Frugal Warmth During Our First Snow Flurries

We are getting our first flurry's of the winter this evening. I, personally, love snow! It is always so pure, so white, so crisp. A blank canvas where beautiful nature seems to whisper "look at me"!

I am excited. I know it won't stick and we won't have any accumulation, however, I am enjoying the beauty of the different shaped flakes falling to the ground.

With that being said, we are having record lows in my neck of the woods (It is 8 pm and it is down to 19 degrees with a wind chill of 5). We burn wood so this can be a problem if no one is awake to stoke the fire in the middle of the night. I will be setting my alarm to get up every 2 hours to add a log and make sure that the inside of the house stays warm.

My main concern is the water pipes. Every year we have several breaks. It can be costly and irritating. This year we have been turning our water off at night where it comes into the house and draining all the water out of the pipes by leaving the spouts open and flushing the toilets. We haven't had one break this season and we also haven't had any frozen water pipes to deal with either!

To keep ourselves warm and toasty in our beds we use electric throw blankets. We each have one. They cost about $20 at Walmart. I prefer the throws over full sized electric blankets because if the weather is cool enough to need a little heat up on the feet or legs but not cool enough to waste wood in a fire the ones who are cold can just grab their throws. We turn them on about 20 minutes before going to bed. When we crawl in bed it is warm and comforting. It costs only about $1 a month to run an electric throw blanket. With 6 of them running in the house we use about $6 worth of electric heating our beds over the course of a month. That is a pretty reasonable price for sleeping comfortably. The dogs pile in the beds with us and all cuddle in for the evening. It's a cozy and wonderful time of year here on our homestead. (It is also my favorite time of year. You can always add clothes to warm up but taking off clothes to cool down isn't always an option).

How do you frugally save money during the winter time?

Free Kindle Books Today

Amazon often has books you can read for free on Kindle. If you don't have a Kindle you can get the Kindle App on any device. These were free at the time of posting. Make sure to check the price BEFORE clicking buy now. 

If you like a book make sure to buy it for FREE so it is in your library to read at a later date. 

Herbal Tea

Housekeeping For The Soul

Chicken Coops

Gardening Magical World of Self-Sufficient Living

Minimalism

365 Days of DIY

Homesteading: A way of life that's not for everyone

BeeKeeping

Self Sufficiency: A Beginners Guide To Self Sufficiency Box Set 4 in 1 (Tiny Houses, Backyard Chickens, Homesteading, Mini Farming)

Homesteading Tools! Expected verses Actual

So with all that has been going on I have kind of gotten off track of keeping things together homestead wise. With working 2 jobs and the farm and the kids and just life in general happening I have gotten just mired down.

I realized this yesterday and just decided I needed to regroup and readjust where I am and what I need to get done....I have a lot of people ask me about tools and such we use on the homestead. We made a list years ago of things we would need. We have worked slowly on getting those items built up. We had a set limit of money we would spend on each item. As we find them for that price we buy them if we have the extra money.

Here is that list.



The first item is the item we needed. The first price is what we anticipated paying. The second price (if there is one) is the price we actually paid.




Green House $200

2 compost piles $50 $40

Chainsaw $100 $169*

Bone Saw $20 $5

Gardening Fence $200 FREE

 2 Plum Trees $60 $30 

 2 Apple Trees $60

2 Peach Trees $60 $12 (still need 1)

Good Barn $500

Bow Saw $20 $5

Horse Trailer $1000 $1400

Wood Stove $300 $65

Heirloom Seeds $100 $79

2 Spade Shovels $50 $6 (still need 1)

2 Regular Shovels $50 $6 (still need 1)

6 Quilts $500 decided to make on own

Tractor $3000

Tiller $300 $70 (auction)

Wheel Barrow $100 FREE

15 Rabbit Cages $300 $60

2 Freezers $300 $65 for one the other free

Hoe $25 FREE

Broad Fork $50

6 Oil Lamps $100

Cast Iron Cookware $100 $60*

Canning Jars/Lids continual cost per year

Welder $200 $50

Torch $50

Pressure Canner $150 $79

We overspent on the chainsaw. However, we did get a bigger one than we anticipated and I bought it for Morgan new for Christmas as a gift. I did use a coupon and it was on sale. We had figured we would have to buy a smaller used one so we came out ahead by spending the extra money and getting a larger new one for not much more money.

