Springtime!

Today is another gorgeously sunny day. There's a good breeze, so I've been doing laundry and hanging it out on the clothes line. Ralph Jr. strung it up for me a couple of years ago around some oak trees, and strung some lines down low so the girls could help me. We wear aprons with pockets to keep the clothespins in. The birds are singing, we saw goldfinches and red-headed woodpeckers. Toby came to keep us company and sprawled out in the grass, and even Scamper, who had five kittens yesterday, came out to enjoy the sunshine and butterflies.

It's been an interesting spring.

The cold/cough that we all had we think was whooping cough. Nothing much can be done about it, since it's a virus, just lots of fluids and rest. Those of us that had it back in 99 didn't have it for long. The girls, including Kit, had it worst. By worst I mean it stuck around for a good month. Papa ended up getting pneumonia with it, he's on antibiotics and is feeling much better. Didn't make any difference if we were immunized for it or not, everyone has had it now, those that had all their shots and those that didn't.

In the midst of all of this, I had a food allergy test done. Turns out I'm allergic to wheat gluten, dairy, eggs, peanuts, almonds, kidney beans, and garlic. I went cold turkey off of those foods, with a few accidental exceptions, and I felt a lot better within a few days, and MUCH better after a couple of weeks! I'm very excited that it's made such a difference. I've been gardening and cleaning things, I even took over milking the goats for Kit for several days, and I haven't felt wiped out at all! My mind feels clearer, I have a LOT more energy than I've had in years. Praise God!

I'm having to learn some new cooking and menu planning skills, and get over the idea of eating grains for breakfast. Now I have dinner for breakfast. I'm rotating my diet so as not to eat the same thing in four days, that's been kinda hard to keep up with. I'm really thankful that this is something relatively easily dealt with, not like chemotherapy or surgeries or extended hospital stays. I've had to learn how to cook without garlic, praise God it wasn't onions. Not sure I'd know how to cook without onions! I haven't missed kidney beans at all. The gluten and dairy has been a challenge, especially since I've been relying on dairy for quick protein snacks for the hypoglycemia. Now I'm trying to keep straight which nuts I can eat on which days. I've been able to reintroduce duck eggs, that's a nice easy breakfast. Unfortunately, the ducks either quit laying or are laying somewhere else. I've been saving a stash of them in the fridge. They hypoglycemia symptoms seems to be settling down now that I'm not stressing my body out by eating allergens.

Books I've read recently: The Dry Divide, by Ralph Moody; Opal, The Journal of an Understanding Heart, by Opal Whiteley, adapted by Jane Boulton; and The View from Saturday, by E.L. Konigsburg

Recent Yarn Projects

I've been knitting and crocheting this winter. I'm looking forward to getting the sheep sheared and getting more wool to play with!

Here's my newest project.... Socks!!


Here is a poncho I crocheted for Kit, from handspun wool from our sheep:



Sadie liked it so much she wanted one, too (this is the Martha Stewart "Coming Home" pattern, aka "The Prison Poncho"):



And for Kit's baby goat kids, I crocheted three little jackets. Here's one:



Sadie is just enchanted with the Knifty Knitters. She wanted a sweater made from the biggest one (for the bodice) and the littlest one (for the sleeves). It went together a lot faster than I thought it would. It's from two strands, one store-bought, one handspun, from our sheep. I dyed the handspun in purple coolaid to get a nice lavender color. Yes, it smelled like grape for a while. ;)

I thought we were going to make it through the winter without being sick, other than a few runny noses here and there, but no dice. The month of March has been a long trail of kleenex and teabags.

Kit came down with it first, dampening her excitement over 5 new baby goat kids. The rest have gotten it by onesies or twosies. I had it really bad last week and am finally feeling better.

I started going to a new naturopath, and he ran some tests and determined I have Adrenal Exhaustion, which is causing the hypoglycemia and low thyroid, among other things. I don't really know if the adrenal exhaustion comes from diet, genetics or stress. Or all three. I started on supplements for it the day before I got sick with the flu. Yesterday was the first day I felt good, actually. We'll see how it goes!

Frugal Meals for a Large Family, Phase One: Shopping

In my effort to save money, I decided that shopping once a month was more economical. There is gas to take into account, so the fewer trips into town = more $$ for groceries. I took my weekly shopping list, and figured out how much food we go through in a month. Dear son Mark decided to reorganize it by topic, thus the "animal flesh" column.

I've never bought everything on that list at one time. I'll print the list out, and go look in the freezers, the fridge, the cupboards and the pantry shelves and see what's missing, and highlight it. Then I'll wrack my brain to think of those three or four items that have been in my head to get at Costco that I can't remember when I actually have the list in front of me.

I have a full-fridge refrigerator in my kitchen. A normal sized one was just NOT working, with 7 adult-sized stomachs, and 4 small ones. I also have an upright freezer in the garage, and a chest freezer that dh found for really cheap and couldn't pass up. It's supposedly the "meat" freezer, and the other one is the "other stuff" freezer.

