Riot Update for August

Here are our totals for August.  I am pleased with our progress this month.

Gasoline: 6 gallons (20 total)

Electricity: averaged 19 kwh (5 days with AC on)

Heating and Cooking: Heating — 1 gallon gasoline (total 1.33 gallons). Cooking 0.5 therms (1.5 therms total)

Garbage and Recycling: Garbage 6 pounds (total 32 pounds). Recycling 4 pounds (total 28 pounds).

Water: From my meter reading excursions I think we used 220 gallons per day this month. That includes all livestock/animal watering. I estimate that our animals are using 30 gallons per day now. We recently removed turkeys, extra chickens, and extra rabbits from our homestead.

Consumer Goods: $90 (Spinning wheel, calligraphy ink, book on sheep, shampoo, Dr. Bronner’s).

Food: Homegrown/Local 46%; Bulk 42%; Supermarket 12%

My 100

I’ve been trying to ignore this list. My list won’t include things needed to keep the homestead or the home running. Instead I am trying to identify those things that are important to me. Things that I love, not things I need for my job as chief overseer of home and homestead.

So here is my list:

1. My Bible (includes my copy of the Shorter Catechism)
2. My Kleen Kanteen
3. My lap-sized flannel blanket (My favorite to curl up with and nap. Umm, does that make it a blankie?)
4. My teapot and teacup. Because I don’t have a cool cup like Evan ; )
5. My stash of roobios teas
6. My knitting needles (yarn assumed)
7. My laptop
8. My fan
9. Pride and Prejudice (DVD), although I might replace this with Planet Earth DVD series
10. Emma (the book)
11. Lord Peter Wimsey (I am trying to narrow it down to my 2 favorites)
12. My calligraphy pen, ink and paper
13. My bike (helmet and basket included, water bottle is already listed above)
14. My favorite canvas bag for toting stuff around and grocery shopping
15. Whatever Wendell Berry I am working my way through at the moment

I can think of other things I’d like to have, but those are my essentials. Honestly, except for the bike, it would fit in the canvas bag and laptop bag.

Kim

Lighten Up!

Clutter: I am ready. I am ruthless. I am she who cannot stand the clutter any longer.

I have gone through the whole house with a very critical eye. Most of the rooms were just done a few weeks ago, but I wanted to come at it with a fresh eye. The result: 2 garbage bags from the completed part of the house. The project room yielded 3 more garbage bags; the laundry room 1 bag. My darlin’ husband, CK took them in his little car to Goodwill for me this morning. They are outta here!

Defining Space: The project room needs some defining. What exactly do I plan on doing in there? Right now the answer is nothing. It holds our grain buckets, bean buckets, a treadmill, 4 bikes, an ironing board, all our sewing supplies, a spinning wheel, a microwave stand (no microwave — I hate those things.), and a bookshelf.

My thought is to make built-in shelves all the way around the room except one short wall. We could put all the bulk food in one section, all the sewing supplies in another, and the books on another. If we custom space the shelves everything in that room could be on a shelf (except of course the bikes and treadmill). I could even get rid of a few freestanding storage units in the kitchen. I could toss the last particle board furniture in the house. I could then hang quiet curtains in front of all the shelves and it would always look tidy. A table in the middle of the room for working. The treadmill against the short wall. The bikes would need to have a shed built outside, but we planned on that sometime this winter anyway.

I keep fighting the urge to throw stuff out for the sake of throwing it out. You know what I mean? This decluttering can be addictive.

Kim

How I Pull it All Together

(continued from the last two days)

With my pantry stocked for a year and my favorite cookbooks I sat down and developed a meal plan. I want to be able to make each meal without needing to run after an ingredient. I also don’t want my grocery list to change, because then I am tempted to splurge on new things. I came up with 4 breakfasts, 5 lunches, and 10 dinners. We don’t get bored with the choices because the flavorings can dramatically change the flavor of each meal.

Our basic meal plan is below. In order to insure that our bodies are receiving optimal nutrition each meal is assigned certain food groups.

Breakfast: 2 grains and 2 fruits

• oatmeal with fruit or fruit juice, toast with jam, tea
• granola (oats with lots of dried fruit), rice milk, tea
• toast, 2 fresh fruits, tea
• pancakes, fruit toppings, tea

Lunch: 1.5 veggie, 1.5 protein, 1 grain (men have 2 grain)

• tortilla wrap with veggies, beans and cheese
• chaptis (flat bread) with roasted veggies and hummus
• peanut butter toast with veggie sticks
• potatoes with veggies and cheese
• leftovers from dinner

Dinner: 1.5 veggie, 1.5 protein, 1 grain (men have 2 grain)

• Sunday is Breakfast for Dinner (pancakes, quiche with muffins)
• Monday is Mexican (bean tacos, vegetables, spices vary greatly)
• Tuesday is Italian (spaghetti, veggies and cheese or ravioli with variety of fillings)
• Wednesday is Mediterranean (kebabs, humus, falafels)
• Thursday is Soup and Sandwich (endless possibilities with all our dehydrated veggies)
• Friday is Asian (spring rolls, stir fry)
• Saturday is Comfort Food (pizza or cheat night)

Snacks:

• trail mix
• smoothies
• popcorn

Good Eating!

