Hello from New Mexico and SE Arizona!

[pricklypear]

 

 

Hello, women! I've been spying on this forum for about a month and every time I read a post I learn something! Am not really a joiner, but this morning I decided to join. I want to thank you all for all you know and share!

 

Thanks to you I've started picking up those empty frosting buckets from the bakeries of our local stores, and am using those for the storage I've been putting together over the past six months or so.

 

I live in rural New Mexico, about 18 miles southeast of Silver City, and we also have a place we're trying to get to, near Portal in the Chiricahua Mountains in SE Arizona, once our house here sells. No electricity over there in Arizona yet for the past ten years, so I've learned something about how to get by without it.

 

I have bought my groceries by the month for years, but this past year decided I wanted to put a year's worth of food by. It's slow going but it is going.

 

I have a dear Mormon ranch woman friend here who is a good example to me, and who has taught me a lot. She has a large, wonderful pantry she has to fight the occasional rattlesnake out of. Is anyone else here in NM or AZ?

 

I grew up next to a flooding bayou in South Texas, and my heart goes out to you who are affected by the flooding. We always had to leave our doors open when we left for dry ground, so about four foot of water could fill our house. Thankfully it never floated away, though...

 

I hope to be able to help when I can, and I look forward to learning from you all!

 

 

 

 

[cootie]

Hi Pricklypear! Welcome to Mrs. S! I'm glad you decided to join us. I look forward to chatting with you. Yes, you are going to learn so much here. I know I have!

[WormGuy]

Welcome to the family pricklypear, always good to have another member.

 

 

 

John

[Jeepers]

Hi

 

So glad you decided to join. I learn something new here every day. Welcome!

[Stephanie]

[MomM]

Welcome, glad you're here!

[Jasminegirl]

Welcome to Mrs S. You will love it here!

[Becca_Anne]

Pricklypear! Glad you've joined us!

[Snowmom]

 

 

Glad you joined.

 

 

[pauline]

welcome to the group pricklypear so glad you finally joined us now make sure you have a comfy chair there by the computer as you will be spending lots of time hanging out here we all do as there is so many wonderful people and so many great things here to learn from

[nmchick]

Welcome Prickly Pear. I am from New Mexico, but we're up north.

 

Hey, do you know anything about eating cacti? I read somewhere that you can eat the bud of the cholla cactus before they bloom and that they are supposed to taste like asparagus, but before I actually tried it, I wanted to find someone else who has.

 

Glad to see you here.

 

NMChick

[sandy*]

Hello everyone, I also am from New Mexico. I've been watching this sight for a couple of weeks now. I really want to thank Motherearth and dogmom4 for all your help. Thanks a bunch.

[dogmom4]

Here's an official welcome!

[Jasminegirl]

Welcome Sandy, hope to see you around here more.

[nmchick]

Welcome Sandy!

[sandy*]

Thank you all for such a warm welcome. I just love this sight!!

Gone till Monday, have a great Sunday.

[Mt_Rider]

Welcome, Pricklypear and Sandy*

 

Quote:

She has a large, wonderful pantry she has to fight the occasional rattlesnake out of. Is anyone else here in NM or AZ?

 

EEEEEEeeeuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!

 

RATTLEsnakes in the pantry? Oh nononononononono.......see, that's why I'm up here at 9,000' in the CO Rockies. No rattlesnakes up here.

 

 

 

Sounds like you're on the right track, PricklyP.....begging buckets and filling them up!

 

Sandy* - ask anything you need and someone will jump in to help. [i knew NOTHING about boards/forums/posts/threads/PM's/etc when I joined 2 yrs ago. ....wow, seems like forever... ]

 

 

MtRider

[BiscuitMaker]

Just to let you know I don't do snakes

But I do have a nice pantry, and I feel sorry for any snake that tries to get in my pantry

I sure hope you like to can---you will soon

its addictive

[pricklypear]

 

Hi, NM Chick! I have eaten the cholla fruit, but never the bud. I love asparagus, so will check into eating the bud before it blooms. I just looked at a cholla in my yard here and it seems to have already set the fruit. But I will try it next year and let you know right away if I die from it. :*)

 

I have made a sort of orange-tasting candy from the actual ripe fruit of the cholla, when times were hard and I wanted to make my son a treat. It took so many of the fruits to make a very small amount of candy, if I remember. We liked it, though. I have two excellent southwest native plants cookbooks in AZ, and I will grab them when I am over there again and let you know what recipes I find for cholla buds. Hopefully by the end of this month, now that the rains are here and are cooling things off.

