Shower and Visit

Lots of things to report, my shower is finished, well it's finished enough to take a shower in, be sure to click "read more" below to see the entire post...

I'm Still Here...

Hi everyone, long time no post... I'm still here, just been busy with family, my dad and son came out for a visit at the beginning of the month, so I've been playing the host role and doing some tourist stuff... they are leaving tomorrow, so things (and posts) will return to their irregularly scheduled schedule... I have lots to report on, so stay tuned. :)



All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

The Ultimate Guide to Homesteading-Book Review

Homesteading, it’s a buzzword that means different things to different people, back in the day, it meant getting land for free as long as you lived on it and improved it for x number of years. It was a way to get people to move west (in the USA), back when travel was slow and painful, even dangerous.


Today it usually refers to someone who is living more like our ancestors did, in a more self sufficient manner, on a plot of land, often raising livestock, growing their own food, living more independently. Most of us are more than one generation removed from those who lived on a farm or homestead, so we don’t benefit from the knowledge of our family members who lived in a more self sufficient manner. I know in my family, it was my great grand parents who had lived on a farm, my grandparents and parents lived in suburban neighborhoods with small yards and animals no bigger than a dog.

Because of this, those of us who want to live closer to the land have to resort to alternative methods of obtaining  knowledge. I continually scour the internet for books about living off grid, gardening and such, I found this book The Ultimate Guide to Homesteading: An Encyclopedia of Independent Living (The Ultimate Guides), actually I didn’t find it, I was offered an opportunity to review it and I jumped at the chance, it was a book I had been looking at previously and was more than happy to review it.

I keep getting distracted from writing because I keep finding more and more interesting things in this book to read, I just read about growing cotton, then picking it, cleaning it, and spinning it. Since I crochet, this is especially appealing to me, and something I think I can do with little trouble. For now, I’m not set up to raise wool bearing animals, but I can grow cotton and process it.

This book has a lot to offer, it doesn’t go into extreme detail on any one subject, but gives you enough information so that you can decide if that particular thing is something you really want to try.  Nicole Faires (don’t you just love her name?) the author, has certainly lived the life, she is not just spouting theory, she grew up on a hobby farm raising chickens and growing her own food among other things.
While not an exhaustive list of homesteading subjects, I believe it covers the majority of them quite nicely, such as:

• land-buying, communities…
• water-getting it, purifying it and such
• food-finding it, growing it, preserving it…
• animals-livestock, domestic…
• shelter-various home styles, barns, fences…
• financial-making money from your skills…
• health-medicines, herbal medicines,
• and lots more

There is a great  dictionary in the back so you will at least sound like you know what you are talking about when chatting with the old timers at the feed store, LOL, seriously, I have had a good time reading the terminology and their meanings. Such as “butt-up”, before reading this book, I would have said that is how one lands when tripping over a rock and doing a face plant, now I know that is a type of roof ridge made in thatching which forces the straw together from both sides of the roof to form a peak. “Flying change”, I would think it’s what happens when you lose control of your change purse, but it really has to do with horses.

Near the back of the book, just before the index, the author’s bio and several blank pages (perfect for adding your own notes), there is a great bibliography with tons of resources, mostly in the form of internet links. These will send you to more detailed resources for the subjects found in this book. This alone is worth the price of the book.

The book is easy to read, well made, with lots of color photographs and diagrams, nice thick glossy pages ensure this book will last for a long time, that’s a good thing because once you have this book, you will be referring to it over and over again throughout the years.

PB (my hubby) has been trying to steal this book from me ever since I received it, his comment on it was that it is a good all over resource, not detailed on each thing, but a good book and he’s glad we have it, he has also been going on and on about how well this book is physically put together, the binding, the paper quality and the pictures. Now that I’m finished with this review, I can safely give the book to him, I’ll not see it again for a while. :)


See my other book reviews here:
http://wretha.blogspot.com/search/label/book review


Honesty disclaimer:
I did receive this book free from the publisher for the expressed intent of giving a review, that in no way influenced my review, all of my reviews are honest and from the heart.



All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

Things are starting to slow down a bit for me, sort of... now I am working on a book review, and it's well overdue, this book looks like it's going to be a good one. It's called The Ultimate Guide to Homesteading: An Encyclopedia of Independent Living (The Ultimate Guides), at first glance I can you that it contains a plethora of great information, thumbing through it there are chapters on basics, shelter, animals, comforts, health, gardening, and more. It's a substantial book with lots of info.



Right now I have to get ready to go to church, did I mention that I am now on the board of my church? Newly voted in. I'm also the secretary of the board, all that means is I take the minutes during the meeting and read them at the next. This is also first Sunday, we have a wonderful dinner after church, next week is second Sunday, we share in the dinner at the other church in our neighborhood (they come to ours too).


