Mid-April Update

Just because I haven't been blogging much doesn't mean I don't have a lot to share! Things have been hopping around here in so many ways. There's garden news to report, chicken news, emergency preparedness news, homemaking news and more! Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to share, but I will when I go into more detail later on in the month.

In the garden, I'm so excited to see the chives coming back, and I believe the catnip is starting again, too. Unfortunately that's it. I've been meaning to get peas and chard started in our raised beds, but my poor, dear hubby hurt his back nearly 3 weeks ago, so I had picked up some of his "chores". This means that my back is sore! So things have not been planted out there yet. In the green house, the Roma tomatoes are doing well, but I am so glad that I started so many, because I only have a fraction of what I started. I'm thinking I may still have to but a few transplants, but at least I have some of our own. The green peppers are ready to get put into newspaper pots, so that needs to be done soon. And we have 2 marigolds, an onion and some lettuce in there thanks to Princess, who is a member of on of our local gardening store's "Kid's Club". She was quite excited about the marigolds because she knows Mama uses them in the beds to keep pests away.

We may not be getting rid of as many of our hens as I had initially thought. It seems we have a hen that is eating eggs, so that is, in part, why we aren't getting as many as we should. I have no idea how to catch the offender without a video camera. But no one will be relocated until we can discover who it is and how many eggs she is dispatching. We've decided to nix the raising of our own meat birds, at least for now. It  is just is too much for this year, but we're looking at our options for obtaining healthy, pasture raised meat for our family.

I've been pretty bad in the emergency preparedness sector, though today I am taking a CPR/First Aid class through our church. I'm excited about this and perhaps it will get me back on track.

Our dear friend, Chris, was able to fix and update our old desk top computer. It is a huge blessing to have this computer, as next year I will be homeschooling Teddy Bear. I was thinking that we might need to purchase another laptop, but it's no longer necessary with the desktop up and running. I have already installed some of the educational games on it and the kids have been having a blast playing "Oregon Trail" and "Where In the World Is Carmen San Diego?". Having the desktop going has also gotten me inspired to get my home office area and desk cleaned up and organized. I have gotten quite a bit done and have been able to bless some other friends of ours with some organizing things because she will be homeschooling all of her children next school year. When I am done getting my desk organized, I will be sharing it in a post with pictures and links that I used for advice and inspiration.

The 2013 sugaring season is pretty much at a close for us. We just have to finish off about 3 gallons that is nearly syrup and we will be done with boiling. I believe my hubby has pulled all the taps and has to get the buckets cleaned and put away for the year. We have had a much better yield this year, so I've been able to bake with it this year!!!

That is all for now, Friends. Hope you have a lovely Saturday.

Many Blessings,
Kelly

Emergency Cash Stash Keychain

In my last post I mentioned that I was making key chains that would hold a stash of emergency cash. I'm thinking that these wold be great gifts. And they are quick and easy to make.

I used variegated yarn and did a simple stitch on the plastic canvas. I should have measured a bit better because this one was a smidgen too small!

Stitch around 3 sides, leaving a side open to insert your cash. I would suggest that you use only one bill rather then a bunch of bills. You could also add phone numbers or other information on an index card that you trimmed down to fit.



When you reach the last corner you can add the zipper pull. I like to use these because I feel that key rings might eventually tear up the yarn. With the zipper pull, you can add a key ring to add it to your car keys, or use it as a zipper pull on your purse or kids can put them on their back packs.

Of course, you can get much fancier with these, making designs etc. with the yarn. My daughter was happy with this though and clipped it to her backpack when I was done taking pictures. And I was happy that that $20 bill didn't fit!

Seriously, though, I think this is a wonderful way to make sure you always have some cash with you i case f an emergency, whether you find your self stranded somewhere or you need to leave your home quickly to evacuate. For kids I would make sure that they understand that the money is for EMERGENCIES ONLY and that ice cream is NOT an emergency. I would also include phone numbers of adults that they know and trust. These are also something that you could clip onto your BOB or 72 hour bags.

