com/prima/

Good luck to us all :)

Scrapping

2010-01-05T21:22:00.001-06:00

Would like to post some pics of my scrapbooks if I can figure out how to scan them and then post them :)

extra pics of hobby storage

2008-10-19T14:49:00.005-05:00

I wish I could figure out how to turn the sideways pics right side up. But for now this will do. Just some extra pics. I use some space behind the bottom cabinets for #10 can storage. It works out to be the right size. You can see on the other side, my extra sewing machine. My quilting squares are by the top sewing machine, waiting to finish the rest for quilting...something I hope I can get to this week. You can also see where we still need to paint. That is something I let go until I have some really free time. It seems there is no free time now days...about the middle of January, maybe.

Until next time,

Jenny

2008-09-23T21:33:00.005-05:00

A pic of my grandma. She was the hardest working woman I've ever known. I've talked about her before and some of the people who might read this might have read some of my words about her. She was a farm and ranch woman. She rose at about 4:00 am every morning. She started bread as soon as she got the stove going (wood). Then she started breakfast. She cooked for ranch hands, so she cooked in large amounts. Breakfast commonly consisted of eggs, bacon, ham, steak, pancakes, biscuits, jam, coffee or tea. Then she cleaned up from breakfast. Took bread out of the oven, and it was time to head outside to milk. She milked, brought the milk in, put it in whatever container it was headed for. Some for their use, some for selling, some for butter, etc. Some cream for the fridge.

When that was done, she would go check on eggs. Gathering eggs was one of my favorite things to do growing up. I remember her telling us, make sure you look before you reach. Although we never found a snake in the henhouse, they were there occasionally. After eggs, she started lunch. Lunch was usually steak (or fried chicken), potatoes, green beans, whatever was out of the garden in season, bread, homemade butter, pitcher of milk, coffee, jam, pie or coffee (either left over from day before, or some she had managed to get baked in the morning between eggs and milking). Then she cleaned up from lunch after every one ate. Then it was out to the garden. She would work as long as she could, or had time for, then inside to do household chores, and while doing household chores, it was time to start supper. Supper could be pork chops, steak, fried chicken, chicken and noodles, beans, rice, potatoes, green beans, corn, okra, pickled beets, pickles of any sort, bread, and always desert of some kind, coffee or iced tea, depending on the season. She then cleaned up from supper. During whatever was left of the evening, she either took care of household chores, or she did sewing, mending, canning, making butter, shucking corn, milked again. Then it was time to shut down for the night. Stoke the stove, and prepare it for night. She usually got to bed at about 12 every night. Up again at 4:00 again the next morning. If there was time, she would try to take a small nap, even if it was just 30 minutes in the afternoon. Sometimes there was no time for it. It depended alot on what time of year it was, and what was being harvested.

She could cook anything. She never had a recipe. She canned everything they ate out of the garden, and canned fruit, of any kind she could get, or had on hand. She raised her own chickens, her milk cow.

These are pics of my "Pa" (grandpa). He was a big man. The ax in his hands looks like a stick doesn't it?

Pa took care of the cattle, the planting, the haying, the feeding, the watering, the horses, the pigs, cutting wood, and whatever else Grandma found for him to do. He was a wonderful guy. He worked in his younger years for the "101 Ranch" in Oklahoma, traveling with their Wild West Show, as a roper. He would rope us kids as we ran, it was alot of fun. Nowdays someone would probably complain that it was dangerous. He never hurt us, not once. He could do some pretty amazing things with that rope, he could make the lasso go up or down, make it really big, or really small, make it go side to side with him jumping through it like a jump rope. He had a large horse "Red". Red was the cutting horse. And probably one of the best in this part of the country at that time. Nobody rode Red but Pa. He could put us kids up on Red and walk us around the barnyard, but we never got close to that horse unless Pa was around. I remember one day, Red bit Pa on the shoulder. Pa reached up and grabbed the horse by both ears and bit him on the nose until it bled. I don't think Red ever bit Pa again.

The reason I posted about my grandparents today (these are my mom's folks), is because Sharon posted about wood stoves on her site and it made me think of Grandma and how hard she worked her whole life. They were wonderful, loving people. I miss them both.

Until next time