Homemade, Last Minute, Cute, Kinda Green Christmas Cards!

Okay so this morning I started shopping around for Christmas cards online. I’ve done this many times in the past few months and always got discouraged because the recycled cards are sooo expensive. I was going to give up on that idea and instead created a cute card with some caricatures of my family on the front. I was almost at the point of entering my credit card number to the tune of $50 for 50 cards. That was $30 for the cards, $4 for some matching gift tags I’d fallen for, and the rest was all shipping and handling (just to get them here in 7-10 days – kinda close!). Anyway, one of the last options before checking out was to download the caricatures for unlimited use on your computer. The cost was $1.99 per caricature or $6.99 for the whole group of six. I was a little concerned that the company wouldn’t allow you to purchase just the images without an additional order but after deleting the printed cards and gift tags, only the download charge remained!! No tax and no shipping, just $6.99 total billed to my card. When I got home tonight I used MS Works

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Sunday Stroll

It feels good to be out strolling again today. It was still very cold as we’ve been getting storms all week but at least the winds died down and the sun came out. I couldn’t resist getting some more pictures of the horses while I was breaking their ice. The rest are mostly views from our front porch before the wind stopped. Check out who else is strolling today over at Quiet Country House.

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Lemons

Wow – what a great blogging community this is! I can’t express how wonderful everyone has been by leaving wonderful comments here. So, you can imagine how touched I was to receive The Lemonade Award – twice! From my understanding, this award is meant for people who are positive, show gratitude, and of course: make lemons out of lemonade! The rules for this award are that you post the graphic for it, write a post that links back to the giver, and then pass it on to up to ten others. Leave a comment on the blogs that get the award, so they know what’s happened. First, I would like to thank Joyce at tallgrassworship (haha does this sound like a Grammy speech?) for passing along the award and for spreading the word about the fire with the other APLS. Thanks to Ruth at Everydaywoman as well for also passing this award my way. I don’t think I ever commented back to you but you should know (& Abbie too!) that by sharing the story of your family’s barn burning you really helped me to see past this. We are so lucky that our animals are okay – I’m sure

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Just Checking In

No real great content here, just checking in. I’ve had a very enjoyable weekend with 4 days off in a row. The only downside was that Brian was gone hunting in the U.P. but I did get in lots of quality time with the dogs. Today the 3 of them plus me and the cat all crashed out on the couch for a long nap. All I had to do was make the 20 ft. walk out the back door and gather the chicken eggs. The sheep and chickens are pretty easy to take care of this time of year, just have to refill the feeders and waterers every couple days. I’ve started looking in to our options for rebuilding the barn, including hoophouse type structures. I’ll be sharing what we learn about their pros and cons here, plus I just finished You Can Farm by Joel Salatin and started Keeping a Family Cow, so there should be some book reviews coming soon. I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday weekend! 🙂

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Video of the Damage

Thank you to everyone who left kind thoughts for us on the last post. We do have insurance. We spoke with the adjusters today and one of them will be stopping by this evening to take some pictures. The insurance company will be sending a fire investigator out to confirm our suspicions that the cattle started the fire by chewing through the cord on their stock tank heater. Brian ran the cord through a thick metal pipe to prevent this problem but the cattle must have pulled on it enough and reached the end. It is heartbreaking to think that this could have been prevented, and we will be looking in to different methods of providing water in these freezing temperatures.Our cattle are safely at a friends’ with his cattle. We’ll make long-term arrangements for them once we see how long it is going to take to rebuild. The building that burned was not ideal for our plans and so we may be redesigning it before we replace it. I feel that the threat of fire is just one more reason that raising animals on pasture is a far superior method. Here’s some video I took yesterday after the firefighters

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Disaster at the Farm

Don’t know where to start – there was a fire at the farm here today. Half of our big shed is ruined along with the big lean-to we added on last fall. Thank god for our dogs, we were trying to sleep in this morning and they saw the fire out the window and barked until we woke up. It was too late to stop the fire but we saved all the cattle, the tractors, and the hay. Losses include all of the corn and oats we had kept to feed and heat our house, plus our planter and multiple gravity wagons/corn wagons. Our friends and neighbors have already rallied around us and helped in every way possible. We are so grateful. I took some video of the damage today so I’ll be posting that if I can get it to load properly. I figured this will be a part of the farm’s history and we might as well record it to show our kids someday. It just feels like I’ve been punched in the stomach. I’ll be posting updates in the coming days.

