rockncook

Wow! You two are kicking my butt! I got 4. Mommy of 5

Phew what a day! I feel like I have been running all day! Worked a little bit, put up a few pounds of corn, made stew, poured the laundry soap I made yesterday into containers, made syrup and played with the kiddos. Dang, I really didn't do that much, LOL. I slept late today, too, and now I'm dragging cause I didn't have that extra hour before anyone else woke up. It's so nice to get a bit of work done while the house was quiet. The forecast called for 70 today-I don't think we saw 40. The heater, which I keep turned down this time of year, actually kicked on around lunch time. I feel so popular, LOL. Oldest DD's class were discussing their Easter party, and what each would bring, and she asked a few of her friends "Would you rather have jello, or something else that I don't remember, or my mom's cookies?" and the vote was unanimous for my cookies, LOL. So I'll be making up a batch of those tomorrow. I'm also doing a sour dough starter tonight. I've never made sourdough from scratch so we'll see how this goes, LOL. I will be back for chat tonight, as long as DH makes it home by then. He's unloading a load of patio doors, so I'll probably have to rub him down before I make it back I love the crock pot-it has a "Keep warm" feature, so when DH called about the time I expected to be serving dinner, I just switched it over to that, so we'll still have a nice hot stew when he gets home. See you this evening! Mommy of 5

She's pretty mature for her age, I think, and we're going to the library often so I'd like to get some suggestions for her. She's also a VORACIOUS reader, which I love. I can't keep the child in books! Do you have some faves for this age group? She's read Little Women, loves Harry Potter of course, likes sci fi and period books. She's too old for a lot of the books in the kids section but not quite old enough for me to give her free reign in the adult section. But should I? I'm of course concerned about her reading something too graphically violent or sexual. But I want her to explore and discover her own likes and keep that pleasure that she finds in reading. Thanks! Mommy of 5

Thank you for posting this! When I get tired of my neighbors, or tired of living cheaply so I can buy land, I'll come take a peek at this and remember why I'm doing all this!!! It's beautiful! Mommy of 5

Morning! Most of the clocks are set ahead! Woke up at 730, which was actually 630 by my body clock, LOL. Breakfast is on cooking, laundry is on washing, and I'm getting the list ready for shopping. I'm not too keen on shopping on Sunday, but since I didn't know what time the kids would be here yesterday, I couldn't go then. Mommy of 5

Page Kelley/O'Kelley Craft Craig Williams I'm sure there will be more once I get going better, LOL! Mommy of 5

Thank you SO much for posting this alert. Just this morning I read a recipe that called for boiling water and shortening together-I'll be doing something a bit different with that recipe now! Mommy of 5

Westbrook, Thanks for such an informative post. As I was reading, I was thinking of a question, and right there was the answer, LOL. Two of my dogs are work dogs, although they haven't been trained in that capacity. I much prefer work dog breeds as they seem to be more intelligent, and, at least the ones I have, more loyal. It's hilarious to watch my heeler trying to heel the children home when they are a few blocks away. She doesn't really nip, but will lick (and has lightly nipped, but not enugh to hurt) the backs of their knees and their ankles. Would these dogs be able to take on a hungry bear? In reading your post, I realized it was entirely possible that it was coons that got to the chickens-was easy to blame the bears cause they were EVERYWHERE. If you went to mcdonalds at lunchtime you'd see them there in the trash even, and they started closing restaurants earlier, although they'd keep the drive throughs open. But bears ARE an issue here, and I'd hate to lose a dog or three seasonally. That's a waste of a good animal. I will certainly be looking into this when we get ready to get land. I'd much rather invest in good dogs than the myriad of other things we could do that "might"work! Thanks! Mommy of 5