I shop at Costco, and the local cheapest grocery store in town, Winco. I also go to a restaurant supply store and drool over their huge cooking pots. Their prices rival Costco's, but they have a different inventory and I can get some things there that Costco doesn't carry. Like a three-bean green bean mix with cranberries. Or a gallon jug of Tabasco sauce. (Ok, I've never bought it, but the kids and I always like to look at it...)

Now, I have never been able to follow a menu very well. So basically, I buy ingredients. I very rarely buy convenience foods. They cost so much more ounce per ounce. We generally eat chicken two times a week, and ground beef two or three times, and roast once. Tuna dinner once a week, and in the winter, several soups. So for example, on the chicken, if we have fried legs for one meal, and two whole roast chickens for Shabbat dinner, I'd need four whole chickens per month if we alternate a red meat roast with chicken every other week. We eat approx 15 pieces of chicken per meal, and they come 3 pieces in a package, with 6 packages in a pack, so 2 packs of drumsticks and 2 packs of thighs (a little extra is fine).

The first time I went shopping for a month, I spent $600. I way over-estimated the olive oil usage, and I had to stop at Winco for fresh produce a few times. But I didn't do a major shopping run again for 6 weeks. The next time I went it was around $300 (Dh stole all my recipts. I'll get them back and see how much I spent).

On occasion, I'll take everyone with me. Usually, I'll just take a couple of strong teens to load it and unload it. I can also give them part of the list and we'll go twice as fast that way. Although, I have to check what they put in the basket, otherwise, I'll end up with suprises.

I keep a lot of staples on hand. I suspect we could eat for several months without going shopping, but it wouldn't be pretty. I have about ten 2 1/2 gallon buckets with different kinds of beans. I also keep wheat on hand, rice, and oatmeal. We buy 50lbs of oatmeal at a time. Grains and beans together make a complete protein, so I know we would not starve. I got the buckets at the bakery dept. at a grocery store. They contained frosting, they gave them to me. They are much easier to handle than a 5 gallon bucket.

Some dried food I keep on hand are raisins, mushrooms, and various fruit. I'll buy a whole box of pears, for example, and when they start getting over-ripe and we aren't eating them fast enough, Mark will dry them in the dehydrator. They get used as treats for the little girls, eaten on the sly by hungry teens, and sometimes they make it into the oatmeal for brekky.

Often, food is given to us. Several people have given us their Y2K stashes during the early 2000's. I babysit a little boy and his dad picks up food from the Gleaners organization. Last week he brought a bunch of food, along with a huge bag of mushrooms. I steamed them, then dried them. I used the broth from steaming for a fantastic home-made cream of mushroom soup.

We also will slaughter our own animals. I haven't had to buy meat for a couple of months, because we have plenty of goat, veal and chicken in the freezer. Kit found a goat that someone was giving away, so she butchered it herself and we got 65 lbs of meat from it for free. Someone else had a calf that was going down due to a genetic physical problem, so they gave it to us for free. Ron butchered that one. We also raised some cornish cross chicks that Kit got free from the fair, but to be honest, the feed cost more than they were worth. It would have been cheaper to buy them from Costco. They sure have a better flavor than chickens that are"mass produced" though.

Eggs are also cheap protein. It's worth having chickens if you can feed them on leftovers or let them free-range. Assuming they don't quit laying. A laying hen that is not laying is good for the crockpot. Too tough otherwise.

Snow Fun

Here in our corner of the North West, 40,000 customers had power out for the last couple of days due to ice storms. At 2am Sunday morning, our dog started barking, so Dh went to check things out. The power lines along the main road were arcing and the power went out. He filled up all the big jars he could find with water before the pressure went down.

Sunday morning we woke up to the whole world glittering in ice. Every leaf, every branch, every blade of grass was covered with ice. An oak tree fell across the fence into the front yard around 8 am, which is what got me out of bed. Since there are several large oak trees outside our bedroom, I decided that it was not a safe place to be, lol.

Ron, nearly 6 feet tall, next to a fallen branch off one of the big oak trees.

We were without power for 31 hours. No heat, no water (electric pump on our well). We camped out, boys in the living room and girls in the telly room. We slept in our clothes and sweaters, in sleeping bags with blankets. I'm so glad we have a gas stove! Nothing like nice hot soup in the cold! It got down to 49* in the house. Not bad for no heat. The kids started teasing me that I couldn't make coffee in my electric coffee pot, but I showed THEM! I got out my percolator stuff for my granite ware coffee pot and made a nice big pot.

We could hear the trees and branches breaking and coming down all night and all day. We lost around 20 trees. The boys said they could hear branches breaking once every 10 seconds while they were outside. They were out with the chainsaw a couple of times to clear the driveway and the fence line. Ralph Jr. said he was out there and had cleared a tree off the fence, and then decided it would be fun to run up the driveway. A big limb off a 120 ft. poplar fell right behind him, where he had been standing.