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Homemade Laundry Soap: Liquid

My Mom & I have been using this recipe for years now so I thought I would share it. It came from our local paper, author unknown. Liquid Laundry Soap Recipe: 3 pints water 1/3 bar Fels Naptha soap, grated 1/2 cup Super Washing Soda 1/2 cup borax 1 quart hot water 2 gallon bucket Note: You may be able to get your local grocer to order the Fels Naptha for you, or you can find it online. The grocery store should have washing soda and borax, looks near the stain removers and other laundry aids. Step #1: Mix grated soap in a large saucepan with 3 pints hot water. Heat on the stove over low heat until dissolved. Do not allow to boil. Step #2: Stir in Super Washing Soda and 20 Mule Team Borax. Stir until thickened. Remove from heat. Step #3: Add 1 quart hot water to 2 gallon bucket. Add soap mixture and mix well. Fill bucket with more hot water, leaving a few inches at the top, and mix well. Set aside for 24 hours or until mixture thickens. Use 1/2 cup of mixture per load. I like this mixture a lot and find it

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Sunday Stroll

Here’s found I saw today as I walked around the yard. The garden freshly mulched for winter: Lots of hay ready to be fed: The last of the new landscaping, until spring: Chickens happily eating apple scraps: And then later, it snowed!!: Check out who else is stolling today over at Quiet Country House. Today I’m thankful for the space we have here to call our own. It is so nice to relax at home on a weekend and take a break from the rest of the world. I love having the yard to decorate the way I like and the house that feels more like home every day.

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How to Store Carrots, and Save them for Seed

Today it was supposed to starting raining/snowing at around noon. I was determined to get some work done outside before the bad weather hit so I headed outside about 10AM. First I finished landscaping a spot near our back door. Now I have lawn edging and stone around two sides of the house. I’ll do the other two sides in the spring. I’m still amazed at the difference – it looks so much nicer. I’ll have to post before and after pics sometime. I really wanted to get the garden mulched today but that didn’t happen. Both of our wheelbarrows are full, one has a flat tire, and I really didn’t feel like opening up the big shed doors to lug out a bunch of hay for mulch. So instead, I dug up all of our carrots. The book Root Cellaring by Mike and Nancy Bubel is a great one to study in regards to food storage. Since the book said carrots can be left in the ground all winter in milder climates, I figured mine were safe out there for awhile. However, with lots of freezing temps in the forecast I needed to get them out before the ground

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Bob Waldrop and Someday: A Tri-Cities Food Coop!?

So I attended a very interesting presentation Tuesday night titled, “Re-inventing the Family Farm”. I found the flyer at the Greenstone Farm Credit office of all places, which made me a little leery to attend. However, the presentation was by Robert Waldrop, President and General Manager of the Oklahoma Food Coop. The coop is incredibly successful, more so than I would have ever expected. Mr. Waldrop was hosted by Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU), almost an hour away from where I live. I had no idea there was so much great work in progress at SVSU. They are working on everything from vermiculture and hydroponics to alternative energy development. For more information on the projects going on there check out the Green Cardinal (the cardinal is the school mascot) and the last few posts on Bob Waldrop’s blog. While you’re on Bob’s blog scroll down to the post about 20 Things to Do Now that the Election is Over. I found it very interesting and motivating. So, back to the presentation. Really it was mostly practical advice and tips on how to start and operate a large food coop. I have considered in the past the idea of trying to

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