it's cold and raining here today, but I don't care-my kids come home today! LOL they probably won't be here until late, cause they stopped off to visit gramma, but still. I'm so excited I can hardly sit still. Yesterday morning I decided to clean out my favorite places on the computer (I have a lot from old job I no longer need) and hit one of the genealogy faves, and got lost doing genealogy yesterday, but I FINALLY got somewhere! I haven't been doing much on it cause I hadn't found anything, but I FINALLY found some stuff yesterday. One of my great aunts has a lot of this stuff and my mom always says "You should call her" and I ask for her number and she hems and haws and doesn't give it to me-skeletons in the closet, maybe? It was so nice to make a breakthrough. Actually I made two, a small one and a big one. One of my great grandmothers isn't listed ANYWHERE, which doesn't actually surprise me-she never worked so probably never had an SS# and she died before her husband, so wouldn't have had any benefits from him anyway. But I found her on the LDS site. Anyway, today I am going to clean the kitchen (neglected yesterday LOL) and bake something to chase this gloom away. I need to make ice, too, cause I'm putting up corn tomorrow, it's on sale. Also working on an article I was asked to write. I FINALLY got my seeds planted. I'm a bit late, but, the yard is in a sad state so I will need to do some more work on that before I can get them in the ground anyway. They are hopefully germinating away in their peat on the kitchen table. The rain will make it easier to get the garden area dug up, so I'll be doing that early next week. Snowmom, sounds like fun with the little ones there. Theyd, I LOVE your sig, those flowers are so pretty! Momo, sleep lots and have lots of garlic! Get well soon! Mommy of 5

Bear Medicine...well that would be a hugely long post, so I will condense it. Basically, most Native American traditions say that when an animal appears to you (one that isn't normally around), or when you are drawn to a particular animal, you have a part of that animal in your soul. Medicine can also be given by a holy man, a healer, or a family member. Mostly, you are "born" with the medicine, and then the animal will appear to you later. When you have a particular animal's medicine, you can't harm it, or allow it to be harmed, even in a case of starvation, unless that animal gives itself to you. In other words, if DH were starving in the woods in winter, and had seen no other game or food to live on, and a bear walked right up to him, he COULD, if he wanted to, eat it...but he would see that as a tough decision. In other words, is it the will of the Creator that he survive, or is it a test to see if he will choose himself over the bear. This would be an "ultimate" test. Hope this has actually enlightened more than confused, LOL, but if you're on the confused side, I will do a longer post when I have a bit more time! Mommy of 5

Hill, shooting him is a consideration, too. Although here, we wouldn't eat him-DH is a traditional Cherokee and has Bear Medicine, so he can't eat bear. But I could give him away to friends for sure. I had bear sausage once and didn't particularly like it, although it could have been the spices that were put into it. Mommy of 5

LOL SCMary Usually late September and early October are the only times we really have problems with them. The scariest thing that happened to us was having to go get the cat from under the tree in the back yard that a mama and cub had climbed in to. He was so proud of himself, thinking he'd treed those bears. I told him he was lucky he hadn't been dinner. The really cool thing (this was our first year in the country and we hadn't known ahead of time to build a corral for the trash cans and so hadn't finished by the time the bears got down to us) was watching them dump the trash by the back door-they were close enough if we'd have opened the window we could have touched them. While it was a pain to clean up the trash, it was remarkable to be able to watch them that closely. Usually they only come that close to people when they are DESPERATE for food-I'd think the eating chickens would play into that, too. That year, we'd had a late freeze, so most of the wild berries were gone, coupled with a drought, and, being so close to hibernation, they really needed to pack on a lot of fat to make it through the winter. By mid october, they are usually heading back up the mountains looking for somewhere to spend the winter. They are far more of a problem at night than during the day, so walking around during the day isn't a problem. Also, feeding them in any way, like dumping your slops far away from the house to keep them away from the house, is illegal. If you're caught, it's a HUGE fine. They become reliant on that food source and if it disappears they can starve-or go looking for things like chickens. I hadn't thought of cinderblock-what would you make the door out of so they wouldn't go through it? Mommy of 5

Does such a thing exist? We are a ways away from needing a chicken coop, but, I'm the type to always plan ahead. When we get land, we are planning on having chickens. We have lots of bears here in the mountains of Southern Colorado, and with the drought, they often seek out alternate sources of food. We had a friend who had chickens, and one night he lost about half of them. So he went to town, bought some supplies, and built what he claimed was the "Fort Knox" of chicken coops. Sharpened sticks coming out of the ground, heavy door latch, on and on. Well, guess what? A few nights later he lost the rest of his chickens. Even he wasn't sure how the bear got in, but he did. Soooooooo, I want to be able to build a hungry bear proof chicken house, and I'm wondering if anyone with more experience has any suggestions! Thanks! Mommy of 5

