CrabGrassAcres

I believe the basic ingredients for bread and ale are the same. You can even malt some of the wheat if you lack molasses. I have about 100 yr supply of molasses though. What can I say? It was a good price shipped and I got a little crazy. LOL I love molasses candy and molasses cookies too.

Cool. I'll drag along a 50# bag of wheat, some yeast, molasses, etc.

I can bring some mylar bags and demonstrate how to seal them if anybody is interested. Also can bring some wheat to grind and do a bread baking demo if anybody would like me to. (Of course it would be nice if I could use Darlene's grinder so I don't have to drag any of mine along. LOL)

Thank you! wish you WERE closer!

Thought I'd be moved by now. The spring flood took down a lot of my fences and I only put up the absolutely essential ones to keep the does in the paddock. I have to have a buck. I have 12 does that need breeding. Someone stole my nice buck last summer that I was planning to use this yr. I was promised a loaner buck, but looks like they are reneging on it. It is triple digit highs and won't cool off for at least two months and my kidneys have a hissy if I get dehydrated. I have to have good tight fence around the buck pen. Not optional! Cannot let the buck run with the does, he and his buddy MUST have their own pen and it needs to be as far from the doe paddock and my house as possible. PU! I found a possible buck and buddy on CL, near Houston, I would have to find someone to transport. Checking on the pedigree now. I DO NOT WANT TO FENCE IN AUGUST!

That would be real special, but she best pack a big bag to come since she may get "kidnapped" back to Texas or someplace! LOL

I've always thought that looked like mold. Never saw it in any but duck eggs. Apparently it IS mold: http://www.oldandsold.com/articles11/food-control-21.shtml

Somebody flubbed up, but it wasn't dangerous, just icky.

Myth. If there is an embryo growing you will see a fine network of blood vessels across the yolk. If it is further along you will actually see the embryo. It will be a purplish red, not bright red.

Hon, I didn't mean to be critical. Sorry about that. Have you read Ruth Stout? I had good success with her methods in CO. Not suitable here because the ground doesn't freeze in winter and the fire ants will take you away. Nobody gets a great crop on everything every yr. Some yrs are just better for one thing and other yrs better for something else. We keep trying.

Arby, that egg just got missed by the candler. It was not injected. When the yolk starts down the fallopian tube it is surrounded with a membrane that has many large blood vessels. Occasionally one of those will bleed an extra amount and the blood will travel down as a clot with the yolk and be enclosed in the shell with the white and yolk. Usually it is only a spot, but sometimes can be quite large. Sometimes a clot will stay in the tube for several days then be incorporated into an egg and will be washed out looking. Those are called meat spots. They aren't really meat, but a clot that has most of the red cells washed out. Normally eggs rejected by the candler will all be broken into a vat, mixed up and sold to bakers. They are still edible but not as desirable. I just pick out blood spots and keep cooking. Sometimes I have an embryo and that egg goes to the dogs. In this heat, fresh eggs on the counter will start developing after a few days.

I've used the towels with no problem. You can also find stainless steel cooling racks for baked goods in different sizes that might work for you. If you are very careful, you can cut a piece of hardware cloth to fit between the layers of jars. Edges will be sharp! I'd probably put a towel over it. Be sure to put it someplace to dry so it doesn't rust. http://www.lionsdeal.com/pwc-47098-22.html Here is a small round rack. They have a slightly larger one too.

Colorado's water laws are what keep me from moving back there. Total insanity. Texas has pretty decent water laws. You do own the water in your stock tanks. It is legal to use gray water on your lawn or crops. Not even allowed to do that in CO.

One person cannot do it all. It is better to have a very small garden that you are able to take care of and get something , than a large garden that is too much to handle and you get little for your work. Start smaller.

My mother would have acted the same way as C4C's parents do. There is no way I could have taken guardianship of her unless she was in a coma. I actually had to sell my home (before losing it to bankruptcy, thanks to mother) and take my daughter and live in a tent, before mother would move out. I might would have given in and moved to an apt with mother as she wanted, except she took to hitting my daughter and I could not allow that. Some people are just too manipulative for close family to handle in some situations.

I have purchased dehydrated foods from a food storage supply house that had both O2 absorbers and moisture absorbers in the containers. I don't know why you can't use both. (Really need to order another bucket of dried onions soon.)

