Musings by Melissa

Someone challenged me awhile back to try to do one thing every week that would help my family survive if things ever get really bad.  In other words, learning how to be more self-sufficient.

So, in the past six months or so, I’ve been steadily working at building up our food supply.  When I see food on sale, I’ll stock up.  I haven’t been using our freezer though because if the power goes off for any length of time, I’d loose all that I’d put in there.  So, I’ve been a canning maniac!  ~smile~

So far this year I’ve canned maple syrup, chicken, ground beef, and strawberry jam.  This past week I added carrots to the mix.  They were easy to can.  The local store had the one-pound bag of baby carrots on sale for 50 cents.  Not knowing how many bags would fill a quart jar, I bought 14 bags.  Well, one bag is one quart!  So, I now have 14 quarts of carrots lining my pantry shelf!  They look so pretty.

That’s one thing about increasing the amount of food onhand– you have to have a place to store it.  But if you can use your imagination a bit, I’m sure you can come up with a place to store at least some food.  Even if someone lives in a smaller manufactured home or apartment, they can find a closet or space under a bed.  (Granted, they may need to get rid of a few things first.  It does come down to priorities.  I’ve heard of people who stack cans of food under an end table and cover the whole thing with a floor-length table cloth. 

And you don’t have to can everything you store.  When things go on a good sale, if it’s something you eat, go for it.  We enjoy a particular brand and flavor of spaghetti sauce.  When it went on sale for 75 cents a can, I bought enough to last us a couple years.  Granted, I spent a lot on spaghetti sauce that month, but it’s something I know we all like, and I know we’ll use it.

What about you?  If you or your spouse lost your job and had no income for awhile, would you think, “Oh, if only I had done _________ before now!”  You fill in that blank, and then go do it!  You might never need it, but then again, you might be glad you did!

Well, we did it.  We butchered our first chicken.  It wasn’t the prettiest job in the world, but Earl is now simmering nicely in the crock pot.  And I’m pleased to report that all the other chickens in the hen house are now getting along nicely.  Yahoo! 

We should be getting an email any day now to let us know that our four new baby chicks are ready to be picked up.  Ahhh… to have babies in the house again! 

Well, it’s official.  Alicia and I are all signed up for a sewing class!  Our first class was this past Saturday, and both of us left the class very excited about what we were learning!  The classes will focus on teaching us to sew our own clothes.  I’m not too thrilled about sewing my own, but I am excited for Alicia.  After this last growth spurt that she’s gone through, I don’t think stores carry any modest clothing for young ladies!  So, it will be good for us to be able to make clothes for her.

I think our first project might be a pair of shorts.  We’ll keep them very simple for now.  No zippers.  No pockets.  An elastic waist.  As we learn more, we can add those things, but to start, let’s keep it simple.  Perhaps someday she’ll want to embelish some of her clothes with chamilia beads or something similar.  But for now, let’s just stick to the very basics until we master those!

Those of you who know me know that I enjoy listening to sermons/books online.  The problem is that the speaker on my laptop isn’t strong enough to listen while I do anything else.  What I’ve wanted to be able to do is listen while I’m doing dishes, making dinner, folding laundry, or cleaning the bathrooms.

Well, my husband made a recent trip to Best Buy, and he got me an audio cord.  I can plug that cord into my laptop and into my CD player/radio, and walaa!  What I want to listen to is piped through the speakers!

What a blessing it is to be able to listen to stuff through real speakers!

Thanks, dear!

Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the snow is so delightful…

But the temperature right now is a big round zero!  Brrrr…  So, since outdoor chores aren’t going to be top on the list, I think it’s about time to start spring cleaning.  The method to my madness is to focus on one room at a time.

This week the focus will be on the bathrooms.  After scouring the toilets and sinks and putting the rugs in the washing machine, I will tackle the biggest project– the medicine cabinet and linen closets.  (I guess that’s what you’d call it.)  Every shelf will be emptied (one at a time), the shelf will be wiped down, and all the stuff sorted– keep it, or pitch it?  Once that decision has been made, the stuff I’m going to keep will get put back on the self… neatly! 

After the shelves are all nice=looking, I’ll deal with the walls and the floor.  I won’t worry about the window.  That’s a project that will wait until warmer weather!