Morgan got me my cast iron set (I had many pans already but wanted to add to them) for Christmas the same year we got the Chainsaw. It was on sale the day after Thanksgiving.

The freezer at Church started frosting inside really badly. The church opted to buy a new one. They gave us the old one and we figured we would have to replace the seal. We unloaded it in the drive way where it had to set for 3 days until we could get it inside. This warmed the seal up enough that walla it went back into place and so we had to pay nothing for it.

We paid more for the horse trailer than we anticipated, however, we got a chance to buy a bigger one that was much newer than we had planned which would do us a lot better for just $400 more. We got this from a friend and were able to make payments on it.

The bone saw and other saw we got super cheap off of a Facebook group where a guy was selling out a bunch of stuff because he was moving out of the country.

The wood stove we bought off of a Facebook selling group. It wasn't the exact kind I wanted but it worked for what we need. In a few years, after we get a few other things bought up, I will purchase a new one when it goes on sale for the end of the season.

The rabbit cages came cheaply because we had some wire given to us and we bought some other wire on sale. It was MUCH cheaper than we had anticipated materials wise.

Heirloom seeds will be a constant, however, we won't have to buy the same kinds of seeds every year as we can harvest from what we grow. I do anticipate it costing us about $50 per year to add new things and such.

We add to this list as we find other things we might need and as we learn of things that would just make our homesteading life easier and better.

Hope this list inspires you to make one of your own and figure out what you need! Planning is definitely key to Homesteading.

Bertha decided to bless us with the piglets a little after midnight on Friday night. Of course, she does this because I worked 15 hours and had just gotten home and laid down and needed to be up to go work the auction in just a few hours. 

She had 3 adorable little ones. 2 guilts and 1 boar pig. Mama is doing a great job. She is a seasoned mom but when you weigh over 700 pounds its kind of hard not to lay on the little ones.

We will be keeping all 3 on the farm. The red and white one is the male. The final photo is mama. I tried to get into the pen to move those two bricks but Bertha wasn't having any of that. 

Warning about the photo: cuteness overload

I'd done a lot of things different.

I have had an ongoing conversation with myself today about life. Life in general, life in reality, life in dreams.

How I anticipated, at the age of 15, what life would be like. How it was at 21 and how different I figured it would be. How 30 seemed to be the limit of how long I wanted to live. How life at 44 is certainly not as I planned it out to be. 

The truth is that my life, today, is nothing like I had ever planned it to be. There were lots of chances I took that I look back and wonder "What was I thinking". There are lots of chances I didn't take and I have some regrets over the way things turned out.

My plans were much different in high school than they are now. I planned on being single, having a law degree, living in a big city,  childless, and doing whatever I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. I was going to advocate for women and children.

In reality, I am not a lawyer, am married, have 3 children of my own, 2 step children, 3 grandchildren, and live on a farm.The only advocating I do is why bedtime needs to be 30 minutes earlier. I am not convincing a judge but rather trying to convince kids and grand-kids that they need more sleep. (For the record, convincing a judge would be much easier.)

I slop around in mud with pigs and goats who are trying to have little ones. I get dirt under my fingernails working in the garden. I mow my own yard. I try to cuddle with my chickens. I have a trailer house..a far cry from the large house I had planned. 

