Life in August

It's been a while since I last posted, kind of.  My last post got was very long with lots of info and pics and it got deleted because of some kind of Internet error.  That was frustrating.  Since then, my mom has had a stroke (last week) but has been blessed to make what appears to be a full recovery.  It was minor and she caught on to what was happening very quickly so she only had to stay in the hospital for four days while they tried out different blood pressure medicines to find a combination that works for her.  This all most likely could have been avoided if it weren't for some troubles she's had with her insurance and her doctor but then, it's always too easy to point fingers and play the blame game.  I just have to remember that God is fully in control.  It reminds me of something my mother told me several years ago, "If God wants to kill you in a tornado, there's no place you can hide to keep it from happening."  Now, strange as it may sound, for some reason that's actually very comforting to me.  I tend to be a worrier and try to control and prepare for every possible crisis and that just isn't always possible and everytime I start to worry, I remind myself of what she said because only God is fully in control and I would want it any other way.  It doesn't keep me from trying to prepare though...it's just in me to keep working without giving up until I'm exhausted.  I really enjoy the process most of the time too, it isn't just fear that motivates me...thankfully.

The chicks are growing like weeds and are no longer little fuzz balls and have a good start on their adult feathers.  They're outgrowing their tote too.

I plan to make caged outdoor area for them inside my garden fence.

I have unused space in there and it would be pretty easy to put some stakes and chicken wire in a section of it for them.

This will most likely become our new chicken coop this fall.  Our friend who loaned us his incubator has this on his land and doesn't use it for anything and wants to get rid of it.  I'd really love to make a cabana or fun little guest quarters out of it, but I don't know that that would be the financially responsible thing to do right now.  I think it's super cute!

The goats are finally pretty much fenced in.  Hubs put up an electric fence around an area in the back that's about an acre or so except it's only currently three sided.  The goats are finally afraid of the fence after running through it a few times but every now and then they manage to wonder off to the side that isn't fenced yet (they don't usually go over there) and then they're free.  They stay pretty close to the house though.  In fact, before they were fenced off, they would spend every night sleeping on the front steps leaning against the front door and just poop the night away.  I'm pretty sick of goat poop.

I made shampoo bars which are all natural but they turned out to leave a strange kind of heavy, waxy like residue in my hair that made it unmanageable.  The baking soda and vinegar didn't work either so I'm back to using my toxic shampoo until I can figure out something else that works.  I might try making a soap from just coconut oil and see if it leaves my hair cleaner.  This one will make a great body bar because it's very gentle and moisturizing...too moisturizing.  I do love homemade soaps.  They're the best.

I have a laundry basket full of green apples waiting to be turned into applesauce and apple butter.  Hopefully I'll be getting to that in just a little while.

Stubborn old goats.

Goats are curious and a bit naughty.  They keep getting in the chicken tractor to eat the chicken feed and today they even knocked it over.  Tsk, tsk, tsk.

I had a heck of a time getting them out too.  That poor chicken in the background was pacing back and forth as fast as she could, looking for a way out.  She was scared out of her little mind by the goats.

I don't know what these wild flowers are, but if I could bottle it up and make soaps and lotions from it, I would.  They smell heavenly!

Day two for the goats.

This is my second time around and it makes me very unimpressed with WordPress.  I was down to the last paragraph in this post and my little 9 month old erased every single word and every single picture.  Gahhh!  Isn't there an undo button???  pppfffft!

As I was saying before munchkin pushed buttons...

It rained all night but the goats managed to stay pretty dry thanks to this little shelter that was already here in a pen that was already here when we bought the place.

[caption id="attachment_17" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Eleven week old male kiko goats."][/caption]

The goats seem to have sweet temperaments for the most part except that the brown headed one likes to rare up on his hind feet and try to head but our little chihuahua, Chili.  It would be a sad day if the goat were ever successful.

[caption id="attachment_18" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Goat pen."][/caption]

The pen is probably 50x50 feet and looks pretty rough but it's actually in decent enough shape and full of food they love to eat.