That's all for now!
Many Blessings,
Kelly

Lessons From Irene

Just up the road from us. This is only a little intermittent stream that is washing the land away.

Another little stream. You can see where the water should be flowing in it's banks, but has jumped and is flooding the meadow and the road.

A damn broke, causing a river to flood a horse pasture , the road and a soccer field across from the pasture.

The river responsible for taking out Route 4 in Vermont. You cannot believe the debris left in the river bed.
 Early Monday morning.

Happy Wednesday, Friends! It's raining rather hard here in Vermont, and I'm praying we don't see any more flooding. They are starting to get progress made on the bridges and roads that we lost from Irene and there are so many who have damaged property or even lost their homes and farms.

The little stream that caused the below damage, just one day after!

Monday August 29, the land eaten away when the stream out grew it's culvert under the road.

The above pictures are from Sunday August 28, when Irene swept in with all her rain. These are all places that are very close to our home. And these were taken in the afternoon, when we had just started to witness the damage. If you saw any of the news coverage, then you know that there was much worse in nearby communities. At one point on Sunday, we thought that we might be stranded with all of these little streams threatening to take out the roads around us. We were blessed to wake up Monday and realize that we were not stranded, however little more than 2-3 miles from us, there are communities that were and still are.

No one in Vermont can believe the damage caused or the toll it has taken. But, there is a hard lesson to learn: prepare for the worst and most unexpected, pray for the best, be ready to do what is needed before, during and after an emergency.

I prepared before the storm by :

• getting drinking water ready
• gathering all of the flashlights, batteries and battery operated lanterns together in one central location
• purchasing propane tanks for the camp stove and having that in a easy to get spot
• taking stock of the pantry
• planning easy meals that would take little work and fuel to make
• baking the day before so that we had baked goods to supplement our store-bought bread supply
• having a cleared out spot in the cellar should we have to move down there, with air mattresses, camp chairs and card tables
• rain buckets were out to collect water for flushing toilets
• having cat and chicken food and supplies to last for a while
• putting important documents in our emergency binder should we have to leave (which I was NOT planning on having to do)

This may not seem like quite enough to some, and perhaps too much for others, but somethings are pretty much a matter of not needing to think about them because it is part of our everyday life. For example, we have ample firewood should we need to cook on our outdoor fire pit because we heat our home and hot water with an outside wood boiler.  We have an outdoor fire pit mostly for the novelty of roasting marshmallows and enjoying a campfire right at home. As I was thinking about having to cook meals without electricity, the fire pit seemed a glorious life saver! Our pantry is usually well stocked with canned fruits, veggies, cold cereal, oatmeal and powdered milk because having a stocked pantry is part of our lifestyle. We also have a chest freezer in the cellar full of meat, frozen fruits and baked goods. Yes, the meat could go bad quickly (although my in-laws live right behind us and have a generator that they let us use to plug in our fridge and freezer) but the fruits and baked goods would be handy and slower to go bad. We have a source of protein from our egg producing chickens. (And although it pains me to say this, if worse came to worse, we could butcher a chicken or two.)

 I've yammered on about what I did, what did I learn? That I have so much more to learn about! Yes, I have a fire pit and plenty of wood, but not really the skill (or pots!) to cook over an open fire. Also, I hadn't really thought about toiletries or household goods. And what if we had had to evacuate? I honestly didn't plan for this because we live high on a hill, but even so, we could have been stranded. Their are also other emergencies where evacuating is what needs to be done.

My plan know is to learn more about using our fire pit as an alternative cooking source, buying the necessary items for this, i.e. cast iron pans and pots. I also need to get working on making kits for the car should we need to leave our home.

Please forgive me if this post is rambling, I've been working on it all week between house work and a multitude of errands! It can be difficult to pick up your thread of thought from the day before.

Have a lovely weekend!
Blessings,
Kelly

Wordless Wednesday

I want to thank you all for your prayers in concern to Irene. We made it through just fine, however, many of our Vermont neighbors have not fared as well. We have whole communities that are stranded or only accessible by walking, ATV or helicopter. There were also lives lost. Please continue to pray for Vermont, as we have quite a road to recovery. I'll be posting more about our visit with Irene soon. For now, I thought I'd share some more pleasant photos.