Kim

What I Need to Do

(continued from yesterday)

I was a little disappointed in our reduction food numbers. When I counted individual food items we were much closer to the goal. I decided to start keeping track by servings, because that is easier for me. If I am going to make this a long term commitment the tracking had to become easier.

I count a serving as:

• 1 fruit = 1 medium fruit raw, 1/2 c canned or juiced, 1/4 c dehydrated, 2 T real jam
• 1 veggie = 3/4 c juice, 1 c raw, 1/2 c canned, 1/4 dehydrated
• 1 protein = 1/2 c cooked beans, 3-4 T nuts or 2-3 T nut butters, 1 egg, 1 oz cheese, 2 oz poultry (You also get protein from grains and veggies)
• 1 grain = 1/2 bagel, 1/2 c rice, 1/2 c oatmeal, 2-6 crackers, 1 muffin, 1 slice bread, 1 flat bread, 2 tortillas, 1 pancake or waffle

To review here is how our totals look right now: 12 food servings a day (+ flavorings). 5.5 servings are homegrown or local (46%), 5 servings are bulk foods (42%) , and 1.5 are non-local and non-bulk (12%).

*I realized this morning that I forgot to include nuts in my list yesterday. I’m not going to re-do the math now. They aren’t that large a part of our diet. Maybe a little peanut butter here, maybe a few walnuts in the granola–5 pounds will last us an entire year.

If I make some changes to my garden plan we might come closer to the reduction goal. I don’t want to change our meal plan too much so I really need to find homegrown/local answers for lowering our bulk purchases. So here is what I plan to do.

Fruit: I need to grow and preserve more fruit. I can’t imagine giving up the OJ. It provides us with vitamin C and calcium. I will begin buying raisins and lemon concentrate from the coop. That will make them bulk purchases. I had planned to add more strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, currants, elderberries and melons to the garden. Then I can quit buying bananas and raisins. That should take us to 1.33 local servings, .33 bulk servings, and .33 non-local and non-bulk servings per day.

Vegetables: No changes anticipated. I will start using a pressure canner next harvest. That should allow me to put back more than just dehydrated veggies and green beans. That will still leave us with 3 local servings per day and might bump us up to 5 local servings.

Herbs and Flavorings: If we learn to make our own mustard, ketchup and tahini that would be nice. However, I am not going to stress over this group. We don’t eat enough of any of them to make a full serving and radically alter my numbers anyway.

Protein: I plan on making more room in the garden for field beans. We have been slowly cutting back on the cheese intake. Normally I like to smother my tacos and pizza in cheese. Now I am adding just a hint. Hopefully I can reduce that even further. We’ll also continue to forage for walnuts in the Fall and hope to plant a nut tree or two on our homestead. (Note to Self: Peanuts? I wonder if we could grow them here? How much would it take for peanut butter?) If I can do that then my totals would be more like 2 local, 0.75 bulk, and 0.25 non-local and non-bulk.

Grains: A grain patch was already on our new garden plan. Now I just have to give it a try. If I could grow our wheat and oats I would be happy. I’m not sure how well our first grain patch will produce, but it might be able to supply all our wheat and oats. That leaves popcorn, cornmeal and rice in my bulk category. Our totals would become 2.5 local and 1.5 bulk.

That would make our new totals: 12 food servings a day (+ flavorings). 9 servings are homegrown or local (75%), 2.5 servings are bulk foods (20%) , and 0.5 are non-local and non-bulk (5%).

How I Pull it All Together: coming soon

One Rioter’s Pantry

I have been giving a lot of extra thought to the food portion of the Riot since Saturday. Why Saturday? HM and I made our once monthly trip to the supermarket. It is an overwhelming experience that I hope to repeat only 4 times a year beginning in 2008. There were so many people, so many noises, and so many choices. I was dismayed to see the price increases and wonder what increases there will be the next time I shop.

I have always kept a stocked pantry at this house. It is a form of financial and physical security. CK lost his job a few years ago and we were able to eat the staples for a year before needing to replace them. It also helps because we eat this year on last year’s prices. I have a master list that tells me what has been opened and how much we use of each product in a year.

