Thomas Jefferson

Our third President, Thomas Jefferson, had some good advice:

"If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as a sorry state as the souls who live under tyranny."

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."

One of my very favorite presidents is Thomas Jefferson.  He was a very interesting person and I would have loved to have met him along with Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.  I'm going to be reading Benjamin Franklin's autobiography.  I understand he like to take air baths in later years.  Sitting nude in front of an open window...Hmmm I wonder if that was on the first floor or second of his home LOL.  Gave those faint of heart ladies something to see I'm sure :)

Old family pics

I made up my yearly family calendars for Christmas and since I had the pics saved to my computer thought you might like seeing them.

This is my Aunt Dee

My Uncle Gene, Uncle Bob and my dad

My DH when he was little at Christmas.  Don't you just love that smile

This is my favorite pic of my brother and my cousin Jen.

This is my Grandma and Grandpa Snyder and some friends.  It was probably taken in the early 20's before they were married.

This is my other grandma, Grandma Wyse.

These are a litter of kittens our cat, Kiwi had.  She is pictured below.

This is my parent's dog, Lady.  They now have two Jack Russells.  Why yes they are sooooo much calmer than Lady was, why do you ask?  (little sarcasm there).

This is my Aunt Teena and one of her daughters, Jeanette.  Her other daughter is Jen (see photo above).  

This is me and my hubby at his brother's wedding.  Wow it's been close to 23 years ago now...Unfortunately the marriage didn't last for him and his first wife but me and hubby are still going strong!

Here I am at Christmas one year.  

The same Christmas. I got a phone!  and a Jack in the box.

This is our beloved cat, Molly who died this year. Really miss him.

There is Roxy when we first moved to our house. He had never seen a fireplace and it just amazed him.

l-r in back:  My mom, Aunt Jean, Uncle Bob and my dad.  Uncle Bob died this year.  He had Alzheimer's and was down to less than 100 lbs.  So sad.  He was a sweetie.  

The Wyse sisters:  Dee, Sylvia (Teena), Jean and my mom.  

This is my Uncle Gene.  He's my creative uncle.  Loves to make things and he loves owls too.

Hope you enjoyed seeing some of my family!

Interesting article

http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/are-preppers-responsible-for-the-unprepared/

Patrice Lewis has a really on the spot article follow up to Valerie Lucus-McEwen's blog post.  If you haven't read Ms. Lucus-McEwen's post there is a link in Ms. Lewis' article.

New Cabin pics

Well we had the cabin delivered the other day and here are some shots of it being placed on the gravel pad we had made...

These are the guys who placed it and leveled it.  It took a couple of hours to level.  The man in the white shirt is the owner of the truck.  He was quite a trip.  He kept humming the entire time and he had on all this silver jewelry.  The other man is his son.  He's been delivering small cabins/storage sheds for over thirty years.  He did know his business that's for sure.

They tilted the cabin so much it made me nervous about it rolling over but they had no qualms about going underneath it...brave or stupid? LOL.

Here it is just being set down on the cement blocks you see underneath.  

Here it is totally in place and ready for occupation.  Not that that's going to happen any time soon though. ;)  We love the porch.  Hubby wants to live on it LOL.  We will be moving a table and chairs up to sit on the porch while we make some improvements to the inside.  We have the bracing to take down in the inside and the side door needs a little work on it too.  It looks like we made the gravel pad too long but actually we wanted it longer so we can drive the car right up to the porch to unload groceries.  We'll have to get some steps for the side door so we can use it.  All good things take time right?

Cabin pics

Well the cabin is finished, here are some updated pics of it for you to see.

 It has four windows and two doors.  I didn't take any pics of the inside since I already took some last time and the inside really didn't change yet.  We are getting it moved to the site soon and then the real work begins!  We need flooring, electrical work, walls, ceiling....you get the picture ;)

On a sadder note, we lost another chicken, Shirley.  She was egg bound.  I went out and petted her for a while and told her it was OK for her to go.  I could tell she was in pain.  She died a little while later after I went in to make supper and we buried her with the other chickens, Lucy and Lettie and our beloved cat, Molly.  We are now down to 5 chickens and only getting 1 egg every 3-4 days.   Since the Golden Comets are made to lay large numbers of eggs in such a short period of time, they seem to age very quickly.  We'll keep the five we have until they die naturally but the next batch will only be with us for two years and then we will take them to a butcher to process.   It's not easy being a homesteader/farmer...

video on chemtrails

This is pretty scary stuff on chemtrails...

http://youtu.be/jf0khstYDLA

Some news...

Some good and some not good.

First the bad news.  We lost a chicken last Wednesday.  She hadn't been feeling good and wasn't eating or drinking much and had taken to sleeping all day in the coop.  We were concerned as she seemed to be going downhill fast.  Since she seemed to be cold, we brought her out in the sunshine for some warmth and talked and petted her.  Lucy passed just a few minutes after we had gone inside.  We buried her beside Molly underneath the butterfly bush.  She was the most tame and my hubby's favorite.  She was three years old and actually we weren't as upset as we thought we would be about her death.  She had a good life.  We'll miss her but this is farming...

RIP Lucy 

Now for some good news...cause life goes on.

We made the final payment for our little cabin.  Emanuel was putting on the roof this week and wanted to get the windows and doors in too that day.  Looks like he might be finished next week.  We'll need to go look at it and call the guy to move it.  We finished cutting up the limbs and stacked the wood last week and got the pad for the cabin all leveled out.  Next up, saving money for the well...and then the stove and then......well you get the idea ;)

Pictures of the cabin

Remember this?  Well guess what we chopped down a persimmon tree.  Didn't realize it until the following week when we went back and saw the little persimmons on the branches we had stacked...Oh well, there's still a couple more persimmons in there.  Does anyone know whether you can burn persimmon wood?  Is it considered hardwood or soft wood?