The sheep are well prepared for cold weather with their woolen sweaters.


Amazingly, our sheep and calves are safe. They are pastured in the wooded side of our property. The kids played games all day and we went to bed early. It was fun making potato latkes for the first night of Hanukkah in the dark with candles, lol.

Here is Mae going for a long trail ride on her mustang pony.

We had a package of bottled water, and Dh drained the hot water heater for washing dishes. I guess it was enough of an excuse to not wash, because the kitchen just Went To Pot after one meal. We used up all the dishes and all the spoons. Then we broke into the paper goods. Probably should have done that, first. I wasn't feeling well and stayed out of the kitchen, which was another mistake.



Dh and I and the girls went into town, today. There is about a foot of snow. Hardly any roads are plowed. None of the store workers thought of shoveling the sidewalks. It's kind of amusing how just a foot of snow really confounds NorthWesterners.

Lessons: Get a snow shovel. Get a big water cooler with a spigot. Keep natural beeswax candles on hand, the paraffin candles gave me a doozy of a headache, even though they were unscented. Keep paper goods on hand. Kick the boys out of the kitchen during emergencies.

On The Home Front

I've been pondering the metaphor of a woman and her home.

My home is as much a part of me and who I am, as a car and a job is to a man. You know, the beefy farmer type who drives around in a monstrous pickup. The slick ladies' man in sales who drives a sports car. Or the retired guy in a red Camero. Or a green, inner city musician who drives a Zap. ;)

I never felt "at home" in our McMansion. It was too impressive. My furniture looked out of place, like it was putting on airs. I liked it, but it never felt like my house, you know?

This house suits me well. It has good bones. It has enough bedrooms. It has plenty of room for the kids and our animals. Well, 10 acres would be nice, and a barn, but we're making it work. It's over 30 years old, though, and a bit dated. It needs some new paint, and some maintenance. The pipes are rotting through and need to be replaced. The kitchen is very dark. So is the entryway. Chimney needs work. The carpet really must go. There's beige carpet in the dining room and pink carpet throughout the rest of the house. We bought some laminate wood flooring at Costco on sale, but need to install it. The windows all need to be replaced. We've gotten one almost finished. The sprinklers in the yard don't work, so I can't plant anything. Keeping the garden watered was very difficult this summer. It either didn't get watered or I'd forget to turn the water off. In my mind I see a bubbling pond with gold fish, and roses and yarrow and butterfly bushes, and lots of pansies. But my eyes see a murky pond still not edged in rock, and weeds.

It depresses me to go into the kitchen and think of all the things that could be done to cheer it up and make it a happy place. The cabinets are sturdy, but so dark. The floor has a big hole in it covered with a non-matching piece of vinyl that is stapled down. It's got pink paint drips on it, and cuts and stains that won't mop out.

I don't like being in there.

It's not "me". It's not "cheerful".

(Can you tell I'm visual?)

Last night, Hubby and I were discussing whether we should tear out the old cabinets and put new ones in, and move the sink over here, and move the ovens over there, or just repaint the cupboards and call it good. We decided it would be best to just paint. I went to bed with visions of fresh white cupboards with little glass knobs dancing in my head, with walls painted sulfur yellow, and blue-and-white curtains in the window. A built-in island painted sage green, with a round sink in it and a butcher block top.

I woke up, well, cheered (more so after a cup of coffee and some yogurt).

I felt so happy just knowing that we would give the kitchen the attention that it needed to be it's best. It doesn't have to be somebody else's best, just its own.

And I realized that I need a little coat of paint here and there. I need some maintenance. I even need some renovation, but mostly I just need maintenance.

I yearn for paint in my kitchen because it feeds my soul. My soul wants to beautify where I live. Anywhere. Not just This House, but Any house I live in. It wants it's surroundings to express who I am. Maintaining my house in turn maintains my soul.

If my house is a disorganized mess, I feel disorganized and messy. If the house feels dark and cold, I feel dark and cold. If my house is neglected, I feel neglected.

I'm not saying that my house is my God. It's just a vehicle for my soul like a car or a job is a vehicle for a man's soul. A man in a dead-end, unfulfilled job is very dissatisfied. I think it's the same with a woman, only with her house. Just like our body is the vehicle for our spirit. They all need to be taken care of.

For three years I've been cooking under low cabinets. Just before Thanksgiving, Hubby and the boys installed the vent hood. What A Difference! It felt much like pain meds for a broken bone. I felt physically relieved.

How much is Creation God's vehicle? How much are We? And what kind of fuel do we need for our vehicles from God that we can't get from houses or cars? Is it really houses and cars or is it work? (My job as a woman is my home...)

Again

Ralph Sr. got laid off today.

They laid off 90 people. Most had never been laid off before. I feel bad for them, right before the holidays and all.

I feel kinda funny not being more upset. I am a little, I guess. It just feels like, "here we go again," or "back to the drawing board".

I know God has plans that are far bigger than what I can see or imagine.

Praise God. ;)