A frugal lady.

I haven't been posting much anywhere for awhile because I'm just tired. I need to spend time with Callum, and find routine and get used to my life.

I've been doing great, I think. I still get lonely but that's kind of what I'm asking for from life right now. My few good friends around here haven't been coming over as much on the weekends. Mostly I just see Seth's parents and his uncle Ronnie and some other people occasionally.

Next week I'm hosting a Natural Birth meetup group. I really liked the one I went to in March but that group is about an hour away so I offered to host a meeting for local members in Hammond. That should be great.

I've also signed up for a first aid class in September, and I will probably also get certified in CPR later. In August the local state park is having a few events including a wild edible plant tour, survival skills training, woodworking and basket weaving workshops. I'm planning on going to all of those. At the wild edibles tour I'm meeting up with some other people who are interested in permaculture and survivalism and such.

So I'm really working on being social, I just haven't quite made it yet.

I'm also working on being antisocial, inadvertently, by letting myself become increasingly paranoid and skeptical of my culture. I don't believe in consumerism or big governments or any of the things 'out there' that are contributing to this economic (and human rights)disaster. Seth and I buy food and gas so he can get to work, and in most cases that's all we buy during the month. We pay an electric bill and we pay our mortgage and car insurance.
The one 'splurge' is social more than anything, and that's when we go to this nice authentic Mexican restaurant down the road for dinner and we can both eat for $10 there.
It's not difficult to NOT spend money, except for the fact that everyone's doing it. That's what people do. The more I pull myself away from that kind of thing, the more disturbing I find it. Right now we're poor but we're financially disciplined. Even if we weren't poor, then, I'd want to live the same way because it feels right.

I'm not trying to be a snob, and I'm not really trying to set myself apart from everyone else but as I get more and more comfortable with my frugal way of doing things, I get more and more uncomfortable with the things going on around me.
It's knowing that we can make it on such a small income that kind of liberates us from living to spend, and spending to live, and being part of this big race we don't want to be a part of.

People around us aren't doing that. Even now. It's not a judgment of them, but simply an acknowledgment that it's part of the reason I'm having trouble socializing.

Quite simply, I feel different. Perhaps I relish the "hard life" to some extent. Not saying my life is hard by any means, but it could be easier if I gave in to the system. It could be more luxurious, let me say that.

Either way, I know that I need to take breaks from the internet. The whole thing overwhelms me. Somehow the ability to get in touch with almost anyone at any time makes me fail miserably at doing so.

I'll leave with a few pictures of the beautiful chickens. These little hens and my family and friends really are the light of my world.

The fantastic four

Muriel, one of our Americauna chicks.

H1N1 (Swine flu)

Just for fun. In addition to this, I have a pet project where I am keeping an eye on the vaccine technologies that are resulting from this H1N1 scare.
Curious? Learn more: The H1N1 (Swine Flu) Vaccine and You

As usual.

Slow and steady as usual. I've been putting a lot of energy into helping Seth with a job, getting things around the house to go more smoothly, daily chores, and recently I've been browsing the forums at survivalistboards.com. There are a lot of bright individuals over there with quite a bit of good dialogue. I'm also reading some fiction and listening to audio lectures online. (FYI: I'm "ss834" in the forums)
A lot of intake, not a lot of output.

Okay, I have a big galvanized wash tub to use for outdoor washing... dishes, laundry, whatever. The chickens are doing well. I want to get serious about creating a big run for them and when they are old enough I may recruit Ronnie's rooster to breed and start some new chicks next spring. Ronnie has also been talking about mating the pygmy goats. Seth says he heard that pygmy milk is no good, but I read the opposite, so I think it's worth trying.
We'll get a goat yard set up and maybe take a nanny and her kids. That'll do it for animals for awhile-- goats and chickens were our primary interests. Oh, and the rabbits! We have rabbits and Ronnie has quail.




Other than that I've got to get the vegetable bed going. I am thinking about starting with intensive potted veggies and a deep raised bed. I know I need to start small for now, since it is only me, and if some people can do it on 1/10 an acre then I should have no problem growing right off the porch.

The rest of the figs will go in the ground this weekend and that'll be it for my trees that have needed planting.

The other plants have suffered from the heat wave of the past 3 weeks. Though the chives, the trees, the mint and the wildflowers are still doing well.

I'm going to start some tomato seed this weekend as well and whatever else I already have. My compost is getting pretty nasty and awful. I think I'm either failing miserable or succeeding. Its got grubs of all sorts in there and tons of fire ants because they are everywhere and they get into everything. They eat about half of what I put out there.

... sigh...

Kitchen and electricity.

Seth keeps telling me that before we do anything, we need to address the basics-- get the "infrastructure" set up and *then* I can worry about the garden. Sounds good, but geez, where to start?
Recently we had a great upset over the sink. We have a shallow, stainless steel standard indoor kitchen sink and I detest it. Dishes pile up over the course of the day, or when we have dinner guests, and it just makes the entire kitchen, and thus the entire house, look awful. Also, since the sink is so shallow, water sprays or spills out of the sink on to the counter when we're washing dishes and the cheap particle board has started to swell and buckle underneath. Its just nasty looking.

The other day the sink drains were clogged from food getting caught down in there. Yes, and easy solution to this would be to get a strainer so the food doesn't go down the drain, but at the time I packed up the dirty dishes and went outside to wash them and it was so much more pleasant.

I had the sun on my face, and the water goes into the ground and waters some of my trees (we use ivory soap, not detergent, so it isn't as nasty for the ground). It reminded me of backcountry camping and it felt good.

We've been talking about having an outdoor kitchen. What we'd start with would be a big, deep basin sink and dish drying rack. We may switch from the ivory soap to something else, and the water could be directed directly to water the plants.
It's kind of silly that we had to put down a treatment plant out here because ultimately I don't know if we will even be using it in the long-run. I'd like to recycle our gray water and have a compost toilet and everything... but... oh well. It was a parish requirement or we couldn't do anything at the time. It does still drain out on the property.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I just got our electricity bill for this month. Last month we were using an average of 31 kWh/day and this month it was closer to 35 kWh/day. ACK!
That may be close to average, or maybe even a little less considering we've just gone through an extensive heat wave with temps in the 100's for the past 3-4 weeks... but still I think that's pretty high. Especially for "homesteaders."

Since we're talking about moving the kitchen, I am looking into the possibility of kerosene cook stoves. There's a great discussion on kerosene cook stoves at endtimesreport.com-- and frankly a decent discussion on a lot of other survival/self-sufficiency related items.
I'm trying to determine now whether that really would be a more efficient option. Better in emergencies or disasters indeed, but is it really more cost-effective?

I will be looking into some of this stuff and plan to come back with some more information to share on my research.