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All I wanted to do was whip up a batch of homemade chocolate pudding. After my night last night and a busy day at work some warm pudding sounded great. It started so simply… I pulled out the cabinet where I keep my 50# bag of Pioneer (local) sugar.  As I opened the bag a mouse leapt up at me!! Me:  AHHHHHHHHH!!!  Maci get the mouse, get the mouse, GET THE MOUSE!!!  Ahhhh!! Maci:  (cocks her head, bounces around excitedly, but has no idea what I’m yelling about) Me:  Where’s the cat, where’s the cat, AHHHH, where’s the cat!!???!! I run around the house until I find the cat, grab him, and promptly shove his head in the sugar bag. Baxter:  What the #$%^!?!? Maci & Bear:  Ohh, is there something in there!?  What issss it?  Can we help? Baxter:  Oh yes, I see it, AHH HA! (Bats around inside sugar bag, acting crazy) After a few seconds he lost interest.  We promptly repeated the whole routine again with him, again, losing interest. I finally lifted the whole bag out.  By then the mouse was out of the bag but in the bottom of the cabinet.  I quickly lifted out

(Heads up… this is likely to be a long one. I thought of trying to write it as a real story but I’m afraid it may come out like a poor childrens’ story if I try to elaborate so I’m just going to tell it like it is…oh and please forgive any typos or let out words, I’m not taking time to proofread) Last night I was in the middle of feeding the sheep and cattle when Brian’s Mom called. After talking about various things she mentioned that a winter storm was coming in. I learned long ago that the weathermen are about as good at predicting Michigan weather as I am at, well, putting on makeup and doing my hair. In other words, they suck and it never turns out like the want! Supposedly it was supposed to storm from midnight to 5 or 6 AM then stop and start raining sometime later in the day. I scanned around the pasture. My only real concern would be the chickens. They were still set up in their eggmobile with the electric poultry net set up around it. I would have to move them because their fence wouldn’t work when it

Yes, there comes a time when every raw milk connoisseur must try yogurt. I looked through several recipes before stumbling upon my favorite one: Yogurt in your Crock Pot over at Sarah’s Musings. It is amazing, and amazingly easy. Plus, I had the perfect add-in: crushed strawberries from the freezer that I picked this summer with my Mom and sister. I added a cup or so of them to the whole pot and stirred well. I’ve been trying to pay more attention to my serving sizes lately. 1/2 cup of yogurt with some local honey mixed in and a little granola sprinkled on top makes a great meal for breakfast or a late dinner. I’m having it with brown sugar and granola tonight. Lovin’ it! 🙂 Are you a yogurt fan or one who can’t stomach it? What’s your favorite add in?

I’m thinking about this some because my DH has gone away hunting and left me to hold down the fort. When we first got together it took awhile for him to realize how badly I wanted to be outside working with him on projects instead of keeping house.  I wasn’t really feeling my domestic duties.  Years later, I’ve found myself taking care of the house more and more.  In exchange, I like it that hubby does most of the outside chores.  Especially now that is is getting colder outside.  It sounds like I’m taking the sweet end of the deal but he wouldn’t want to trade – that’s for sure. Don’t get me wrong, I love the fresh air.  I love working in my garden and Brian won’t touch a hoe or a seed packet.  I can watch the chickens.  For hours.  In spite of that, when I come home from work at the end of the day I’d much rather put dinner on and curl up with a book than don Carhart’s and trudge out to chip ice off of buckets.  I usually help whenever he needs anything but that’s not everyday.  I think I’ve gotten a little spoiled

Still here… kind of taking it easy since having a four day weekend for the holiday. Mentally, though, my gears are turning with thoughts of the new year. I’m caught up in a nice fiction book but am also reading Guerrilla Marketing. So far, so good. Oh, and I’m working on a few more knitting projects to give as Christmas gifts. Also happening on the home front: I finally picked one Buff Chantecler rooster to keep and took the rest to the processor tonight.  I hope I picked a good one! I have a meeting tomorrow with a local guy who may help me launch the farm website. Brian and our neighbor harvested our 38 acres of corn.  We’re both watching prices and planning for next year’s input expenses. Brian is working outside late every night trying to get the animals in the new barn before he leaves for over a week to go hunting. I’m on a roll with housekeeping and it looks good around here… hope it lasts! Time for bed! 🙂