I tell you, this could have been my post several years ago. When I lived in Cali, the pizza delivery lady knew me well enough to say hi to me when we'd run into each other at walmart, LOL. It's a hard transition to make. When I moved out to the country things were SO different. The first night I messed up and didn't take anything out to thaw for dinner was a real eye opener. The local market closed at 5 and there wasn't a restaurant for miles. We ended up driving for about 45 minutes to some dive where they were killing flies on the tables but not washing them. After that I decided no more! LOL. But then it IS hard to know where to start, especially when you are eager to jump in with both feet. Getting your neighbors on your side is definitely a good place to start. If you want to have chickens, you will be less likely to have problems if you go to them beforehand. Something you may also want to look into is once a month (or once a week) cooking. This is where you cook once a month or week and freeze everything so you have it on those busy days, which it sounds like you have plenty of. That way, even in the midst of the hustle and bustle, you have a good home cooked meal to feed your family. If both you AND your hubby are working, this is definitely something that will free up some time for you in the evenings, and it's something that even smaller kids can participate in. My littlest ones knead left over bread dough or help put in ingredients. There are some threads in "Are you really ready" about cooking ahead, too. Good luck! Mommy of 5

Well today I got a lot done on a website and not much in the house yet. Seems I can do one or the other, but not both, LOL. We did go outside, but I didn't feel up to working in the yard. I think I may be fighting off being sick, I fell asleep before 8 last night, DH was working online and the baby put herself to sleep on the couch, LOL. We've made it halfway through spring break without the kids. I have done better than I thought I would. Dinner tonight is chicken and dumplings-even though it's nice and warm outside it's very cool in the house. When we went outside today I took my jacket OFF outside, LOL. Mommy of 5 who is going to create a signature graphic one of these days.

Last week I'm only going to give myself two miles. I just ran out of time, but I'm trying to re-organize how I do things to take care of that, LOL. Mommy of 5

Morning everyone! I won't be able to call the kids this week, as they are travelling. Going to see gramma, then to sea world and maybe somewhere else. They will be able to call here whenever, tho, I have a toll free number for the step kids to call so they can use that one. The broth wasn't hot, I had cooked it the day before-I think it was just too much pressure when they were stacked like that, LOL. But I learned a lesson, LOL. I want to go fishing all day! OH well, my time will come, hehe. Today it's supposed to be nice outside, so we are going to go out and stake out the garden area, and maybe go for a walk. Mommy of 5

Evening everyone! I'm sitting here smelling like a well cooked chicken, LOL. I don't have a lot of plastic containers for freezing, so when I freeze things, even liquids, I use ziplocs. I haven't had problems with this before, but this was the first time I did chicken broth. I also don't have anything to hold the baggies upright, so I stack them flat. I stacked 3 gallon sized baggies in the freezer and just as I was putting the 3rd one in the 2nd one burst, LOL. Then the first 1 burst. So I had chicken broth in the freezer, on the floor, in the sink, all over me, LOL. I haven't changed shirts yet cause I have to bathe the baby tonight and that is a two person job and I'll end up soaked anyway. Plus, with the way this day has gone, LOL, I'll end up wearing a good portion of my dinner. All I can do is laugh! DS decided to go with his dad for the week. I am having a hard time having faith that everything will go ok, but I'm getting better with it. Next weekend cannot come soon enough. I didn't get much done today...because we didn't know what time the kids' dad would be here I didn't get shopping done yesterday so we had to do it today, and that always tires me out for some reason. We are having tamale pie for dinner tonight, but with chicken instead of beef. I got enough chicken for three meals out of 4 leg quarters, plus the three bags of broth from boiling them, even though that is down to one. Tomorrow I will boil the bones down more for more broth. Off to go cuddle with the baby, who misses her sibs but is very happy to have mom and dad to herself, LOL. Mommy of 5

Sounds like the secret pal box went over well. I hope next time I can participate. Can't wait to go see what you got! DS decided he doesn't want to go. He was crying about it last night, I felt so bad. No matter how much I tell him "We love you and we want you to be happy." I think he feels he will upset someone. I almost feel like I should take the decision out of his hands, but last time I did that the ex got angry. I do NOT feel that it would be in his best interest to spend the summer there, so I will be stepping in on that one, and ex's hurt feelings be [censored]. I realize that they will get to know each other better with time spent, and maybe I am being overprotective, but...DS is only five, and still needs to cuddle with mama every night before bed. OK, enough of THAT rant! Sounds like you had a busy day, Snowmom! I haven't had the chance to read everyone's posts from yesterday yet. I've been rushing around to get some stuff done before the weekend. I decided to go ahead and put a small veggie garden in so I want to work on THAT on Sunday instead of cleaning in between baking. I'm still not sure how the growing potatoes in tires thing works but I'm going to do some research on that sometime soon-cause we go through a wicked amount of potatoes, LOL. HOpe everyone has a wonderful day! Mommy of 5

