My husband and I have been made an offer for the family farm. As we look into the future and try to figure a way to make it work financially, health insurance is one of our largest bills. I am fantasizing more and more about going without. Even with a very reasonable plan, we would save anywhere...
Hi everyone--I wasn't sure which category to put this under, so I hope this fits.
We have 150 meat bird chicks in our garage right now. I had thought, living on a corn and soybean farm, we could surely grind and mix our own feed much more cheaply than buying it from our local Farm and Fleet...
Hi all--Farmfresh recently generously sent me some of her squash seeds. I dried down seeds from one of my TSSPS for her. Turns out each squash has about 100+ seeds!
Here's the deal: I cannot guarantee the squash will stay true. I grew many varieties last year and they could be cross-pollinated...
First off, and most importantly, this is NOT a thread to start a fight. I have noticed this question come up repeatedly over the course of the year and a half that I have been a member of this forum. In the most recent instance, the thread was locked before I had a chance to respond.
So, I...
I'm not sure where I want to go with this post, but I'm very disturbed by the corn and soybean harvest here this year.
The projection is a record crop, but the reality is a lot of grain being turned away because of mold and immaturity, and that's if it is gotten off the fields at all.
A...
Hi y'all!
I don't own a single piece of makeup and haven't for years. I've always figured myself to be a person lacking in vanity. Turns out I was just young enough to not need stuff on my face. :D So, now that 35 has rolled around and I'm starting to notice wrinkles that don't go away during...
As I am married to a conventional farmer, this debate rages in my house all the time :) I have a bunch of questions that regularly get debated between my husband and I that I would like to toss out to you. First, I will state that I try to get more and more organic food into our diet all the...
Hi everyone--Rather than bogging down the "What's for dinner" thread with my enthusiasm for pumpkins and squash, let's put all our favorites here.
I'll start with:
Easy, Raw Rainbow Salad:
Chopped cabbage, green and purple
Crinkle-cut raw carrots
Thinly sliced leeks or red onion
Finely...
Hi all you amazing soap makers, or wannabees like me :D I've sorted through all the old threads on soapmaking but wonder if I might just start another one anyway to put it all in one spot.
What are your absolute must-have books? I have heard of The Soapmaker's Companion and The Everything...
After hours of conversation with my son's 4th grade teacher yesterday, lots of chats with my kids' teachers over the years and our own challenges at home, I really suspect my kids may have ADD and ADHD.
Let me also add that I did not even used to believe in these diagnoses. I used to believe...
This time of year I am bound to have a kettle or 2 on the stove soaking beans any given day of the week. What's not to love about beans? They are SO healthy, so cheap, so delicious, so versatile, and they give my young children endless short moments for amusement.
Here are a couple of my...
Well, thanks to all of your inspiration, I have my large crockpot full of kraut, 5 quart jars full of more and plans to start a lactofermented batch tomorrow. This will yield more sauerkraut than my family has eaten in the last 14 years combined!!
We use it in Reuben sandwiches, meat or...
I think we have one more food method not being represented here :)
Today, I froze 1 gallon of blackberries. I spread them on cookie sheets, froze them solid, then broke up the trays and dumped them into 1-gallon freezer pails, all the berries separate and not clumped together. Can't wait to mix...
So, now I'm set for the dishwasher and clothes washer. How about general-use dishsoap? I use it for cleaning eggs and too-big-for-the-dishwasher dishes every night. Any great recipes out there?
me&thegals
I had this idea, and then Farmerlor posted about it on BYC. With the economy stinky and people getting back to the basics, I thought I would offer canning classes to my CSA customers. They are already in touch with me, already receiving loads of veggies for about 28 weeks and are fairly likely...
Hi everybody! All this talk about cheese has gotten me thinking. How many of you make foods using probiotics? How many would like to learn how to do this?
In our house, I make buttermilk, yogurt, occasionally kefir and now I'm brewing my first batch of kombucha. Looking forward to making apple...
Jeff from Brunty Farms on BYC is offering Cornish x chicks for $.55 each, plus shipping. Great deal! I've ordered 200 to split with a friend, so the price starts to look pretty great. Here's the link if you're interested:
http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=151659
I feel dumb having to ask this, but I keep reading about people storing enormous quantities of food in buckets with gamma-ray lids. I guess I really don't know why.
Are you worried about shortages? Money becoming worthless? Crop failures?
It didn't really make me think too much about it all...
I am NOT interested in starting a heated debate, please. I would like to share this website, which is a place to read the entire bill, see the categories and amount of money allocated for each and track the milestones towards economic recovery.
http://www.recovery.gov/
I understand some will...