Getting Ready for Irene

My Emergency Planner: I actually got some stuff put in it!

It's Saturday, so that means joining the Link Up at Homestead Revival for the Preparedness Challenge. I'm thinking I should have paid more attention to our emergency planning! I'm starting to freak a little about our approaching guest, Irene. I'm not really worried about the safety of our home or property as much as losing power and the length of a power outage. I can deal without power, it's the lack of running water that freaks me out. (O.k., and I'm a little freaked about the wind blowing out our windows. It's always been a fear due to repetitive viewings of the Wizard of Oz at a young age. Yes I know it was a tornado, but it was HIGH WINDS!!! And I don't know if there's room over the rainbow for my family of 5, a cat and 16 chickens. I may need an extra pair of ruby slippers.)

Irrational fears and rants aside, I have managed to get some work done in readying for the storm. I've cleared a spot down cellar (I got rid of 4 garbage bags of outgrown clothes!!) should we need to bunk down there. We have camp chairs, 2 air mattresses, 2 card tables and plenty of boardgames.  I purchased one of those hand crank radio/flashlight/sirens the other night. (I also purchased a battery operated lantern but was a goober and didn't buy the "D" batteries to run it. I COULD NOT find any D batteries at any of the 4 stores I looked in. Moral of the story: don't let a slow checkout at Kmart make you lose consciousness enough to not but the darn batteries!) We have plenty of other flashlights that run on "AA" batteries, so I picked up two 20 packs of those.

The kiddos are going to help me wash some 2 quart mason jars and fill them with drinking water (they don't recommend this, but I'm not paying for plastic jugs of water when we will be staying home.) and putting them back down in the cellar. I'm thinking of filling our water bottles with drinking water, too, and they can be taken with us of needed. We're also going to put together some items in a plastic storage tote to bring down cellar or put in the car, worse case scenario. Making sure that Shawn and I have our rain suits accessible should we have to go out to check on the chickens, the driveway or anything else.

That is all I can think of (or have time to!) for now! Our prayers go out to those already affected by Irene. If you are in the areas projected to be affected, please prepare NOW! Listen to your local officials and stay informed. And be safe.
Many Blessings,
Kelly

A Friday Update

Happy Friday, Friends! I hope you are all doing well. I thought I would share a quick update of what is happening up here on our hill. I was going to do a post on planning for the school year, but with a very disorganized kitchen, some drama in the chicken coop and a hurricane headed for us, I thought better of it!

I have managed to get some things ticked off of the to-do list for this week. As you may have read on Tuesday's post, we got the school supplies loaded into the backpacks. Yesterday I took Princess out for her shopping trip, where she got to choose 2 new shirts and set of earrings. (The boys got new tractor shirts and baseball hats! John Deere, Massey Ferguson, International Harvester, etc.!) On Wednesday I was able to help Princess and Wheels go through their bureaus and weed out the things that they don't like/don't fit/have too many of. We were able to get rid of quite a bit! I was also able to remember to buy black ink for the printer and actually get to my desk and the desk top computer so that I can make up and print the new checklists. I did type up and print out a checklist for chicken chores. (I'll be sharing that in a later post!)

As I mentioned earlier, we've had some drama out at the chicken coop. Wednesday evening Wheels let the big girls and boy out to free range, as is our usual custom. Immediately after letting them out, our rooster Samuel went after Fanny, one of two of our older hens. He was being so aggressive that she flew up on to the top of the run. (our run is covered on the top because we have had so many hawks around this summer, and it's just safer all around!) Samuel strutted and squawked while Fanny rested and checked out her best route for escape. When she finally made it back down, he nabbed her again. This time I'd had enough! Poor Fanny had started growing back her feathers that she'd lost due to another aggressive rooster that her previous owners had (FYI they butchered said rooster!), but was bald again thanks to Samuel. Long story short, Samuel was put in solitary confinement where he will remain until we can find a new home for him. Moral of the story, (admittedly, there is a naughty little side of me itching to write something, well, naughty!) DON'T MESS WITH THIS CHICKEN MAMA'S GIRLS! We also have a laying pullet that may be egg bound, or just broody. I'm keeping an eye on her and we're set up in case we have to help her pass the egg. I'm really hoping she's just broody, but she seems rather lethargic.