 

I have sauteed yucca flowers in olive oil or margarine, and they taste like shrimp. If you stick them in the freezer overnight the little green bugs on them die and fall off. Mostly. :*)

 

I want to do something with prickly pear fruit this year. I have sometimes picked them and eaten them fresh. And I have made a sort of jelly, but the recipe I used called for so much sugar I could hardly taste the pear. I wonder what else I could do with them? Freeze them? Dry them? Have you had any luck using them in ways besides jelly?

 

What I did like about the jelly recipe I used was that you didn't have to peel them or really even get close to the stickers at all. You boiled them and them pushed them through a cheesecloth and sieve with a potato masher. It worked wonderfully! The color is so beautiful.

 

I am thinking of trying to make some prickly pear wine this year, too. :*)

 

Are you getting and enjoying some rain up there? How far north are you?

 

 

[pricklypear]

 

Hi, Mt. Rider. My rancher friend was actually from a ranching family in Colorado originally. On the Dolores River. They had no snakes there. But her dream is Ireland! No snakes there, either, and too hard for one to even swim to the Emerald Isle. :*)

 

I told her I think she needs to stop killing her bull snakes, since they go after the rattlers.

 

I have never seen anything more horrible than an angry rattlesnake ready to strike. They look like hell itself.

 

Yes, I am begging those buckets. :*) It's kind of fun! And filling them up is wonderful.

 

 

[pricklypear]

 

Wow, cast iron has even more uses than I thought it did! :*)

Woe to the rattler world. Good!

 

I do enjoy canning, which I only did for a couple years several years ago, before too much got in the way.

 

But I hope to get back to it and make a lot of homemade ketchup this fall, and also put away some green chile and jalapenos and onions and some peaches this coming season. There is a farm about an hour from here where you can get very good deals on these things. And you can pick your own tomatoes for not too much, too...

 

I have a raised bed I can grow some things in here, but not too much. I also have two little apple trees and a cherry tree, but we had the worst hail storm I have ever seen here a copuple weeks ago, so most of the fruit is destroyed. The earth here is so hard, and gophers are a terrible problem, too.

 

My mother did not can, but my father's mother did, and I can remember as a child going down into her basment, and the sight of large jars of pickles and other things from her garden! The smell of that basement, of dill and something else I am not quite sure, will always remind me of my granny. The mystery of how she was able to provide! So I bought my own canning equipment about seven years ago, and then I also inherited more, from my mother-in-law, when she passed away.

 

I need to get a pressure canner, too. I'd like to be able to can beans and meat.

 

[pricklypear]

 

 

Hi, Sandy! Where are you at? I am at about 6800 feet, not too far from Silver City, on the way to the Mimbres. Our dirt is rock hard, or else pure clay, depending where you dig, and we just had the worst hail storm I have ever seen a couple weeks ago, and it tore almst all the fruit from my three little fruit trees. Whine, whine. Do you have a garden? I have lots of herbs in buckets, mostly doing well except for the bee balm, which the storm shredded, and then I have a small raised bed I have a few things in.

[pricklypear]

I want to thank the entire Welcome Committee for such a fun

welcome! :*)

[trish]

Hi I can't imagine a Rattlesnack in my pantry. I thought we had to deal with a lot in MN like these bird size mosquitos. But a rattle snake. Thanks every one for helping me get back on.

Trish

[sassenach]

Hi Pricklypear, glad to have you with us.

I just made some decisions and want to get some cheap land in west Texas out by Terlingua. One way to live within my means and probably be able to build a cob house ( they are sorta like adobe structures). No zoning, lots of hunting, fishing and bird watching, along with creating my property as I go I figure.