A lot of my pantry is homegrown. The Garden tab at the top of the page will tell you what we grow. We preserve much of that dehydrated (makes great soups and herbal teas in the winter), canned (jelly, jam, pickles, whole fruit), frozen (only what fits above the refrigerator–mostly green beans).

Fruit: We eat as much fresh as possible while things are in season. We buy a year’s supply from vendors at the farmer’s market and preserve it by making jam, fruit juice , fruit in syrup, and dehydration. We typically have: strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, apples, persimmons, and grapes. I keep 40 jars of canned fruit and 3-4 quarts of dehydrated fruit for each type. That gives us 1 serving of each fruit a week. That is supplemented by OJ and bananas in the Fall and Winter; lemons and raisins year round; melons in the late Spring and Summer. This year we experimented with melons and hope to have production at full next summer. Canned fruits are stored in a hall closet fitted with shelves just like my kitchen pantry. We average 2 fruit servings a day year round.

Vegetables: Our list of vegetables is quite extensive. It is also carefully planned so that seed saving is easier. I don’t have any two varieties from the same species unless they can be isolated to keep from having cross-pollination. We eat it only in season and only if it could be grown in our yard (Except for avocados, which I suppose are technically a fruit, but we use them as a vegetable. Each month I buy 4 avocados so they don’t comprise a large portion of our diet.) Our primary way of preserving vegetables is dehydration. A year’s worth of dehydrated vegetables only takes one shelf in my kitchen pantry. We eat a lot of soup! We average 3 servings of vegetables a day year round.

Herbs and Other Flavorings: HM is the “Queen of the Herb Garden.” I try to stay out of her way. I’ll help weed, but otherwise I’m hopeless. Herb gardens are beautiful. There are so many colors, textures, and smells. HM keeps us well stocked with dried herbs for teas (nothing better than peppermint tea when your stomach is upset) and flavorings. We dry 2 quarts of each herb and that easily lasts a year. We dry 10 bunches of garlic and 100 onions a year. It helps when your diet is basic to have a variety of flavors to add to the meal. We do buy olive oil, canola oil, mustard, ketchup, vinegar, tahini, rooibos tea (with flavors. Bought in bulk from Adagio), honey (from a local beekeeper, and hoping to add to our homestead in the Spring), salt and pepper.

Protein: Our protein comes from eggs (from our chickens), beans (learning to grow in yearly batches and purchased in 25 pound bags from the coop), an occasional chicken, and cheese (currently buying from the store because I don’t have a milking goat this year). We also get plenty of protein from the veggies and grains that we eat. We are down to 8 chickens laying 6 eggs a day and that seems to be plenty for our family. None of us eats eggs on a daily basis. The eggs and cheese are about the only thing in our refrigerator anymore. The dried beans are stored in food grade plastic buckets with airtight lids in the project room. I am thinking about building another pantry in there. That way guests don’t have to see a stack of white buckets covered by a quilt anymore. We average 3 protein servings a day year round.

Grains: Next year will be the first year we’ll try to grow grain. I am excited about the possibility. Right now I buy a year’s supply of rice, wheat and oats each Fall. Our family doesn’t eat much grain anymore. 5 pounds of popcorn, 10 pounds of cornmeal, 50 pounds of rice, 100 pounds of oats, and 100 pounds of wheat will last a year. The grains are stored in food grade plastic buckets in the project room and a small amount is stored in the kitchen pantry. We eat the oats as oatmeal and granola, the wheat as pancakes, flatbread, tortillas, and bread, rice is eaten as well . . . rice. Although Evan just sent a recipe for rice milk that I really want to try tomorrow. We average 4 (girls) to 6 (men) servings of grain a day year round.

How it Fits into the Riot goal: 12 food servings a day (+ flavorings). 5.5 servings are homegrown or local (46%), 5 servings are bulk foods (42%) , and 1.5 are non-local and non-bulk (12%).

What I need to do: coming soon

How I Pull it All Together: coming soon

5000 Pounds of Hay

  This is what 5000 pounds of hay looks like. Normally this wouldn’t be something to write home about, but this year’s weather hasn’t been the best for hay. Too hot.  Too dry.  Many farmers are only getting half the normal hay harvest.  We are fortunate that “Hay Bob” keeps us at the top of his list.  The field where he cuts our hay is near a creek bed so it get watered as the surrounding area drains into the creek.  I love to walk past the hay field and see the combination of plants growing.  It gives me a sense of security.

That security is an illusion though.  Without cheap oil will “Hay Bob” be able to keep his hay prices cheap enough for me to afford it?  What will we do when he can’t cut with his big tractor anymore?