Once it’s all done, I’ll relax with a spot o’ hot tea and enjoy a job well done!

Happy spring cleaning everyone!

This past spring we decided it was time to raise some chickens. So, we went to the local feed store to pick out some cute little chicks. We got two batches of chicks because I wanted to raise a guinea hen, and they weren’t ready until later in the spring.

Well, all summer long we called this guinea hen Pearl. We wondered what her eggs would look like… if they’d be different from those of our other chickens. We never noticed any different-looking eggs. But what do we know?!?

Pearl is a loud chicken. Her squalking can be heard all over the yard, but we never “caught her” in a nest box.

Well, about a month or so ago, I was doing some research on guineas, and I learned that the only way to tell a male from a female is by the sounds they make. I found an audio of a female guinea, and it sounded nothing at all like our Pearl.

So, our Pearl is no longer Pearl, but Earl. It’s hard to get used to using “him” when talking about him. But I’m glad we figured out why Earl doesn’t lay eggs. Look at all the money we saved on Hormone replacement therapy, by realizing that he’s not a she!  LOL!

I shop for groceries at our local Save a Lot.  They are much cheaper than any of the other grocery stores around.  There’s an Aldi that would be competitive, but it’s a 20 minute drive away.  I can be at Save a Lot in less than five minutes.

As I pulled into the lot today, something struck me.  I was parking my minivan right next to a hummer!  I’ve never seen a hummer parked at Save a Lot before!  I guess the rising cost of everything is even beginning to affect people who drive such vehicles.  I didn’t see who was driving it.  It was gone by the time I got done getting my groceries.  But I wondered about the person who drives it:

Are they recently unemployed?  Are the wishing they had never bought that vehicle?  Are they making monster payments on it?  Do they shop with coupons?  Do they have little kids?  Are they able to make ends meet?  How far did they have to drive to get to “my” Save a Lot?  Was their extra expenditure in gas worth the savings in food?

I wish them well.  And while I wouldn’t want their payments or their gas bill, I wouldn’t mind taking that vehicle off-road sometime.  Although, from it looks of it, the most off roading it’s ever done is to hit a potpole!

November is upon us.  Oh, how time flies.  In preparation for the beginning of 2011, I was recently going through my annual list of things to do, when I ran across a few “easy” things that I could still accomplish.  No, riding my bike 500 miles isn’t going to happen.  I wasn’t even close.  But I’m within striking distance of a couple of them.  I’m 40 caches away of reaching my goal of 2600 (lifetime) caches.  I’m not out of the running for reading through my Bible in 2010.  And putting those faux wood blinds on the only window in our bedroom that doesn’t have them is do-able as well. 

How about you?  Have you accomplished many things off your to-do list for 2010?  Are you quietly mapping out your list of things to accomplish in 2011?

I have a jar of plantain sitting on my back porch.  I picked and chopped the leaves a couple months ago and packed them into a quart jar.  Then I covered them with oil.  I think they’re about ready to be drained so that I can use the oil like I would use plantain during the summer.   (For those of you who don’t know, plantain is very good on bee bites and the like.)

Not all home remedies work, but some of them do.  All one has to do is pick up a book on herbal remedies from the library, and one will find water retemtion remedies, poison ivy remedies, sunburn remedies, etc.  It’s nice to have a basic understanding of different herbs and what they can be used for.  I thought I knew a little bit about such things until this past summer when I took a 2-hour course on herbal plants that are native to West Michigan.  I quickly found out that I didn’t have a clue. 

So, learning more about herbal remedies is something that will likely go on my to-do list for 2011.  While I have discovered some of the benefits of plantain, I know there are many other plants about which I am still clueless.

As many people know, I am very involved in our church’s Wednesday night program.  One of the things we often do on Wednesday nights is a craft.  I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a crafty person.  And so, when people ask me about crafts, I usually refer them to one of my good friends who is very crafty.

But a number of years ago, I got together with a group of friends from our former church to make thanksgiving centerpieces.  Knowing my lack of crafting ability, I was a bit apprehensive, but when all was said and done, my pilgrim and Indian girl turned out very nice. 

It’s been almost twenty years since I made them, and every Thanksgiving I pull them out, dust them off, and remember the good time I had making them with my friends.

Thanks, Ang, for teaching me that I do have a smidge of a crafty bone in my body!