haters?

Big grin at that tale.

all yalls stories are great!

Guess I'm just blessed. I don't have any problems w/anyone in my family about how I'm living. And, my friends all get it. I don't get grief from anyone over it.

I think I'm the excentric that keeps everyone entertained.
I can relate to the origional post because my grandpa was an old school farmer and he had his ideas about what a garden was supposed to look like, which is nothing like what my garden looks like.....all raised beds and mulched to the max. Then Momma had certain ideas about when to replace the WHOLE flock, which I didn't consider feasible. If I had listened to her, I'd have sold off everything after their 2nd molt and completely replaced with day old babies....and then have to raise them to be 5 months old before I get a single egg. I don't think so. I used to listen to her, but I found that the decrease in production could be justified, if I give them cheaper/free food, let them forage here and there and it would be much more profitable that starting all over with an 80 dollar order, which would cost me another 15 every 2 weeks for a while, until I get them old enough to feed them whatever and still have to wait months for that first egg. I don't think she ever accepted some of my poultry ideas, but she did see that I insisted on making a profit, and when the lady that bought her incubators from her, decided to get out of chickens, and told her, she promptly told me and so I have a really big incubator and hatcher, so I feel I have that connection.
So many people just can't believe that I've already gone a whole month without a clothes dryer....by my own choice.

I completely understand the stubbornness of traditional ideas. I think that's the bulk of what I deal with. That, and the idea that "if it was good enough for me it should be good enough for you too"

We've done almost 2 years without using our dryer..... I wonder if it still works

I went on strike for using a clothes dryer, back in 2001. I hang clothes inside when it is too rainy or damp outside. We are heating the rooms anyways, with zoned heating. Why not get twice the savings out of the heating $$ by drying clothes with it.

moxies_chickennuggets said:

I went on strike for using a clothes dryer, back in 2001. I hang clothes inside when it is too rainy or damp outside. We are heating the rooms anyways, with zoned heating. Why not get twice the savings out of the heating $$ by drying clothes with it.

Click to expand...

Thats kinda what I've been doing. After Katrina, we needed to wash our clothes in the tub and line dry and our clothes line was popped because of whatever had landed on it, plus the yard was a mess, until we slowly cleaned it, and with unpredictable weather, so we put ourselves clothes lines in each bedroom and after washing, each room had clothes particular to whoever's room it was. I now have, without a doubt the best clothes line I have ever seen....on picture or face to line but still rely on the inside, room lines when weather is questionable. Its almost easier for me to dry clothes inside, but takes longer because whatever will eventually need to go on hangers, I just put straight onto hangers from the washer and then hang it to dry in the rooms. When dry enough, it can go straight into the closets....its already on the hanger. Unless I need to look really sharp, I'm good. But the room with the little gas heater is the room that dries the clothes best, so I am killing 2 birds with one stone, so to speak.
Maybe I'll fix my dryer soon. Keep saying I will and I did obtain the tool to diagnosis the problem. Costed 11 bucks. Better than 600, huh? But, of course, once I find out what is wrong, that will probably be another 40 or 50 bucks.....still, better than 600 though. But its no real hardship for me to line dry and my gas bill was only 46.....pretty good for Dec/Jan bill, so maybe a broken dryer isn't so bad. Not like a broken washer, which I still could deal with if push came to shove.

When I went on strike...I was actually too poor to even think of running up the electric bill using the dryer. I had one, but it just gathered dust.

I remember being so poor that I didn't know I was going to do. I let DH go to work, and I turned off all electricity I could and opened up the house and started cleaning EVERYTHING. I found loose change in corners of the house, under the cushions of the sofa (which was a used gift), and I organized and organized everything. I didn't even have enough money to buy a single pack of cigarettes for DH (not that he should have smoked to begin with). I recall killing half grown roosters, so I could stop feeding them and have meat to eat. I gathered up some wild onions, made a roux and had chicken gumbo and later, I ran out of unwanted roos and made a gumbo, again with wild onions, but the closest thing I had to call meat was the boiled eggs I had floating in it. I could have done so much with just $10 dollars at that time and yet, I couldn't ask for help from anyone. I didn't have a job and they were hard to come by, so I would wake up at 4:00AM, dress in rags and head to the shrimp shed to break heads with the old Cajun ladies. I couldn't fill a bucket as fast as them though, but if I filled at least 3, I'd get close to $10 and my cousins would drop off my check to me. If I was desparate enough, I'd do that 2 or 3 times a week and get between $40 to %50 dollars. It was a pitiful check, but I could do so much with it.
Biscuits was the main bread DH and ate in the beginning. He'd go rabbit hunting with his brothers and father when they'd invite him and I'd get really mad if I'd find out he had given his kills to one of his brothers. One day I told him that if he shot a rabbit, he better come home with it. I told him, I'd clean it, but it was mine and he best give it to me or stay home and sure enough he came home with nothing and then told me he killed 2....but quickly told me we were invited to supper at his brother's house....whitebeans and rice with rabbit. Okay, that was better.
My first garden was amazing. God Himself, must have blessed it. I grew things that aren't even supposed to grow here that no one is successful with. I have tried, since then to grow some of that stuff and have failed. I started a compost bin that was made out of cypress logs from the ruins of my parent's log cabin (damaged from Juan). I apparently cut too deep when I was peeling potatoes and threw the peelings in and covered with grass clippings.....yep....I had planted potatoes. I knew what they were because I had picked them, all my life in Grandpa's garden. I planted English Peas, which no one believed would grow.....they did and how!!!! I almost couldn't fail. The long logs from the cabin were used to frame me up a flower bed around my house to make it pretty, but I was so seed crazy that I surrounded my house with white squash plants and I must have gained 20 Lbs that year, eating squash cake. Good thing I was so tall.
I remember wishing for just a glass of milk. Milk was hard for me to do without. I'd buy just enough to put in biscuits or fix coffee. The seniors I knew had stockpiles of non-fat dry milk and I would sometimes get a few boxes from my grandparents. That was nice, but still I couldn't bring myself to ask for anything.
I finally had worked hard enough to get enough nerve to approach a man in a position to give me a job and basically forced him to hire me.....at McDonalds. Once I had a regular, but small check coming in........well, you would have seen a huge amount of stuff going on, with no more money than I was making. DH found work also and even though we made less than all his brothers and my brother, we were the ones everyone came to for help....why??? Because we saved and scraped. We knew tricks to get by on our good looks and knowledge. What really hurt was having a few in our debt and then me getting pregnant and being taken off the nursing assistant schedule and DH getting fired.....having so many in our debt, but no one giving us back anything or if they did, hardly. When people are willing to work and I need help, I don't mind dealing with them, because I've been there and all my little tricks are free for the learning, if they willing to listen to me.

You've been thru a lot!