Hay is the vital part of winter feeding for the animals. We buy a good quality, second cutting, grass hay.   This keeps our animals in top shape all winter without the need for expensive grains.  We will supplement their diet once a week or so with whole oats, but just a little bit.  They have access to a mineral supplement and clean fresh water.

This is part of the reason we don’t keep a horse, milk cow, or very many other animals.  We want to be able to feed them from our place should the worst happen.  We could scythe enough grass between our “yard” and our next door neighbors to feed our animals.  It would be hard work scything, raking, turning, and stacking.  But it could be done.  The amount of hay we could do ourselves is the measure we use for how many animals we can keep.

Kim

My Motto

My motto is:  Living a Simple Life on a Little Bit of Land.

Living:  Living is active.  I want to be busy.  Not with busy work, but with important tasks.  I want to sit down at the end of the day and be able to see what I have done.  I think that is why I like to crochet and knit.  There is progress you can identify.  It wasn’t there and now it is.  Reading is active; working logic/sudoku puzzles is active; tv/movies are not active.

That isn’t to say that we don’t watch movies.  Right now we are plowing our way through Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine from Netflix.  It is something our family does together in the evening when everyone has finished their work.  I will admit that I am glad we are in the last season.  I’m ready to have the tv turned off for a while.

Simple Life:  A Simple Life is one with a focus or purpose.   Our purpose is clearly stated in the Westminster Shorter Catechism.  It says, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”  How our family chooses to do this by living close to the land.  We find our calling in nurturing this little homestead.

Nurturing the homestead means we will not have more animals than our land can feed.  This is becoming increasingly important as the food supply for people and animals becomes more tainted.  If we import feed (like hay) we make sure we know the source and its condition.    We are fortunate.  “Hay Bob” cuts our hay only 0.75 miles from our barn.  We can see it growing.  We know how and when he harvests it.

Nurturing the homestead means keeping all plant, animal and food waste right here.  We compost it to feed the new trees and garden.  We never apply commercial herbicides or pesticides.  If a bug needs squashing then one of us better get out there and squash it.  It isn’t always pleasant, but it is necessary.  Nurturing the animals means giving them a life as close to natural as possible.   They are free to wander the pasture and eat what appeals to them.   I believe they get a better mix of nutrients this way.   They also fertilize their own pasture.  That means nobody has to spread poo!

Nurturing ourselves includes a return to the old ways.  We knit, crochet, quilt, embroider, cross-stitch, draw, and sew.  We eat a very simple diet.  It is well rounded and provides us with abundant nutrition, but it isn’t exotic. We garden.  We can, dehydrate, and cold storage food.  We split firewood with an ax.  We heat with wood.  We are learning to spin wool and someday we may even learn to weave.  We read and we talk.

On a Little Bit of Land: This reminds me to “bloom where I am planted.”  We bought this little bit of land in May 1997.  God willing, we will be here until we are planted in the ground.  I am content with my home.  Not that I don’t putter about fixing it up or planting new flowers, but I am content to be here the rest of my days.

Well, there it is.  My life in a nutshell!

Kim

They’re Home

Here they are. The white one was born on March 1. She is 50/50 Shetland and Finn. The colored one was born on March 6. She is 50/25/25 Shetland, Finn and Navajo. They didn’t seem to experience any trauma in the move. They went straight into the field, ate a while, found the shelter, and then found the water. They have been eating since then.

The poor goats don’t know what to think. They are huddled up and watching. When a sheep approaches they bolt for a corner of the fence. Poor things, not much exciting ever happens in their world. We try to keep our animals’ lives as simple and peaceful as possible.

Now . . . back to that project room.

Kim

New Clutter

Remember my statement about no new clutter?  I lied.  Tomorrow I will be picking up some new editions to our little homestead.  We will be bringing home 2 Shetland x Finnsheep ewes.   In October we’ll bring  home a boyfriend for the girls.  We have been planning to add sheep for a little over a year.  CK is very patient with me, he just sort of shrugged and said, “What do we need?” The best part is we have everything we need for the sheep.

But we don’t have everything I need to deal with the wool.  So I’m also getting an Ashford Kiwi spinning wheel.  I have no idea how to use it, but I’ll be learning.  Everything I have read says this is the easiest wheel for a beginner.  They are supposed to be well-made and easy-to-use.   Later I’ll have to buy carding equipment.  That’s pretty cheap though.

HM and I have been working hard de-cluttering the project room.  It is a grain storage, book shelved, sewing table, treadmill keeping, bike parking mess!  I wasn’t even sure where to begin.  I’m still not sure how to proceed.