[caption id="attachment_19" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The shelter the goats hung out under all night."][/caption]

The shelter is about four feet tall with a simple corrugated metal roof on four posts.  Better than what they had at the place we bought them from...nothing.

I looked around the pen today which is FULL of blackberry bushes and you can tell they've been chowin' down.

[caption id="attachment_20" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="Nibbled up blackberry bush."][/caption]

If only we could survive on what the goats like to eat, we'd have it made.  This is my garden today and if we had to survive on it, we'd all starve. 

I'm learning though and things are growing and baring fruit despite me and my ignorance.  It appears, though, that we have a mole problem.  A couple of my squash vines (spaghetti and pumpkin) have suddenly shriveled up and died while everything around them and the other like vines are doing great.  Our lab likes to dig up moles around the outside of the garden fence so I assume that's our problem.  We just put down cardboard between most of the plants to keep the weeds at bay and help retain water.  The garden did look like nothing but tall, tall weeds just a couple of weeks ago.  I got too busy to keep up with it, but good old hubs helped me out and we reclaimed it with little to no harm done all in a weekend.  He's enjoyed gardening this year even though he doesn't like veggies.  I've learned I need to grow more staples like beans and we could use some fruit too.  I ordered some seeds from a local heirloom supplier and received twenty new seed packets yesterday, including three or four new varieties of beans.  I'm using heirloom so that I can hopefully save seeds for planting from year to year. 

[caption id="attachment_21" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Some of our young, pretty hens."][/caption]

Yesterday, hubs also brought home this incubator we borrowed from a friend.  It's actually an old hospital incubator, but our friend has had success with hatching eggs in it, so as soon as I can make a spot in the house for it we're going to put all the eggs we have on hand in it which is probably only a dozen or so. 

[caption id="attachment_22" align="aligncenter" width="200" caption="Incubator"][/caption]

I figure we ought to get four to six new laying hens from this first batch, assuming the other half are roosters.  The chickens we have now aren't broody at all so this is how we're having to do things.  At least it won't cost anymore than the electricity to operate it for the next 21 or so days.

[caption id="attachment_16" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Hens looking like they want in the house. Silly chickens."][/caption]

 Earlier in the spring, hubs built a chicken tractor for them which he would move to a new patch of grass everyday but now we just let them run loose every day.  There's just nothing better than grass fed chicken eggs.

[caption id="attachment_23" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Chicken tractor."][/caption]

On another note, we're always working on our little bitty house trying to finish it up as time and money allow (both are few and far between.)  The house has 800 square feet on the first floor and one bathroom, small master bedroom, living room, kitchen dining area and laundry.  It's small but efficient.  The second floor or loft (accessible only by ladder) will add another 400 square feet once it's done including two bedrooms and a half bath.  Right now it's nothing more than a roof with insulation between the studs.  The kids sleep up there on mattresses on the floor with all their stuff.  At least without the walls it's extra roomy right now.  In case you're thinking we're hillbillys that just don't know any better, we used to work hard to keep up with that silly Jones family.  We lived in a very, very nice house in a very, very nice neighborhood and hubs was a fine home builder.  When the housing market crashed, we knew we had to jump ship.  Now hubs "works for the man" and we qualify for government programs like food stamps and WIC but we're surviving.  In fact, we've reduced our debt from goodness knows how high to $41,000 and I like to see the amount continue to fall.  We've always wanted to live in the country for the quite and the privacy but now I couldn't imagine living a life I love more than this.  I enjoy the challenges that come with homesteading.  I even enjoy working on a small budget.  I would like to have a bigger budget since the world is coming to an end as we know it, but what do you do?

I wish I could get my blog out there to like minded people right now, because I'd like to know what you all are doing to prepare for the upcoming depression.  Are you storing food, moving to the country, buying gold or are you possibly living the same as you would if it weren't coming.  Need some motivation to get ready for it?  Try watching youtube videos of Gerald Celente.  His track record speaks for itself so don't assume he's just an excentric loon.  Get ready 'cause it's coming.