I'd like to know what bright person thought up using foam covered with foil for ductwork under mobile homes? That is so easily ripped up and makes a perfect highway for critters to enter. I no longer have ducts or vents and feel much more secure. I think there is still an opening under a sink but I stuffed around all the pipes with caulk and that seems to have stopped most of the incursions. Now if I could find where the red devils are coming in and stop that, I'd be happy.

I got a feeling we would be thrilled to be at "little house" status. Just remember, they had infrastructure to support that life style. Our infrastructure is way more fragile than we like to believe and will not support that lifestyle. For example, in western Colorado there are many named places along the highway where there is no store, no place to get water, no post office, no nothing, maybe a house or two, but they are dependent on the grid for the most part. 50-60 yrs ago you could drive a horse and wagon a day's journey between these named places and you could get water for yourself and animals and frequently there would be a small store for your supplies and a post office for collecting and sending mail. Where I was, in NW CO, I had to drive 60 miles to shop. That was about 30 min on the first 7 miles and 45-50 on the rest. I could go, shop, and get home easily in one day with time to spare. If I had to do it with a horse and buggy it would take 5-6 days each way. There were robust train engines in the little house days and towns near the rails. There were horse and mule driven freight lines. There were telegraph lines. People had kerosene lamps and supply lines for kerosene, just to name one necessity. Farmers had horse driven equipment and most farms were small enough for a family to work with horses. The population was smaller and sanitation wasn't as much a nightmare as it would be now. When was the last time you saw an outhouse? How many people know how to make one or keep it clean and not spread disease? BTW, polio was not going to be a major problem much longer, even without the vaccine. About the time the vaccine came out, America began to switch to septic tanks and flush toilets. Outhouses were vectors of the virus. How many have wells or good springs these days? Even in the country you have to look hard to find a property with a well, not on public water. Dirty water spreads disease but when you are desperately thirsty, how careful are you going to be when you have no filter and don't know how to make one or purify the water. This country is not as populated as many, particularly away from the coasts, but there are too many people in the urban areas to be able to survive without the modern infrastructure up and running. How about Europe in the middle of WWII? That is more what I'm expecting.

I had a squirrel, mice and a snake get into the house before I discovered they were getting in under the kitchen sink. There is a big hole that the plumbing goes thru and I couldn't reach it. However, they were entering the room thru a gap between the sink cabinet and the dishwasher cubby. I closed that off tight. If you live in a mobile, there are huge holes around all the plumbing runs and usually hidden from your view by cupboards or tubs.

Black soldier flies are another good source that will live on mostly manure and rotting vegetation. If you have the soldier flies you will not also have house flies since the soldier fly larvae will eat the house fly larvae. The soldier flies will not try to come in the house either. My beef with meal worms is that they eat the same food that you should be feeding directly to the chickens.

Even in warmer areas with a reasonable amount of rain, it can be hard to find enough to stay alive. Right now we have tons of pigweed and epazote along with the coastal bermuda grass and crabgrass. Mesquite is putting out beans but you have to roast them and then have a good way to grind them or forget it. I can't eat much pigweed because of kidney problems. Epazote is an herb that some use for beans. Can't eat beans because of the kidneys either. Bermuda grass is too tough and dry to juice. Haven't really tried to juice the crabgrass. All the big pecan trees died last yr along with many of the oaks. Had a bumper crop of acorns last yr. May not get any this yr. The few thistles I've seen are small and not worth bothering with. You do have to take into account how many calories you expend in comparison to how many you gather. There must be a net gain or you are in dire straits. My goats are chowing on all the weeds I cannot eat. I'm only getting about 1 1/2 gallons a day right now but putting as much in the freezer as I can above what we are using each day. They will be dried off soon enough and we'll use the freezer milk. There is a reason that societies always moved away from hunter/gatherer to agricultural. When you have too many people in an area, it rapidly depletes the available wild foods and you cannot move around as easily to follow the food. The indigenous people who used mostly wild foods would travel with the seasons. If you can't do that, you must grow, harvest and store to survive. Wild food can only be seen as a supplement, in season.

I used to buy self rise sometimes and forget which flour was in which container. Self rise tastes salty though.

Try Walton Feed. www.rainydayfoods.com/ is their new website. They have the best prices if you can pick up. You'll need to order ahead. Not sure if they have a retail storefront but they will let you pickup.

Best way I've found to forage is to have dairy goats. Let them eat all the stuff that you cannot digest and then drink that healthy milk. You can survive on nothing but goat milk though you may want some greens for the fiber.

Thanks! It would sure be fun!