So, now we have Hurricane Irene gunning for us. Hurricanes are not a normal event for us here in the Green Mountain State. We're land locked, and seemingly safe nestled in the lush mountains that are our state's namesake. However, we are due our portion of extreme weather, I guess.(Click here to see the projected path of Irene.) For today, I'm going to have the kiddos pick up toys, tools, etc. that are laying around outside, while I concentrate my efforts on the kitchen. I have clean, empty mason jars on the counter, a waffle maker with no cupboard to call home, a homeless pressure canner and a basket full of cucumbers and zucchinis. Plus, much more! After finding homes for these items, I want to get a head start on shredding zucchini and mixing up dry ingredients for zucchini bread and breakfast cookies. Then I'm going to put up some drinking water in case we lose power, and see to other emergency preparations.

If you are like us, and unaccustomed to being prepared for hurricanes, you can check out these 2 links:

• Hurricane Preparedness
• Ready.gov Hurricanes

My dear hubby will be working on cleaning up a spot in the cellar just in case we have to go down there. We have plenty of canned goods, dry pasta and cereals, powdered milk, etc. I'm going to put a tote together of some items to put in the car just in case we should have to leave, although I doubt that that will happen. I would just rather be safe than sorry. Tomorrow I'll be posting more on emergency prepping, if I have time. I might be too busy prepping to post!

The most important thing I will be doing in the midst of all this, is praying. Despite all of our preparations and checklists, we need to remember that the Lord has this all in His hands.

I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress,

 my God, in whom I trust." Psalm 91:2

Do not forget to pray, dear Friends, no matter what you may be facing. Our Father is faithful, merciful and loving. 

Well, Friends, that is all for now. I have a pullet to check on and a kitchen to clean!
Blessings,
Kelly

First Aid Kits and DIY Fire Starters

Happy Saturday friends! As you know, Saturdays are when i look back at the week and see what of done in the area of preparedness and link up with Amy over at Homestead Revival. This week my goal was to work on emergency preparedness, so I decided to take a look at all of our first aid kids. Yes, I said all; not only do we have one in the house, but one for each of our vehicles and I carry a mini one in my purse and the bag for the Rec. I also made some fire starters, some of which will go in the camping stuff, but I'm thinking of keeping one in each vehicle and in a stash in the house for, well, emergencies!

For the first aid kits, I opened them all up and went through the contents. I checked the expiration dates on the ointments and medications, and most them needed to be tossed. Then I checked the condition of the band aids, cleansing towelettes, and alcohol prep pads. I repacked them, and added fresh stock if needed. I also made note of what I need to purchase and add to the kits. Then back to their spots in the cars, purse and bathroom cabinet they went! for more on making up a first aid kit, visit these sites:

• American Red Cross: Anatomy of a First Aid Kit
• First Aid Kit checklist from Ready.gov

As I was going through the first aid supplies for the house (which is a bit more extensive than it's traveling sisters) I thought that for this coming week, it might be a good idea to make up a cold care kit for the house, and maybe even a smaller version for travel (you never know when the sniffles and coughs are going to strike!). For our family's kit, I'm thinking of including:

• chest vapor rub
• small tube of petroleum jelly for chapped noses
• nasal strips for congestion
• rice bag for heating up for congested heads or chests
• cough drops
• small container of salt for salt water gargles
• saline mist for nasal congestion and dryness
• cold and cough meds

I'm sure there is something more to add, but that's not bad for starters! I'd also like to learn more about herbal remedies and such, and then include those items as well.