All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

Bonus, sort of...

Have you ever heard the phrase "The Lord provides."? Well, I can tell you that He does, I had an extra paycheck show up this week, normally I have direct deposits, and I was paid on the 29th of July as normal, then a few days later I received a check in the mail from the company I work for, it was dated Aug 1, and the hours were slightly different from the one from last pay period, I was pretty weirded out about it, I have received random bonuses before, but never an entire pay period worth of pay. I initially thought they might have duplicated my paycheck, but since the hours were slightly different, I knew that wasn't the case. No matter how I tried to add things up, I couldn't figure out how or why they were giving me this check.

I went into town yesterday, I took the paycheck to the office where my supervisor works, I wanted to find out what it was all about before I deposited it, the company I work for has messed things up before (not in my favor though, and not my supervisor, she is an angel, so is the current office manager) and I didn't want to be accused of accepting a paycheck that I didn't have coming. When I walked through the door, the office manager smiled at me and asked if I had received a surprise... turns out that earlier in the year, I had turned in a bunch of time sheets at the same time, yeah I'm terrible at keeping up with those sorts of things, somehow one of them had gotten mishandled and I never got paid for it and I didn't catch it. They were doing an audit and found the time sheet that I hadn't gotten paid for and sent it in.

I really needed that extra check this time, I am so glad they caught the mistake and took care of it, I'm also glad that I checked it before depositing it, that makes me look good to them, honest, and being a caretaker I need to be seen as honest, too many caretakers steal from the people they take care of, I just found out about another lady I know whose family member received the same service from the same company, she discovered a bunch of money missing from her bedroom, she can't prove it was her caretaker or exactly when it happened, but that is the only other person who comes to her house. I am an honest person, to a fault, so anytime I can prove it to the company without a doubt is a good thing. And besides, if I hadn't talked to them and just sent the check in, I would have worried about it, worried that it might have been a mistake and eventually they might have caught it and thought badly of me for taking it. Now I have a clear conscience and a bigger bank account. :) I also keep up with my time sheets better, and turn them in on time.



All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

Simple Question

Or maybe it's not so simple...


If you could change one thing about your life (or yourself), what would be it and why?

Leave your answer in the comments section. I'm very curious to see what will be written, I'll write my answer later, I have one but don't want to influence anyone's answer. :)

I'll temporarily remove restrictions on posting comments, anyone can comment, the comments will still be moderated though.  Sorry, had to put the restrictions back on for anonymous postings, thanks spammers, you ruin it for everyone.



All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

Eggs & Scorpions

One has nothing to do with the other, but I'm writing about them in the same post, so here goes, LOL!

Yesterday after church, I went by a friend's house to buy some eggs, like many people who live in my neighborhood, they have far more laying chickens than they really need for just the 2 of them, so they almost always have a surplus of eggs. When I got there and asked about buying the eggs, I was informed that I couldn't buy any, but I could have some. She went into the kitchen and promptly brought out a dozen and a half, I offered to pay again but was again turned down, I have to say that I have the best neighbors! These are pretty eggs too, she has the kind of chickens that lay colored eggs, greens and such, they are almost too pretty to crack and eat, almost, they are very tasty too, so that makes it easier to use them.

I do recycle the egg shells, I rinse them out and allow them to dry, once dry I break them into small pieces then spread them in my garden. The calcium and other goodies are excellent for the garden, especially tomatoes, they require lots of calcium to prevent blossom end rot, I also understand it deters slugs and such, they don't like crawling across the broken shells, though I haven't seen even one slug out here.

Now to the scorpions. They are back, about a week ago, one fell on me inside the sky castle, fortunately I didn't get stung by that one, last summer we had a major rash of them, we were killing 2-3 ever night inside the house, I did get stung last year, I have to say, they HURT! Normally I'm a live and let live kind of gal, but in this case, I have to take action, I do not want to get stung again.

When the one fell on me the other day, that was the last straw, I decided it was time to go on the offense, I know that they fluoresce under UV light, so I purchased a 51 bulb UV LED flashlight. I received it on Friday and as soon as it got dark, I put it to work. I went around the sky castle out to about a 10 foot radius, I found and killed about a dozen of them. I don't really want to eradicate the population, I know they are beneficial, but dang it, they HURT when you get stung by one. If they would just stay outside, I wouldn't mind so much, but they manage to find their way inside, and they have a habit of crawling up to the ceiling and falling down on you.

The second night, I repeated the same thing, just after dark, I went around and didn't find as many, I killed about 5-6. This morning before daylight, I walked between my house and my neighbor's house, I killed 2 of them. I think I'm making a dent in the extreme local population. I understand they can live several years (5 is what I remember reading), I also understand that poisons do not work on them very well, and I don't want to poison everything around me, it's just better to kill them directly as I find them.