When I look back at my life, although I do have regrets and often wonder where my dreams went, I cannot imagine life any different than the way it is right at this moment. I can't imagine waking up and getting in my truck without chickens under my feet waiting to see if I brought out a treat. I cannot imagine life without a baby goat in front of the wood stove in the winter. I cannot imagine life without noisy screaming pigs in the pasture waiting to see if they can have an extra bucket of feed. I cannot imagine life without my grand-kids calling my name.

I set tonight and wonder how many of my friends find their lives to be exactly what they TRULY wanted instead of what they THOUGHT they wanted. 

Today I am so very thankful that God knew what I wanted and provided that over the dream I thought was perfect for me.

God's Grammar Rules: 

1. Never put a period where God puts a comma. 

2. Never put a comma where God puts a period! 

Joanna Weaver

Homesteading Plans

Since my last post I have really been trying to decide exactly where it is I want to go with things here on the homestead and how I plan on getting there.

I decided to go with a 3 year plan with goals for each year. Of course at the end of each year we will reassess and see if we need to be going in another direction.

The store will be shut down July 30^th. That means I will have more free time to do things around the homestead that need to be done.

While I am waiting on the store to close I am going room by room and organizing and cleaning. I am getting rid of what we don’t wear, what we don’t use, what we don’t need. This will make things simpler for me to just move into the new role when the time gets here.

Here is what my three year plan looks like. This is just a plan. We have often found ourselves blessed and able to move things from one year to the next because items were given to us or we found them for reasonable.

Year One

Pay off loans (all but vehicle loan and mortgage)

Raise a big enough garden that I am able to put at least 500 jars of home canned food away. This will include crushed tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, salsa, pickles, sand plum jelly, green beans, corn, and black-eyed peas.

Keep track of what grows well and what doesn’t and in what area it will be. This will help me to prepare for year two plans of what needs to be added and what needs to be changed around.

Apply for grant for high tunnel.

Till second garden area in partially shaded area for lettuce and items that don’t handle sun well.

Build two raised bed gardens for herbs and other edible items that don’t need to be planted near the garden.

Reintroduce rabbits to the farm for extra income and meat.

Plant 3 fruit trees

Start saving for tractor

Only handmade gifts for Christmas (quilts, soaps, lotions, things of that nature)

Year Two

Have at least 4 nanny goats and 1 male goat for breeding and milk purposes. Sell all but 2 female babies.

Butcher 1 pig and 50 Cornish Cross chickens for freezer and pressure canning to fill storage.

Apply for grant for bee hives.

Buy a Steer Calf for processing in year four

Use extra bedroom as seed starting room

Sell babies from all 3 female pigs for extra income

Attend farmers market to sell extra produce

Can at least 500 jars of food for storage and replenishing pantry

Pay off Vehicle loan

Build outdoor kitchen

Plant 3 fruit trees/bushes

Plant new garden area

Replace older chickens with younger pullets

Year Three

Put in solar panels

Buy a female cow (already raised) to allow for our own meat production in later years.

Pay off mortgage

Replace windows in house and add on screened in porch to ensure not using air conditioner

Buy a tractor (cash money only)

These are pretty basic goals and I realize that but homesteading is a pretty basic. It does take planning, time, and effort to be successful, What do your homestead plans look like? We are "new" to all this so I am sure there are things I have missed. This is a learning process for each of us and what works for one doesn't work for others. Here is to learning and figuring things out. 

Getting Off Balance

Have you ever gotten out of bed one morning and thought how did I get here? Have you ever wondered how you manged to get so off balance that life was passing you by without you even realizing your dreams and hopes had been derailed somewhere down the line and you don't even remember when or where?

I woke up yesterday morning feeling that exact way. I looked around and wondered what the heck happened. I had a dream. Somewhere I lost it. So, I have searched my heart and mind the last 24 hours and tried to figure out where things went wayward. Truth be told I was never able to figure out exactly where they veered from the plan. I just know they did. They got lost in the shuffle. A shuffle I didn't even realize was happening.