On to the homemade fire starters. We've been saving our egg cartons for when our girls start laying (which we have 6 laying now!!!!), so I grabbed one, scooted up to my in laws and scooped up some saw dust, filled the egg cups with sawdust and waited for my wax to melt. (And waited...and waited...and waited........) *Now for a little aside!* I like to burn candles in the fall and winter months. When the jar candles get too low to safely burn, I place them on my electric candle warmer. When the wax is no longer putting out much scent, I pour the melted wax into a glass jar that I keep under the sink. (You can also go here for a thrifty little tip from a previous post: Waxing Reusable:Homemade wax tarts) I knew that I could reuse that wax for something some day. I'm also thinking of buying some wicks to make my own jar candles out of the used left over wax. Aside is over!* Once the wax was melted, i carefully poured it over the sawdust filled cups. I tried them out, and am very pleased with how well they do. I would like to look into other homemade fire starters to compare them and see what works best. I have seen the egg carton ones made with lint instead of sawdust, as well as something about petroleum jelly and cotton balls or lint. For better instructions on making the fire starters go to:youtube video of egg carton fire starter or fire starter tutorial.

So that is what I've done this week. I've also talked to my darling hubby about enlarging the garden for next year. He suggested we made more raised beds, so we'll be doing that sometime this early fall, I'm hoping. I also have plans of making an herb drying rack to hang and dry some of my herbs. I am going to try to at least get my materials together for it.

Have a wonderful weekend, all!
Blessings,
Kelly

Plans of the Diligent

The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty. Proverbs 21:5

If you have ever read my blog before, you know that I make a lot of plans. This is both a good and a bad thing. It's good when I remember my proverbs, but bad when I steam ahead with "tunnel vision". I admit to being prone to this, as well as not wanting to plan for things that I'm not really enthusiastic about. That's why the blog Homestead Revival's Preparedness Challenges are good for me. After all, who wants to plan for something we'd rather not think about, such as weather related emergencies or even worse. However, not taking the time to ready ourselves, families and homes isn't going to help us any. (OR delay an emergency!)

Before I get to far, I do want to add, that first and foremost we should not be anxious. Nor should we feel that being prepared in anyway shows doubt in God's faithfulness or love. I believe that being prepared for an emergency is good stewardship.Knowing how to care for your home and family should a disaster strike is just smart. And the more families that are prepared, the more to serve those that are not or that are unable to help themselves, such as the elderly and disabled. Also, depending on where you live and what sort of weather you have, your next door neighbor and you could both be prepared, but their home is damaged while yours is not and vice versa.

So, back to planning. I got the planner pictured above from my mother for my birthday a few years ago. It's blank and empty, as pristine as the day I received it. That's not a good thing. After reading the post at Homestead Revival, I decided it was time to get it out and take a look. It has room for planning as well as soring some important documents. It's handy because you can grab it in the event that you need to leave your home quickly. There are places to record contact information for family members as well as out of town relatives to use as contacts. It also emergency kit checklists and contact info for American Red Cross, FEMA, etc. My goal for this coming week is to get the family contact info. filled out, as well as the contact info. for out of state relatives. I'd also like to get working on our 72 hour kits.

Not feeling ready to tackle emergency prep. on large scale? (If not, I really encourage you to start thinking about it!) What about small scale? Do you have a first aid kit in each vehicle? How about in your purse? I have a kit in each of our vehicles. It doesn't have to be fancy or huge, but it should contain some basics such as:

band aids

antibacterial ointment

hand sanitizer

antiseptic/antibacterial cleaning for wounds

pain relievers such as Tylenol or ibuprofen

tweezers

You might want to include anything that is a special need for your family, such as contact lens solution and lens case, eyedrops, etc. And perhaps an instant cold pack if you have a real accident prone family member. For moms, you might want to consider a bag for every occasion that includes a first aid kit. I have a "Rec" bag that goes to the rec center with us that contains a first aid kit, bug spray, sunblock, baby wipes, and an extra white shirt that will fit any of my kiddos. It doesn't hurt to have a non-aerosol bottle of bug spray and sunblock in the car for impromptu hikes, etc.

Do you have any plans in place in case of an emergency? If you do, please share! You can leave a comment below.

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Kelly