I am going to see if I can work a deal on some land and not only stock up here, it will all be transferrable when I move if I stick to dehydrated stuff and some canned things like meats.

 

I belong to some great yahoo groups, one is preserving-food, and it has awesome recipes in the files there. They are top notch about learning to can stuff with a pressure canner. All the latest stuff.

 

I have also learned alot about dehydrating through them and here. One can dry can the dehydrated stuff to make it last longer on the shelf.

 

I am hoping to build with cob, and create a home thats set up for short and handicapped folks, like in wheel chairs, so the house would be all one level probably.

 

Over time I think I could make a nice place for my son and his eventual family. He is supposed to get two parcels of 20 acres each and one already has a shared well on it and water in a cistern. Maybe I can get my water there til I get my well drilled as thats the most costly thing that would be needed to be done all in one paymt. So even with a snug budget on disability, I think if I am very careful, that I can buy and transport building materials in a used truck I would imagine I could get fairly inexpensively.

 

I may in the future also have a partner, who at this point I am only getting acquainted with, but hope good things come of it. This place I build would be our refuge. Its far enough out that I doubt we would have much bother us other than a few two leggeds and some rattlers, lol, love the comment about fighting with a rattler in the pantry above!

 

I imagine some of us are very independent women and networking on here really helps me 'cause sometimes I feel quite isolated from my area friends here, and I know that I want to be closer to my son as his family is beginning and be part of the crowd sometimes in his life. His FW is going to Iraq but hes getting out of the Marines and going to Texas A&M probably and living at her family's home to do this and I think its awesome that her parents offered that. He is going to be a teacher. With the education he got at the Naval Academy and his ability to deal with 3 times the learning anyone gets at most Universities, he knows his stuff. He and his future wife were both prior enlisteds. I know its hard for him to watch her go this winter and one of his twin half brothers is going to Afghanistan, and the other twin will go to the persian gulf soon. But I am glad he is really striving to build his whole life up.

I think as I learn more about greener practices and implement it in settling on my land in the future, a few years probably. ( Have to budget a big move in from almost the Canadian border and such, as well)

I want the land in his name but permission to build as it suits me. I can start small, and add on as time goes on. He may help me do that as it will eventually be all his. He understands my interest in modern homesteading and I will gladly keep the fires burning for him and his family.

 

Everyone here figures out 'what to do' about so many things in their lives and its an awesome group of can do'ers.

 

This is part of what has gotten me a little further up out of the rut I have been in. I am also going to be doing online courses for writing as that would be my best choice for working from home so that, if I am good enough, I should be able to finance everything and become independent in all ways eventually.

 

That or goto the Piney Woods in Eastern Texas, but the drier climate would be better for me.

 

oh yea, what soil amendments are you doing in your garden?

 

well thats my plan. I think it would be better than staying in the humidity in the East.

 

Ive driven over the desert and Texas in the past so I think I know what I am getting into. Somewhat anyhow.

 

This seems to be the only way I can become more independent and self sufficient. I will be drawing up plans for the house and the working shed and things like chicken coops and such.

 

I have learned alot about small livestock here and I sure appreciate the kindness of the contributors. I have always wanted a simple life. It is reasonable to live witin ones' means these days. I think thats sensible living.

 

 

Out there I would have alot of freedom. ( And it beats listening to folks across the hall in my apartment, who fight on almost a daily basis. ) They refuse to get help and I know alot about the resources and courses they need to take, but they are not ready, and I keep an ear out because they have a very young infant. The rest of the apartment occupants and I are basically friends and cohorts in some mutual things we do in the community and we are getting really tired of those folks, really fast.

 

But I want to build my own environmentally sound home and do my thing! I think I could do well there over time.

 

 

I lived in the mojave for 7 yrs during my sojourns in California, so I do understand some of what I am up against.

I was wondering if you could fill me in on what seed companies and what does well in your region as I think that at least some of it would match well enough due to soil and climate as in West Texas down in Terlingua area.