I also use the UV flashlight inside the sky castle, I look around to make sure there aren't any scorpions crawling around, since they are active at night, it's hard to spot them, but with the UV light, they glow quite brightly and are easy to spot. I keep it next to me at my computer, and when I go to bed, that way if I think there might be one nearby, I can grab the light and look around. It makes me feel much better.

This light works great, it does give off some visible light, that is not necessarily a good thing for the UV part, but for what I'm doing, it's great because I don't have to carry and use a separate flashlight, I can see just well enough to not trip over anything or run into something unpleasant. The flashlight lights up the scorpions quite nicely, they glow a bright green, they almost don't look real, but they are very real and become very squished as I find them. This uses 3 AA batteries, not so many that I mind using them, but it's enough juice to put out quite a bit of light, I have spotted scorpions at 8-10 feet away, though mostly I am finding them at about 4-5 feet. I like the LED part, it puts out good light without using much juice, so my batteries will last longer.

Happy Independence Day everyone! Have a safe 4th of July!



All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

Summer Days Before The Monsoon Season

Summer is in full swing, the garden is growing, the sky castle is growing, well sort of growing, it's being improved anyhow. PB has been working on the roof of the extra room on the end of the west deck. I like saying "west deck" because I hope to someday have other decks around the sky castle. It's been so blasted hot that PB only works in the mornings and the evenings. We are supposed to be getting some rain this weekend, though they keep pushing it back, we had 50% chance of rain on Saturday, now it's a 30% on Sunday, I just want it to RAIN!

I've been busier than ever, I am still a caretaker for a friend out here, I go to her house 3x a week and do whatever needs to be done, that usually means cooking, cleaning and such. I'm also driving another lady into town once a week, sometimes more often. She is losing her eyesight and isn't comfortable driving anymore, so I get to go into town at least once a week and do whatever shopping I need to do, we tend to go to the same places so it works out great for both of us, I help her with her shopping too. I bought some brightly colored t-shirts, hot pink, red, orange, safety yellow and purple, I wear one when I'm out with her so that when we are in the stores, she can spot me easily, she has some eyesight, and can still see color quite nicely, I don't have to stick to her like glue, this way she knows when I'm next to her and when I'm at the other end of the aisle.

Back at the sky castle, we hung up a second hummingbird feeder, and the hummers are quite happy about it, just having one means the most dominant hummer gets most of the food, now more of the hummers can get some, though they still fight over it. Right now it's not so bad, but when the Rufus hummer shows up, they are very aggressive and will not share at all, with the second feeder, this will give everyone a chance to feed, unless a second Rufus shows up...

Our west deck is nicely illuminated now, when my Dad came out to visit, he arrived bearing gifts (my Dad is the best!), one of those gifts was a package of those solar lights, this was meant to go on the trail between our house and our neighbor's house. PB had other ideas, he placed them outside around the deck, including the steps he made for the deck, the lights are subtle, they don't make so much light as to attract a myriad of night bugs, but they make a soft light so that you can walk outside on the deck at night and not fear tripping over something or taking a misstep on the steps. PB's Mom also sent a package to us, one of the items on this package was a solar light, this one is shaped like a decorative lantern, the light is green and is quite pretty. We placed it where we can see it from inside the sky castle, PB's Mom is also the best!

I received a printer last week, it's something I have wanted and somewhat needed since we moved here, it would seem that my old all in one printer/scanner/copier died a couple of weeks before moving out here, I had already quit working at Best Buy (bummer), money was real tight and I couldn't justify spending any money on another one when it wasn't a complete necessity. I was able to buy this with my Amazon.com credits from the clicks and sales from this site and the other sites where I write, thanks to everyone who made their purchases through my links, those pennies really do add up!

Here is the printer I purchased, it's a Canon PIXMA MG5220 Wireless Inkjet Photo All-In-One (4502B017), I wanted an all in one printer, I was very interested in the scanner part, since I do a lot of crochet now, it's much easier to scan the pattern (from a magazine or book) and take that with me, or printing off songs (lyrics) so I can use it at my music keyboard, I'm getting better and better at playing BTW, at church this Sunday a couple of people told me I was sounding very good.

Back to the printer, before I ordered it, I was concerned about it working on my off grid system, I knew that a laser printer would not work on a modified sine wave inverter, but I wasn't sure about this particular printer, I was mainly worried about the scanner part not working. I emailed Canon and asked them about it, apparently they don't get questions like that, they couldn't give me an answer, finally they just said "try it and see".  I even considered getting a battery backup (UPS) but then I remembered that even with those, they say not to hook up a printer on the battery side, so that wouldn't work either.