So this morning, after some doctor's appointments and some rather unsettling news, I have decide to regroup and get back to where I intended to be. Refocus on the dream. Reestablish what the dream truly is, and make a plan to get back to where I need (and want) to be.


I think focus is a huge problem for so many of us because we are use to living in a time where so much has to be crammed into so little. We want small cell phones that act like huge computers. We want large houses that have small house payments. We want cars that interact with our cell phones, that drive themselves, that beep when we are about to hit something.

We want everything bigger. Better, More User friendly.

I remember a time when I left the house and never had to worry about someone calling me. In fact, I actually remember my mother turning off the ringer on the phone that hung on the wall. I remember setting outside drinking Kool-aid because we didn't have all the soda water, bottle water, iced coffee, energy drinks that we had now. In fact, you were pretty certain to remind your mother to get sugar for the Kool-aid at the store so you didn't have to drink it bitter.

I am not certain why I, personally, veered from a more simple lifestyle after my teen years. It wasn't an extreme simple. We bought groceries at the store, we had a new car, but we played outside, mom made my clothes, and things of that nature.

5 years ago I decided I wanted to go even more simple than the lifestyle of my growing up years. I worked hard at it and got our homestead started. This last year, I opened our resale shop in a town 30 miles away. Since then I have spent more time away from home, more money than I made, and haven't managed to get ahead at all.

Yes, the store has been fun. I have enjoyed meeting new people, learning, painting, and being away from home. BUT, I lost the dream I had 6 years ago. I was diagnosed with Diabetes, have had to start taking more medication (we started eating processed foods again and I am SURE that had something to do with it). Instead of getting a few pieces of furniture and redoing them at a time and selling them in the Facebook groups, at the trade days, or using them in my home, I opened a store. Now, after a year, I am in the process of having to reassess what I really wanted and I realize that I miss being home canning foods, working in the garden, blogging, cleaning, reading, researching plants, and doing all those things.

It wasn't a failure. Some people might feel that way. For me, it was a chance to meet new people, learn new things, and to help me realize what TRULY is important to me. I am thankful that I was able to have the store but I am also grateful that I know its time to go back to the simpler things. It will be several months before I close the store down as we have events that will be happening, however, it is in my plan to do so. I want to spend my summer working in the garden, canning, and doing those things that captivate my heart.

I am a planning kind of person so I will have to set down and write out all my goals and plans for the next couple of years. My plan is to share them here and really get back to the root of my heart.

When things happen and you realize that somehow, somewhere, you got off track just plow a new track back to where you want to be. Life is a journey not a destination. If stopping to learn something new isn't in the plan but happens, learn from it, appreciate it for what it is, and move forward with what your heart really desires.

Happy Homesteading!

First Fruits Of The Gardening Season 2016

We got our first tomato off the vines! What an exciting time of the year!!

We are behind

I had dental surgery February 8th. I had hernia surgery February 9th. Needless to say I have been down where I couldn't do much the last 2 weeks. Springtime is not a good time to be down and out.

We have had beautiful weather the last few weeks here in Oklahoma. A few weeks of planting and such that could have been done hasn't been. 

Today we had someone come till the garden area. I enjoyed smelling the fresh dirt be lifted up to the air. The dogs were running and playing and acting as if it was the dawn of a new season. I wonder, sometimes, if they don't know a lot more than we give them credit for. 

Mr. Mason, a dear friend of ours, came over the break up the ground so we could plant. Times have been tough financially and so we haven't been able to buy a tractor like we had wanted to do. Times like this break my heart. I don't like being financially in a bind, however, I know we are working at getting bills paid off and that we are working hard to get out of debt and that if we can just make it for the next 3 years we will have our home and everything else paid off and times won't be as hard. 

We had already done some seed planting at my resale shop. We will be hosting a weekly Farmers Market on Saturdays at the store so we are really excited about that. 