And you thought I’d forget to post about this… 😉 Gathering Supplies: When I wanted to make mozzarella I knew the place to go was cheesemaking.com. I had heard of Ricki Carroll the “Cheese Queen” more than once. She is the go to person for beginning cheesemaking. I am not going to describe the cheesemaking process step by step here. Instead I’ll offer up what I learned and refer you to her site for the rest. I was going to buy her 30 Minute Mozzarella and Ricotta kit. After breaking down the price and reviewing the mozzarella recipe I decided to order my ingredients separately. It was more cost effective for me because a)I already had a thermometer and b)I didn’t need muslin that came with the kit as I didn’t plan to make ricotta (and would probably make due with something else anyway). I placed my order on a Wednesday for two items: Vegetable Rennet tablets (item R4) Citric Acid (item C13N) I was seriously impressed when I opened my mailbox on Friday (only 2 days later) and found my order in there. I paid for it with my debit card and they didn’t actually debit my account until

I like this post so much that I think you should all go read it right now.  It’s safe to click, I promise. It describes what I have trouble saying… yes I care about the environment and yes I want to keep myself healthy but I really could take that way too far if I tried.  I was laughing out loud the whole time I was reading it!  Enjoy! 🙂

At the risk of sounding cliche, I’m beginning to think in terms of goal-setting as we approach the new year. I want more focus in my life. Perhaps this is just how life goes but lately I feel like I’m running in 10 different directions! Dave Ramsey says (yes, Dave says Dave says Dave says, I know, just bear with me) a big part of why the TMMO principles work is because they call for focused intensity. You zoom in on one debt at a time and nail it to the wall. Why not apply that kind of focused intensity to other areas of life? The first step to accomplishing this is to identify what activities are draining your energy and causing you to lose focus. I’m going to start today by identifying some of those little things that take up a lot of my time. Internet: If I’m home, I have the laptop open. This isn’t all bad. However, I have several irons in the fire with this blog, the Living Like No One Else forums, Ravelry, MySpace, and now Facebook. Not to mention e-banking through two different banks, constantly checking my e-mail, watching crop prices, googling new recipes,

I served this tonight at my sister’s birthday party. Everyone was raving about it! I was a little apprehensive when my sister requested a carrot cake but it was very easy to make. I’m not going to repost the recipe here since I didn’t make many alterations to it. The recipe can be found in its entirety as Carrot Cake III on allrecipes.com. There it has over 2100 reviews and still gets 5 stars! Here are my alterations: -I followed the cake portion exactly except to add in a couple dashes of nutmeg and omit the nuts. -For the frosting I dropped the confectioners’ sugar to 3 cups and added splashes of milk until I got a nice shiny, smooth consistency. The original recipe would have been way too stiff! I also omitted the nuts. -I baked mine in (2) nine inch round cake pans. After cooling they were flat enough to stack without any trimming. One batch of frosting was plenty to go between the layers and frost the outside. I even had enough to dye some orange and add “Happy 17th Tresa” on top and a border around the bottom. And eat a little, of course. I would

This is my post for Works for Me Wednesday. Check out other great tips today over at We Are THAT Family. ***Imagine a big picture of my pumpkin here. You know – that picture that I haven’t got around to taking. ;)*** I love gleaning things. According to Wikipedia: “Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers’ fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest.” In a more general sense I consider gleaning the process of taking unused foodstuffs from people who don’t want it or don’t have a need for it. This time of year is great for gleaning pumpkins. Our neighbors sell pumpkins but I never got around to buying any this year. Without kids around no one really seems to care or notice if I decorate so I didn’t bother. I was really craving pumpkin seeds though! My cousin gave me 4 pumpkins that she had sitting by her back door. She didn’t have time to carve them with a new baby around. Unfortunately I left my tailgate down and lost 2 of them. Good thing they were free! Then I brought home a big