Stocking up ........

So there we are at our local Aldi , hubby spies a good deal on a few things that were reduced because they were changing stuff around. We got a few weird looks, a couple raised eyebrows, and the poor cashier looked a little scared. But hey, we got enough diced tomatoes, chilli and spaghetti sauce for like 2 years.  At less than half price. It`ll be good to have the tomatoes to supplement what we already are planning to put up.  The hubby said at that price it was almost as cheap as the ones we grow and put up ourselves.  The chili will be great for quick meals on nights I have to work or lunches on the weekends.  The spaghetti sauce, hey as my four year old will contest "mom we eat way to much spaghetti around here". 

Lesson is, if you find a good deal, go nuts...you never know when you`ll need 4 cases of chilli. Hubby really, really likes that stuff. Shoulda seen how excited he was.

Another good idea is to shop sales, and use coupons.  You can get name brand stuff cheaper than bulk prices (like at sams club ) plus save gas from a trip to sams or costco.  For example, we buy all our paper products at a grocery store just a few miles from home. We save our coupons up and wait for them to go on sale, which they do every couple of months.  Then you got it, we go nuts again and restock the closet. We end up with plenty to last us until the next sale.

We learned a trick a long time ago about how to eat dinners cheaper too. We go and get a giant thing of hamburger meat, and make 3 or 4 meals off of it. When you buy a 5 lb. package, use a pound each for spaghetti :) , chilli, vegetable soup, ect. It also freezes well for later. Then if you make a big pot of chilli, you can eat at least 3 times off it , just make chilli and baked potatoes one night, then have taco salad the day after. Still got chilli left? Hot dogs......   By this time though your probably tired of chilli experiments. It lasts 5 days in the fridge so you can have chilli related meals every other day,or you can always freeze, and eat later. We have put up lots of little bags of soups and such , works great when you have no time to cook.

Best and cheapest food we make though is beans....yup beans. We take and cook a ham every so often, and freeze little bags of ham. Take a little bag of ham(or the bone) , and add some dry beans (we use great northern most) . Throw into a crock pot add some water and salt, and voila` tommorows dinner is ready. Add some cornbread and greens for a complete meal. You`d be surprised but our kids love this more than any other thing we fix . Its wonderfull in the wintertime, and freezes easily.

facebook connections

I made a page on facebook for the blog. Thought it would be fun to have a place to talk about 'the mission ' and get a chance to learn from others, and maybe help someone too. Here`s the link. Just please bear with me as I get everything a little more filled out.  Feel free to comment away, I enjoy it .

https://www.facebook.com/SustainabilityMission

Deoderant

We had so much fun making the detergent that we decided to look into other things to make.

So hubby decides we should try deoderant. He`s been reading up on chemicals in food, and in personal products, and the stuff he was telling me made me raise an eyebrow and kinda freak out the more I listened. Apparentley theres a website where you can plug in the name of whatever brand you use of lotion, shampoo, ect. and it tells you whats in it and what the side effects are.....
So of course I get on it , and try it out. Wow . Ok so now Im on a side mission to find a way to make lotions, hair care stuff, ect.

We made this deoderant and tried it out for 2 weeks. We went to work, worked in the yard, and never had a problem. Even the hubby smelled fresh at the end of the day , hehe.

Heres the recipe :

1/4 cup baking soda
1/4 cup cornstarch
6 or so tblsp coconut oil

mix soda and cornstarch and about 5 tblsp coconut  oil, adding more oil until thick .make sure its all well blended, then add a couple drops of essential oils if you want them maybe 2 or 3 drops each of whatever you choose to use. We used tea tree oil and peppermint oil.
Put in an 8 oz jar or container ( i used a pint canning jar ), and apply with fingers.

This stuff is so safe you could probably eat it......however I wouldnt suggest it. Yes I did , I tasted it, it smelled like candy, and looked ......ok so it tastes like cornstarch......bleck..

Works wonderfull though.

I got the coconut oil from walmart, and ordered the oils from amazon. I found out that if you get virgin coconut oil, it will smell like coconut, the kind at walmart dosent have a scent. We may just have coconut deoderant for next time. Yet we`ve hardly made a dent in this batch. This homemade stuff looks like it will last and last and last....... hubby says its a good thing :)

Laundry detergent experiment

So we decided to try our hand at making something homemade.......

This stuff is awesome, makes clothes smell light and fresh ( not like an air freshener ), and it works just as good if not better than name brand stuff. All the ingredients were found at walmart.

Heres the recipe we used.....
*you can use any soap that isnt moisturizing like ivory, castille or such

 Powdered detergent :

1 bar of ivory soap grated
2 cups borax
2 cups washing soda

mix all in a small bucket ( I reused an ice cream bucket )
  use about 1/4 cup per load for top loading washers, and about 1 heaping spoonfull for front loading washers


Liquid detergent :

( a few more minutes to make, but it stretches it farther )

1 cup grated ivory soap
2 cups borax 2 cups washing soda
2 cups borax

melt grated soap in just enough water to cover it on low heat, stirring every so often. Pour into a large bucket ( 5 gal ) add borax and washing soda. Stir in 3 to 4 gallons water. Let sit for a day to gel. Stir well, then pour into old laundry detergent jugs, or use straight from the bucket. Stir or shake if using jugs before each use. Use about a 1/2 cup or so for each load.