I am happy to state that it does work very well on my system, wow have printers changed in 3 years! It took about an hour to hook it up and get it running, it was mainly the software/driver side that took so long, but I was patient and followed all of the steps. I chose not to use one of the features on this one, it has a wireless printing feature, I can always access that later if I want, but for my needs, I just don't need it, but I'm glad it's available.

I'm being very frugal with it, I only ordered one package of paper, it also had free shipping so it didn't run my total bill up at all. I haven't gone crazy with printing and such, I want to save as much of the ink and paper as possible, even though this printer has separate ink tanks for each color, I still don't want to have to shell out more $$$ for more any time soon.

I have more to write, but I'll save it for another post. Oh, almost forgot to report, I have another book to review, I just received it, it looks very promising, more to come later! You can see my other book reviews here CLICK FOR BOOK REVIEWS, and in case you haven't noticed, I'm now offering ad space on this blog, the prices are very reasonable, I also limit the number of ads so your ad will not be lost in a sea of ads. Be sure to visit my newest advertiser, http://www.shedandshelter.com/, there's lots of great resources there about different ways to make/build/purchase conventional and unconventional homes, many are very inexpensive and ingenious.



All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

Happy Father's Day

I know this is late in the day, but the day is still here, so I'll write

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

to my Dad, who just happens to be the best Dad in the world!

I love my Dad so much, and I am so fortunate to still have him and he is in good health, and at almost 83 years of age, he still drives all over the place and is active.

I have learned so much from him, things like how to cook, how to fix things, how to be independent, how to be frugal, how to forgive and to always look to God no matter what.

Thanks Dad for being there for me. :)

All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

Sad Days

If you have been following this blog for any length of time, you are aware of my baby girl Pekoe, my long hair chihuahua. I have had her since she was weaned, she was always a good dog, quiet, never a barkey or nippy dog, well maybe she was a nippy dog, especially to strangers (we just kept her at a safe distance, I was more worried about her hurting herself than hurting other people)... but she was still my sweet little baby,  I could go on but I won't.

About a month ago, she got pretty sick, I hoped she would spring back, but at 12+ years old, she just didn't bounce back like she used to. I took her to the vet and he said she had a heart murmur, by that time she had gotten pretty sick, the vet gave her a long acting antibiotic shot and said let's see how she does.

I took her home and watched as she got sicker and sicker each day, I took her back to the vet, he gave her another antibiotic shot and a cortisone shot. He prescribed a heart medicine for her and sent us home.

By this time, she had gotten so much sicker, she coughed constantly and had little strength, she wouldn't eat and had lost a half a pound over a long weekend, that's a lot for a little dog, I had always kept her weight around 5-6 pounds most of her life. When I took her to the vet the first time (on this illness) she was at 7.5, in the following week, she went down to 7.

She then started bloating, mainly her stomach, it really affected the way she walked and stood, so I called the vet again and he prescribed a diuretic. So now, on a heart pill and a diuretic, she still wasn't getting any better, in fact she was going downhill pretty fast. I had been debating if it was time to put her to sleep.

On Wednesday of last week, I was supposed to be going to town (3 hours away) with the lady I work for, but the day before, Pekoe's back legs swelled up 2x the normal size. That wasn't a good sign at all. She couldn't walk more than a few steps before falling down in exhaustion, I called my friend to tell her I wouldn't be going to town with her. I knew that I would be taking her to the vet for the final time. I spent the night in tears, praying to God, asking that He take her instead of letting her suffer. The following day, I spend the entire morning with Pekoe in my bed for the last time, we cuddled and napped together.

I'll not write out the rest of what happened in any detail, it's too sad, let's just say that I took her to the vet, what clenched it for me is when I let her on the ground outside the vet's office to let her take her last squat, she couldn't get back up. She passed peacefully, looking into my eyes while I talked to her, the vet and his staff were gentle and compassionate.

I am so glad I didn't have to drive either way, a good friend took me in and talked to me all the way home, it worked out the best way it could.

When I got home with Pekoe, PB had made her a proper casket, with little handles. We picked out a spot to bury her and PB dug the hole, he made it pretty deep, he was standing up to his waist in the hole. We put Pekoe in the casket, along with some food and water so she will never be hungry or thirsty, I also put in some Cheerios cereal, that was her favorite morning snack. I included a toy that PB's mom sent last Christmas. She is buried near the garden, under a stand of trees. PB is making a headstone for her.

This is very sad for me, for anyone who doesn't understand why or how someone can be so hurt by losing a pet, my reply is I feel sorry for you as it's clear that you never had a deep relationship with a pet, they have unconditional love, they are so trusting, to me she was part of my family and the pain I feel is a direct reflection of the love I felt for her, and she for me.

If you want to see the pictures of the casket, click on the "read more" below, if you do not wish to see the casket (with Pekoe in it, then don't click on it).