Tamlynn's journal that needs an interesting name -I'm a gramma -pics!

[justusnak]

So much food in such a small area!! Even still room for the kids! Great layout. I am so jealous of all that green grass.. sigh...in time..I TOO will have grass again! LOL

 

[dacjohns]

I don't know if that's much of an intro.

I'm a married mom with kids, living on a tiny suburb lot in Los Angeles. I homeschool, have a garden, and a few chickens. I grew up in rural UT and sometimes get nostalgic for the wide open spaces. My parents still live there and the kids and I usually spend a month every year on Grandma and Grandpa's farm.

I am interested in food storage and learning to do the best I can with what I have.

With your background you missed out somehow?

 

[tamlynn]

I don't know if that's much of an intro.

I'm a married mom with kids, living on a tiny suburb lot in Los Angeles. I homeschool, have a garden, and a few chickens. I grew up in rural UT and sometimes get nostalgic for the wide open spaces. My parents still live there and the kids and I usually spend a month every year on Grandma and Grandpa's farm.

I am interested in food storage and learning to do the best I can with what I have.

With your background you missed out somehow?

Do you mean my religious background?

 

[The Vail Benton's]

HI Tamlyn,
You have a great start! I can't wait to see pics and hear about your garden as it progresses.
My In-laws are suburban homesteaders and they have one of the best gardens I've ever seen. I had dinner with them last night and all the veggies, salad & FRESH, juicy, deep red, vine ripened tomatos were grown in their backyard garden. I gave them a couple of pullets a few months ago - it was part of the dowery I promised them when I married their son last May - and FIL built a beautiful coop & yard for them that stays "hidden" below the fence line so they don't get in trouble with the HOA. Thay're fortunate to have neighbors that like the grapevines to hang over the fence into their yard so they can share in the harvest when the grapes ripen, and that aren't opposed to living nextdoor to chickens that nobody sees or hears anyway - not all nieghbors are so easy going, I know.
DH and I have more land but we haven't yet produced like my in-laws - maybe this year!

btw, I personally don't think your journal needs a better name - the one you have is kind of catchy!

 

[dacjohns]

I don't know if that's much of an intro.

I'm a married mom with kids, living on a tiny suburb lot in Los Angeles. I homeschool, have a garden, and a few chickens. I grew up in rural UT and sometimes get nostalgic for the wide open spaces. My parents still live there and the kids and I usually spend a month every year on Grandma and Grandpa's farm.

I am interested in food storage and learning to do the best I can with what I have.

With your background you missed out somehow?

Do you mean my religious background?

Yep, Utah and your signature line quote.

 

[tamlynn]

Well, I haven't been translated yet.

Yes, in a way I do feel I missed out because my parents weren't really into the gardening and food preserving stuff that I find fun and interesting now. My mom can build a goat pen or chicken coop from scratch with a design she came up with in her head and materials she found at the town dump, but the last time she visited me I had to teach her how to turn on my gas range. I am not making this up. And she didn't even really want to learn- my then 8 year old did most of the cooking when my mom babysat them.

My dad was the cook of the family, still is, and the only vegetables he eats are corn, tomatoes and potatoes. He grew a garden a few times when I was a kid, but it was not a regular thing.

One of my grandmas did home canning and dried fruit, but we kids always hated the food because she didn't believe in using sugar. My dh (from central IL) actually taught me how to can after we were married.

As for making do with what I have, that relates not only to the size of my yard, but to consumerism in general. I grew up quite poor, and my dh and I are comfortable. Living in LA, it is easy to be caught up in the consumerist mind set. The teenagers around here appall me. I want to raise my kids differently, and a big part of that is my example of how I spend my money.

 

[dacjohns]

I am impressed with what you have done and what you are doing with your yard. Do you also do container gardening?

Did your grandma think white sugar was evil? We try to use a minimal amount of sugar in canning but you still need some.

What part of Utah did you live in?

 

[tamlynn]

Thanks! Its a great challenge to see how much we can squeeze into our yard and still have room for the kids to play. I don't do much container gardening, I do have a pretty plant screen for herbs, but I'm not good at remembering to water it. When we lived in Phoenix, we had beautiful raised beds, but again, automatic watering is the key to my gardening success.

I think kids just prefer sweeter things. Now I use very thin syrup for peaches and pears, and no sugar in apples. I also like lower sugar jams. My grandma wouldn't even sweeten her oatmeal. She just didn't like very sweet things.

I was raised in Goshen, UT. I will be very impressed if you have heard of it. It is at the southern tip of Utah Lake.

 

[dacjohns]

I might have been through Goshen. If I did it didn't make much of an impression.

 

[tamlynn]

No, you wouldn't stop there unless you knew someone. There is only one business - a gas station that is usually open. Many people pass through there on their way to Nutty Putty caves.

So did you live in UT? Where?