Here is our little cabin two weeks ago.  This is the porch on the front.

Here is the inside looking from the front door.

Here you are looking from where we are going to put our bed to the front door.  Kinda looks small huh?  It's only 12 x 26 with a 6 foot porch.  I think we might have to add on to it...:)

Here is the gravel we had delivered.  This is the spot where the cabin will go.  It slopes a lot in the back so hopefully the gravel will even up the grade a little.

And here is the other half of the gravel load.  We got 28 ton of gravel and will have to get another load later on.  This is the road that will lead to our chicken and sheds and later on a barn.

Love those trees!

This is a shot of the cabin last week.  He had started putting on the siding.  He'll stain it and then put on the roof.  His farm is in the background.  They use a gas powered generator to cut the wood.  No electricity since they're Amish.

Here is a shot of the front porch and on the side you can see the back door.

Here is the inside looking from the front door to the back.

Here's a shot from the back to the front.  DH is trying to figure out where we'll put the hole for the wood stove.  Is it me or does it seem to be getting smaller?  Remember we still have to put in a kitchen and bathroom in here...

I'll post more pics as the weeks go by.  We're hoping to have the cabin in place before the snow flies.

Sewers/sewists looking for fabric? Here you go

I thought you might be interested in a sale that is going on at CraftConn.com.  They are retiring and closing their store.  Almost everything has been discounted 25%.  I have always been pleased with the cloth I have gotten from them.  Hate to see anyone closing though but at least it's because they are retiring.  They have a full selection of cloth, sewing notions, etc.

http://www.craftconn.com/

PS:  I'm not being paid to tell you this, just wanted to pass on a bargain.

Crafty things going on...

Isn't this a wonderful quilt top.  No I didn't make it.  I got it on Ebay.  The seller did an excellent job.  I had to have it for the appliqued black kitties.  Most of it was paper pieced.  At least I think so because those little squares  inside the baskets I can't imagine trying to actually sew those without paper piecing them.  It will make a nice wall hanging I think.  I have it all ready to start quilting.  See the pins?

And just to show that I haven't been neglecting my knitting, here are some little projects I finished last week.  Two hats and one cowl.  When I went to the yarn tasting at the local yarn store, they gave us a couple of small skeins of yarn along with patterns to complete the cowl.  I got the other two skeins to do the hats and had enough to do two hats.  It was Cascade wool yarn and it was soooo soft.  Very nice to knit with.  All the yarn in the pic was double knitting weight.

Broccoli Soup from Scratch

If you have never tried making broccoli soup from scratch, you really should.  It is easy and tastes sooo much better than from a can.

This is how I made it.  I'm not an expert by any means.

First you need to decide whether you want any onions in your soup.  If you do, just cook up a diced onion with some butter or oil until translucent.  But if you don't like onion in your broccoli, just leave it out.  Take a bunch of broccoli (the package I got had two bunches so I made broccoli salad too ;), wash it and cut up the heads.  I even peel and cut up the stem.  DH loves broccoli stems!  Now you need to cook the broccoli.  Put it in a fairly big pot and just cover with either water or chicken broth.  I use my homemade broth whenever I do a soup because it adds so much flavor to the soup or stew.  Cook the broccoli until it is easily pierced with the tip of a knife.  Take the broccoli and put it in a blender with a little bit of the broth and pulse until you get it pretty well chopped up.  Put the blender broccoli back into your pot.  You now have soup!  But if you want cream of broccoli do the following:

In a small pot make a roux.  Now if you have never made a roux it's pretty easy.  All it is is butter and flour that you cook to get the flour taste out and it browns a little bit but don't go away from the stove otherwise you'll burn it really quickly.  If you do burn it, chuck it out.  It will make your soup taste really bad.  Add a little bit of milk to it stirring it all the time to get rid of any lumps. Lumps are bad especially on your hips but I digress LOL.  Keep adding milk until you have added about a cup to cup and a half total to the roux.  Let it bubble away for a couple of minutes, stirring it.  Now add it to the broccoli pot and stir.

Now one of the hardest things you need to do...taste it.  Add some salt and pepper.  I added celery salt and it really tasted good.  I also added white pepper which is a little hotter than black at least I think so but this is YOUR soup.  You're going to eat it so add whatever spices you want.  Bowl it up and enjoy.  Nice to have soup on a cold day.

UPDATE:  I almost forgot...old age is creeping up on me...You can add cheese to this soup as well.  I added about 1 cup of white cheddar cheese to it.  It was yummy.



http://culinarybliss.blogspot.com/2012/10/healthier-blondies-and-simple-lives.html

Pics

I took some pictures when we went to the land the other day.This is the nearest electric pole.  As you can see they sprayed underneath it and it ran down hill and almost killed that little tree.  This won't happen again as we are going to weed eat around it so no more of those awful chemicals.

Just a pic of the trees.

Here is where we had to cut down some limbs.  This is where we are going to place our cabin.

DH starting up the new chain saw.  Yes I helped too!  I was chief limb picker upper although the bigger pieces I rolled with my foot downhill to be able to stack them.

He's still cutting...

And more cutting...

And even more cutting.  Once he got started he found more dead ones to trim out. 

This is kind of dark but can you see the pile I started?

We covered it up with smaller limbs to hide.  Don't want anyone stealing all that good hardwood.  We'll be needing it for fuel come next winter.

We'll be trimming up the smaller limbs to use for kindling.

And here is the after shot.  Can you see the stumps?

Here is a butterfly I caught on the last of the lavender blooms.