We have snap peas, morning glories, radishes, cilantro, basil, and several bulb plants already growing at the store. It is so exciting to see seeds start turning into plants. To me it just seems like a miracle.

We are due for rain tomorrow so I am hoping that when Morgan gets home from his Chiropractor appointment that we can do some planting.

Slowing Down

In this day and age slowing down seems to be hard for just about everyone.

Day planners and smart phones help us to cram "stuff" on our to do list. So much stuff that we usually have to move some of it to the next day making that list even longer. It is as if we never truly get the "to-do" list done.

Sometimes, for one reason or another, the Lord forces us to slow things down. That has been the case with me this week.

On Monday I had dental surgery. Having only been to the dentist a handful of times in 43 years my teeth were in really bad shape. I had broken teeth and teeth with cavities and teeth that just plain hurt for no apparent reason. I finally swallowed my fear and had dental surgery on Monday. 3 extractions, 13 feelings, and a partial plate later my top is finally fixed. At the beginning of next year, when the insurance re-ups I will have the bottom worked on. I haven't been able to actually chew food in several years. I chewed at it for the most part and really caused myself some stomach problems. I was in the dental chair for 5 hours. The dentist said he never had anyone have that much done in one day..especially someone who was scared to death of the dentist. 

Yesterday, which was Tuesday, I had a hernia surgery. I left the hospital a few short hours after the surgery, came home, went to town to get groceries with Morgan, and got up and moved stuff around. This morning I woke up, went and got some more groceries that I had forgotten yesterday, drove myself around, went to my resale shop, went back and got some more groceries that I had forgotten on the trip this morning, got home, went and picked up some chickens at a friends house, and now I can barely move. 

Guess what! I am so sore I can't hardly stand it. My mouth hurts. My stomach hurts, My side hurts, If I didn't know better I would say that my hair hurts. I over did it. The hernia surgery was my fourth such surgery because I always over do it after surgery...and today was no different.

This evening the Lord allowed the pain to force me to stop. I had been praying for no pain. I had none and so I thought I could just go about my business. He answered my prayer. He then had to remove the answer so that I would be forced to stop and do as I was told so that I can recover. 

I don't like slowing down. I don't like being still. I don't like just setting. I don't like to watch television. I don't like to be "stuck" in one spot with no chance to get up and around. What I need to do is all of the things I don't like to do. This situation is driving me absolutely batty. I feel like I am losing "time". Like I am not being constructive and getting things done. 

Tonight I am reminded of Psalm 46:10.

Be Still and Know That I Am God

I gave up the perfect chance to do just that today.Luckily, I serve a forgiving and amazing God that is going to give me another chance tomorrow to rest, recuperate, and be still and spend some much needed time with Him.

I have the perfect chance, since having quit one of my jobs and now having these surgeries, to get closer to the Lord, to spend some much needed time with Him, and to rejuvenate my mind, body, spirit, and soul.

Why does finding time with the Lord seem like it always ends up on the back burner even when I am trying so hard for it not to? 

Life is what happens

Life!

Lately it seems like I am surviving it more than I am living it. 

It appears that, once again, I have allowed things to come between my sanity, my peace, and my happiness. You know how things kind of just sneak up on you and six months later your thinking where the heck did things go wrong. As you look back you see small things that happened and that slowly took over. You have stopped reading your Bible daily, stopped praying as often as you should, stopped going to church (with the plan that missing one Sunday wouldn't hurt). The next thing you know your shedding tears daily, the stress has you so wound up that you can't sleep and your shoving food in your mouth at the rate of 1,000 calories an hour to fill the emptiness....only to have it show right back up when you stop! Yep, I am there. 

Back when I was attending AA/NA meetings we had a phrase...HALT..any time the urge and temptation hit HALT...are you to Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. That was what we were to ask ourselves. Any ONE of those things can lead to relapse. Add more than one and you could very well be heading straight down the wrong path. Although it has been many years since I have attended those meetings regularly I still reach into the pile of "goodies" I learned from them. They go hand in hand with my religious beliefs and are useful for every day life. Skills learned but sometimes set aside.

