Life on a little urban homestead in the making, showing ideas for self-sufficiency, Permaculture, DIYing, organic gardening, food preservation, Chicken keeping, cookery, crafts, thrifting and more...

Apr 6, 2012

Happy Easter, Lacto-Fermented Sodas, Weird Weather

Happy Easter!

I've always been fascinated by history, and so, with that in mind, here's a few Easter tidbits!

The old pagan symbols- the goddess and the egg, all fancied up and ready to be hunted after and found!  Bunny- symbol of fertility, like I had to tell you that right? Even the word Easter relates to several goddess names, from what I've read...

Celebrating fertility and the goddess (in ancient times) in the spring, when you're planting your crops, all makes sense. I find it interesting how many ancient rites have later been co-opted by organized religions, but that's old news. When we moved to Idaho and asked some new co-workers (who were of a certain religious persuasion) if their kids went Easter egg hunting, they gave us an odd look. We assumed this was pretty common even for non-religious folks. In their religion it was "planting day". Later we were wondering what the heck they were talking about, since we'd never heard any Christians use that term. Even late coming to the scene religions change things. It never ends, oh well.....  

Homemade Lacto-Fermented Sodas- I'm reading Urban Homesteading by Kaplan and Bloom. What an excellent read! I'm interested in possibly making homemade sodas. I won't do the "whey" in mine since I'm allergic to dairy, but there's the ginger version. I'm still in the research phase, but it's a great idea! Gotta buy a copy! Here's a nice article with an overview and some yummy recipes! Lacto-Fermented Sodas

Weird Weather- 45 today, low 29 tonite, and it's supposed to be 80 on Monday! Yikes!

Samantha enjoying rolling on a warm spring afternoon

Apr 5, 2012

Sorry, But I Had To...

                          

No more word verification free blog. Since MSN SUCKS, and there's nothing online that can help apparently, I had to close our email account. What fun! When I went to log in, I got a "your account is blocked" and it sends a code to an non-existent email. Oh good, that's helpful. I spent several hours trying to fix it and gave up. Since MSN thinks we're telepathic and can figure out a way around this... I changed the email address. Thanks for tolerating the word verification :)

Apr 1, 2012

Chalkboard Paint Re-Do, Thrifting Again, 75 Degrees, Free Farm Scenes Screensaver

Old 1930's government pamphlets

Chalkboard Paint Can Re-Do: I had this really old tea tin. I was going to give it to Goodwill or whoever. Then I remembered- I had some chalkboard paint! The wheels started spinning!!! Here's the "before", faded, icky green-
I sanded it lightly, all over, gave it three coats of paint. "After" photo:

I think it's cute!

Thrifting- I made a quick Goodwill stop and found some goodies again today: a car battery pump for an air mattress. We're wanting to start camping again, great for our camping mattress. A piece of art, $25.00 on the back, $4.99 for me:
Cuchina means kitchen in Italian

A nice little embroidery kit, with fabric, frame, etc. Not sure what I'll do with it yet, but maybe a gift (completed) for someone special soon :)

It was 75 Today- Weird weather, right before cold/rainy front. We did a lot of yard work today- modified a coop door, mowed, cleaned up the backyard and garage, and did some more composting. I had two 5 gallon tubs of dried beans for Y2K, (yeah I know) and so I finally asked Sharon, from my food prep class, if they might still be viable? I figured not and she concurred. I decided to compost them. Now I re-used one of the tubs for extra chicken feed, and have 2 more to re-fill with people food. Not sure what I'll refill them with? Bad news- they won't fit on my pantry shelves, except the top. That means something light weight (oats?) or somewhere else to store? Still thinking about that... Cold front is moving in, it's cooling off quickly. It got so windy we had dust storm advisories! And the high tomorrow-in the 40's! Pick a season already!

Free Farm Scenes Screen Saver- Cute easy to install: Download.funutilities.com  Enjoy!