Thanks for your well wishes everyone. I know my daughter will be fine, she's mighty forgiving (though I have NO idea where she got that fine trait from, LOL) and she loves her dad. Saren, on the other hand, saw his dad for a month when he was 4 mos. old, and then weekends only because that's all dad had time for, from 10-15 mos. old, and then not again until he was 4. There's been no relationship built there, and as much as I try to help, I can't do the building myself. I think he needs to spend a week up here so that he can take them during the day, to give Saren the option of coming home at night, or any time during the day if he needs to, so that they can get to know each other instead of being thrown together. But I do understand how difficult it is to get time off from work and the resources to do that sort of thing. Sometimes it's very HARD for me to be patient and understanding about it, LOL, but I do it. I have gotten a lot of my spring cleaning done this week. Today I'm going to take all the laundry baskets and trash cans outside and wash them, unless it rains. Then I'm going to scour the living room since everyone will be here Saturday. Does anyone know if they make chew proof water hoses? Every single hose I"ve bought has been chewed on-even though I'm fairly careful with getting them put away, not everyone else is, and I can't be the hose police, LOL. Have a great day everyone! Mommy of 5

Yes, Wednesday already! How did that happen? Oldest DD is leaving Saturday to spend Spring Break with her dad. DS will be spending the night with them Saturday and then coming back home before they leave on Sunday. DS doesn't know his dad very well, and the first time they had an extended time together it didn't work out and we had to drive out to AZ to go get them. At least his dad is making an effort to build a relationship with him. So I've been helping her pack. Today I will be making some more massage oil stuff once I get the kitchen cleaned. I just haven't been motivated today, LOL, although I did get the bedding switched around in the girls' room and in to wash, and I pulled a bunch of muffin recipes off the internet. I want to get a bunch made and frozen to have for the summer so I won't have to bake as much when I'd rather be outside in the yard. Breakfast today was scrambled eggs with the leftover steak and gravy from smothered steak last night. I think that is my favorite breakfast. Dinner tonight is pasta.

7.1 miles. Pretty good for my first week, I think. Mommy of 5

Yes, it was very busy, I pulled the last loaves of bread out at 10:10 pm LOL. But I loved every minute of it. For some odd reason, I get told "I love you." alot on Sundays, hehe. I think the ONLY reason my family keeps me around is cause I can cook. One of my great aunts has a genealogy file that she has worked on for YEARS. One of these days we're going to go out to MO so I can have a peek at it. At least it would help with that side of the family. I was asking my mom some questions around the holidays (I usually take the two weeks when the kids are home for the holidays off, so I get some time to do a bit of work then) and she JUST told me that her mom had been married before LOL...and of course she has NO idea to whom. One of these years in the distant future when I can afford a vacation I want to go down to where I was born and take pictures at the cemetary there. We have a lot of relatives there, and I think both my mom and my oldest DD would enjoy it. Today I'm going to be cleaning the disaster area that is my kitchen after yesterday's cooking and baking fest, and planting some seeds inside-even though it's nice and warm, this area is notorious for a late march/early april frost, so nothing goes outside until after that. We also took the plastic off the windows. We probably should have waited awhile, but I was jonesing for some sunlight! I had oldest DD measure all the windows for me so I can get material for heavy curtains when we get our IRS refund. OK, I'm off to go do dishes! Mommy of 5

Afternoon everyone! 200 names, Snowmom! Wow! My maiden name is page, so searching genealogy is a trick-when I search for my name I get "Welcome to the Wilson genealogy page!" LOL. I've kind of put it on hold for awhile-till the kids get older. It's one of those things that you can't really work at for a few minutes at a time, I think. At least, I can't. I get lost in it! Today I put up some more of the russets, should have them finished today. It will be so nice to pull them out of the freezer and put the finishing touches on them. Also made some of the cream soup mixes from the Fat Free Cream Soup recipe in this old wood stove. I use them a lot in the crock pot, and DD LOVES cream of chicken soup. Have 2 loaves of bread rising, and will do two more this afternoon. Think that's about it! Stayed up late last night playing Monopoly. But at least I won, LOL. Mommy of 5

I wish I could grow them. We're living in town for now and don't have the space. Once we get on to some land, I will be, though.