As I have been thinking about them tonight I put them in a more direct light. A light that had more than just the surface word in mind. 

HUNGRY....I always thought of this in the physical since. I realized today that hunger can mean so much more than the physical. I can be hungry for companionship, hungry for love, hungry for affection, hungry for peace and quiet, hungry for time alone, hungry for passion. It has an emotional, mental, and spiritual realm to it that I never realized before. 

ANGRY....Anger can show itself in many ways. Resentment, hurt, grief, unfulfilled expectations, frustration, irritation, impatience. I associate any negative feeling (healthy or not) with anger. This isn't a good response. I know in my head it isn't an accurate depiction of what I am truly feeling but it all comes out as anger. I have a hard time separating the feelings. 

LONELY.....I am the type of person who can be in a room full of people and feel lonely. I can also be completely alone in a room with no one to talk to and be completely at peace. I wasn't always this way. At one point I couldn't stand to be alone. I was on the go, non-stop, only going home long enough to sleep. Now, after some negative things happened in my life I am much more of an introvert. I feel very uncomfortable around people who i don't know well. Often I am uncomfortable to the point of having a severe panic attack. 

TIRED....Again, I think of this in the physical but it can very much be emotional, mental, or spiritual. For the last year we have had several people living with us. We opened a resale shop, I stated a second job working in a restaurant, we own a farm, and I have been dealing with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia. I have stretched myself so thin in every area of my life that I am just exhausted in every sense of the word. 

With all that being said I have basically caused myself to have an enormous amount of stress that has accumulated itself into extreme anxiety. 

Two days ago all of these things came to a head. I found myself the last couple of days crying at the drop of a hat, being frustrated and irritated and the slightest things, being lonely, overeating, and just feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. 

I have dental surgery coming on the 8th and a hernia surgery on the 9th. I was working 60 plus hours a week, driving at least an hour a day, coming home and cooking and doing what needed done, and only getting about 5 hours of sleep per night. 

I broke. It was just too much. I had no time for God. All the things I did for a good purpose and reason...however, I chose to do some of those things without praying about them first. I took on an extra job which cut into my relationship with the Lord because I just couldn't find the time to spend with him.

I own the issues. They were of my own making. Now, I have to prayerfully consider what it is and isn't that I should be doing which causes anxiety because I will be adding the stress of finances if I make the wrong decision. 

I knew that the first thing I needed to do was quit the second job. I took care of that yesterday. Tears. I cried an extreme amount of tears over quitting that job. It was only an extr $600 or so a month but by quitting I felt like I was giving up extra spending money. In reality, when I look at it, I wasn't really giving up any extra money. I was having to wash uniforms every other day, I was spending more in gas, I was eating out for the convenience, I was causing myself to be over tired, I was pulling away from the Lord....I was paying a much greater price to have the job than I am to not have it. It just took me listening to the Lord long enough to realized that. 

The 20 hours a week I freed up can now be put to a much better use. Spending time with the Lord, concentrating on the resale shop, spending time homesteading and gardening and doing those things that need to be done. I will have much less stress meaning less medication which can only be healthier and cheaper. 

I realize that my "mess" was man made. I realize that I allowed myself to get to a wall where I had to HALT. Luckily, I serve an awesome God and He stands beside me and welcomes me back with open arms and is willing to lead and guide me when I am willing to give it all to Him. I wish I could learn to just give him the depression, fear, and anxiety and stop taking it back from Him on a regular basis. I wonder sometimes if I will ever learn that lesson. 

Although I am still praying about the right choices to make I am feeling a bit of relief already. Funny how owning up to the issue is the one thing that is calming when I fear that it will be the worst thing ever. 

Thanks for always sticking with me and for hanging around even when I haven't been the greatest host!