-Mrs. Homesteader

Two timing

I'm not new to blogging.  I have another blog on blogger that I've kept for about a year and once it started to grow I became intimidated.  I didn't want to blog whatever happened to be on my mind at the moment because my followers had developed expectations from me.  Followers can be fickle and I'm okay with that.  I can be fickle at times too, like now, I want to be anonymous and say whatever I want whenever I want.  It's funny, on my other blog, when I would go a while without a new post, family members would assume hubs and I were having marital problem or something terrible and secret was going on...heh, heh.  I love to keep 'em guessing.

I don't know where this blog will go.  My other blog went in a direction I didn't expect so we'll see.  How about I start with an introduction.

I'm new to WordPress and I'm confused by it so far, but I'll learn.  I'm also a wife to one very hardworking, loving, christian man and I'm a mother to our five children ages 11 years down to 9 months.  I homeschool them and we homechurch...for now.  That's a challenge and we'd love to find a good local church that's for real.  A year ago tomorrow we bought some land (five acres) and started building a little house with cash which means it's not finished and may never be but I think that's better for us right now than a mortgage. Speaking of money, we are those people who are fully expecting the U.S. dollar to crash very soon which leads me to what I think this blog will be about.  Homesteading.  I named the blog "Trailblazer homestead" because we've never had any experience with homesteading of any sort except for the two tomato plants I grew from seed in my suburban back yard two years ago.  We're growing and changing and learning all the time, little by little.   We now have two goats, sixteen chickens and a 25X25 foot garden. 

[caption id="attachment_8" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="This was just after we finished the fence earlier in the spring. The garden is now bounding with big green vegetable plants"][/caption]

We had rabbits for about a year and a half, but grew tired of them and once we got move out onto our land we decided we were ready for something new. 



Tonight, as a matter of fact, we got our first to goats...kiko's to be exact.  Two bucks that have just been weaned so we'll see what happens with that.  They're in a good sized goat pen right now browsing the wild raspberries and weeds.  I just hope they don't get out. 

[caption id="attachment_7" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The goat on the right is our chihuahua who's meeting one of the fellas for the first time."][/caption]

We'd like to get a calf soon, but we need to put up more fence first.  Hubs is also bringing home an incubator so we can hatch some more chick's. 





We currently have ten laying hens that give us six to eight eggs a day which just isn't enough for us.  We also have one big rooster and five up and coming laying hens.  I'd love to eat lots of eggs (and onions) for breakfast most mornings, but I'd need a dozen plus a few for other recipes like our Rocky yogurt smoothies.  They have frozen fruit, stevia, vanilla and raw eggs mixed in with the yogurt and they.are.awesome!  Yum!

I've become obsessed lately with the current U.S. and world economic situation.  I'm, of course, worried about our well-being a little, but mostly I've become consumed with preparing for the worst as best we can.  We aren't rich by any means but we are working as furiously as we can to get ready for this world depression that's predicted to be worse than the Great Depression.  We're not able to stock up on huge amounts of gold and silver and we don't have a nice family farm that's been functioning for years and years.  In fact, our extended families think we're a bit on the overzealous, excentric side but I love them anyway.  We've been trying to convince them that the world is coming to an end as we know it and they should sell all their stocks and cash in their bank accounts and cd's etc...in exchange for gold, and food stores.  They either don't think it will be that bad and they'll be fine because they have plenty of money and this is America...OR they think this has been predicted in the bible and they won't be here to suffer through anything that's coming. 

That leads me to this...I am a christian but I don't anticipate Armageddon and the reign of the antichrist in God's temple...hmmm....if the Jew's rebuilt the temple, God's temple, would they go back to animal sacrifices???  And this would be seen as God's temple?  I don't think so.  Then we're supposed to believe the antichrist...(Satan incarnate?) will come and set up camp in God's temple???  Ahem.  I think not.  And don't try to tell me it's in the bible.  I know what's in the bible and I happen to see that the "end times" coincide with history and the fall of Rome and have come and gone.  Yes, I'm a preterist.  Look into it if you want to know more.  My only point is, I'm getting ready for a depression that is without a doubt already here for so much of the world and it's coming for us too.  I can only hope that my Savior will come get me first, but I'm not banking on it.

I am all over the place, but that's okay.  It's my blog.