* this wont be as thick as regular detergent, but I havent had any problems at all, and it`ll last forever. Since you dont have to use as much, it will be a while before you need to make more.

Planting time is here !

Spring time, time to start planting anything and everything.

We just got done putting in a few fruit trees. We put them in the back corner of the yard near the neighbors cow fence. Two of each apple, pear, peach, and plum trees. It didnt take as long as we thought it would to plant them, and it should only be a few years until we are able to harvest. It will be wonderfull to have our own and not have to buy them. As long as I can keep the kids in control that is. The little one has a serious apple addiction. :)

The hubby spent the past few evenings while I was at work planting onions and tomatoes. Im thinking 30 tomato plants is alot, but we`ll see. Maybe we can sell what wont fit in the freezer.....

Next up is a long list of groceries he`s got in mind to plant, Okra, potatoes, squash, ect.  I have a feeling a good bit of my free time will be spent working up all this food, but I enjoy it.

I`m excited to see how moving the chicken tractor around the garden before we plant is going to work. So far the soil is darker, and fluffier seeming than the parts we didnt let the chickens on, so we`ll see.

One thing to note though.......apparentley its a bad idea to let the chickens out to roam while your planting. The hubby said he had to chase down a few onion stealing chickens the other evening. Wish I couldve seen that one .

How to build a brooder for chickens

So the hubby goes to tractor supply the other day.......and now we have bantam chicken babies. Twenty babies to be exact, and we had nowhere to put them. These little guys are adorable, they`re like little mini chickens. They only get about half as big as normal chicken breeds at their biggest. It takes three of their eggs to equal one regular egg. We saw these first at an animal auction, and people were buying them like crazy. So the hubby thinks maybe we could raise them too. Now where to put them.....

We spend about an hour looking around the yard, the garage, and the house for something to use as a brooder. It looks like we`re going back to tractor supply( I swear those folks are getting tired of us) , when hubby has a brilliant idea. We took his old black truck toolbox from the garage, took the lid off, cleaned it up, and voila`. A perfect little chicken brooder. Add some pine shavings, tack a board to the side to hold the heat lamp, add chickens, food and water, and perfection. They now have a lot of room to scuttle back and too, and it can always be turned back into a toolbox later if the need should arise.

We also added a thermometer to make sure they stayed at the right temp. They`re supposed to be between 90 and 100 degrees at first. I only had the thermometer from the porch on hand, but it has been endlessly entertaining to watch these little guys attack it. Since they cant even make it move it should work for now.

The herd so far......

The backyard is now home to a few chickens, some rabbits , and the cats.

The chickens (rhode island reds) we get eggs from, and use in our chicken tractor. The chicken tractor is basicaly an old dog kennel we move around the garden. The chickens break up the soil , and fertilize as they go.  They also eat any insect larvae and errant weed seeds left behind. These guys do a better job of working the garden than that fancy tiller hubby bought.

The rabbits ( new zealand giants ) are going to be used for meat as well as bred to sell the babies for others looking for meat rabbits. Never have I seen such huge rabbits though. I`m used to the ones we all have seen , the cute little ones......well these new zealand ones are about the size of three of the little ones. They`re solid white with red eyes......kindqa remind me of the cadburry bunny.

The cats are strays that we accidentally adopted.....they just won`t go away. They have been known in the past to kill a snake or two, maybe a mouse every so often, but usually they can be found making prints on the cars. They also enjoy bird watching under the bird feeder, and meticulosly getting in your way when you`re carrying alot of groceries.

We have also just added baby ducks to the mix. We put them in a brooder with pine shavings, and a heat lamp. They are adorable and oh so very messy. I`m pretty sure the store should have told us they also stink to high heaven......but the girls just had to have them.

We are hoping to add pigs, and goats to our menagerie soon, and they will also play a substantial part in our mission, although never as important as the cats .

A little background if you will......

So heres the story on who we are and what we`re doing so far. The family is made up of myself, the hubby, and two little girls 12 and 4......and lets not forget the dog, gidget the boxer. We live in a very cute very old little farmhouse sitting on two acres  in the rural part of town.  We are a family that loves to stay home, work in the yard, and spend time together. My husband and I have always wanted to have a working farm, that was the basis of our income. Unfortunetley you need alot of money to make that a reality. So, we want to do what we can with what we have, live on less, so that we can maybe make a living doing what we love.

As of now.........

Hi everyone, I`m new to the blogging world, but was anxious to share our adventure. I`ve met quite a few folks interested in our mission, who want to learn how to do some if not all of the same things, so this will be another way of sharing what we know and learn. We have been learning some of this stuff our whole lives, and some things are still trial and error.
 So basically this will be a fun filled way to learn and laugh along with us as we try to bring self sustainability into our lives.  Less grocery store, more garden and livestock.......less bills, less working for other people........less scary ingredient laden chemical supplies and lotions and such, more what we make ourselves. 
     So sit back, and enjoy our adventures in the sustainability mission.