What a mess.  I’d feel fractious, but I am too excited about Sheep!

Kim

An Enemy of Simple

Simple that is my goal. I want to have a simple, peaceful life. For me clutter is an enemy of simple. If I can’t find what I am looking for I get fractious (there is another word for it, but since this is my blog we’ll go with fractious). My nerves get jangled by crowds and clutter is just a crowd of stuff.

I have purged our home of clutter more times than I can count. How does this stuff keeping getting through the door? Where does it all come from? Sara over at Walk Slowly, Live Wildly says it comes from Target. This time I am resolved: no new clutter.

I have been using this terribly hot weather (102 degrees in Indiana — not normal) to do some de-cluttering. I have dropped off 3 full garbage bags and 1 rubber maid tote at Goodwill. There is another rubber maid tote being filled now. I still have to go through the project room & the laundry room.

Here are a couple of pictures (I think if you click on them they’ll get bigger) of the living room. We added a liner to the curtains the other day and it is much darker/cooler in there now. The wall opposite the couch is where the wood burning stove is and the doorway to the kitchen. That poor wall isn’t quite finished yet. We still need one more coat of drywall mud, trim, and paint.

Here is the kitchen. There is a pantry next to the refrigerator. Someday I’ll talk about my pantry. This room has a huge sliding glass door. My next project will be figuring out what to do about that. It is very inefficient–both space wise and energy wise. I’d like to frame in the bottom and build a window seat with storage there. Anyone ever do anything like that?

Kim

Do The Next Thing

A poem quoted by Elisabeth Elliot
Do The Next Thing

“At an old English parsonage down by the sea,
there came in the twilight a message to me.
Its quaint Saxon legend deeply engraven
that, as it seems to me, teaching from heaven.
And all through the hours the quiet words ring,
like a low inspiration, ‘Do the next thing.’

Many a questioning, many a fear,
many a doubt hath its quieting here.
Moment by moment, let down from heaven,
time, opportunity, guidance are given.
Fear not tomorrow, child of the King,
trust that with Jesus, do the next thing.

Do it immediately, do it with prayer,
do it reliantly, casting all care.
Do it with reverence, tracing His hand,
who placed it before thee with earnest command.
Stayed on omnipotence, safe ‘neath His wing,
leave all resultings, do the next thing.

Looking to Jesus, ever serener,
working or suffering be thy demeanor,
in His dear presence, the rest of His calm,
the light of His countenance, be thy psalm.
Do the next thing.”

Our Little Bit of Land

I’ve had a few emails asking how we use our little bit of land. So here goes . . .

Our land is 235 feet wide by 1000 feet long. Sort of like a runway! It comes out to right under 5 acres.

The first acre borders a state highway and has our house (1600 square feet), driveway, firewood storage, fruit trees (persimmon, apple and peach), grape arbor, herb beds (500 square feet), and flower beds (200 square feet). We are preparing to add more fruit trees (apple, plum, and cherry), a nut tree or two, and many more (maybe 6) shade trees to this area. CK is also planning a lean-to greenhouse on the south facing wall next to the deck. That will be lovely. Salad all winter!

The second acre has our clothes lines, turkey pens, chicken pens, rabbit pens, a 2800 square foot garden area, and 2800 square feet of goat/sheep yard. About half of the garden area is currently in use. We are adding the remaining beds this fall and winter. Next year the chickens and rabbits will have their own buildings and the turkeys will be gone. That will give us area for a little fenced-in dog yard.

The third acre has a goat/sheep pasture, woods where the goats are allowed to roam (and therefore not weedy and wild), and barn. This is where we are planning on having a 1/4 acre pond dug. We are letting trees grow up along the fence line of this acre.

The remaining acres are woods. Grown up, thick, wild woods. The back acre was a field when we bought the land 10 years ago. We have let it go to woods over the last 6 years. We now have some 20 foot tall trees back there. Oh yes, and the blackberry patch!

Kim

When Rioting Collides with Life

This morning was the morning.

We were doing great.  We were winning the battle of the AC.  Then at 7 am, I turned it on.  Did I succumb to weakness?  Nope.  I have a family member who suffers from allergies and asthma.   It was bad enough he couldn’t get to work today.  We decided to help speed up his recovery by giving him a chance to breath easier.

Do I feel badly?  Nope again.

Will I turn it back off as soon as he is better?  Absolutely.  HM and I are watching the meter spin and mentally calculating how far this sets us back.  It isn’t pretty!

Kim

Yippee!

The water bill came today and we used 1300 gallons less than the month before.  I feel happy.  There is still much work to be done, but we finally made some progress.

Kim