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If you wanna worry about chlorine, worry about what is in your water. I mean, there's enough you can SMELL it, if you've been drinking well water for a while. It is Federally Mandated in the US that all community drinking water systems put chlorine in the water. So now, to get the chlorine out...

bornthrifty, LOVED your post. No, having someone to take care of you in your old age is NO reason to have a child. We raise them up, teach them as best we can, try to help them find their purpose in life, and set them out to live that life. If they choose to help us out later, that's a...

Children DO give back. A sleeping infant in your arms is the most peaceful feeling in the world - in a time when peace is in short supply, that is a valuable gift. The new belly laugh of a three month old baby is a priceless gift, and makes the sleepless nights and dirty diapers much less...

Just to clarify, NOT an insult about your comment, Abi, just a statement that some parents will never get it.

Like all things in life, some people will "get" it, and some never will.

Religiously, I believe that the commandment to Multiply and Replenish the Earth has never been rescinded. So some of my feelings on the topic come from that. I like big families - even after having done it, and YES I even liked my teenagers, even though they were challenging. Being a mom is the...

My mother used to make watermelon rind pickles, from the white part of the rind. They were a sweet pickle, colored with maraschino cherries. We got a rather over-ripe watermelon, it doesn't taste very good, is getting mushy. I think I am going to dry it - that comes out like candy, and I'll...

You fed the BEST PART to the animals! When I was a kid, we loved the leftover crackers and egg/milk. We'd mix it together and fry that. Loved it so much that we eventually stopped bothering with breading the squash, and just made "cracker pancake". My kids LOVE cracker pancake, and will make...

The efficacy of newspaper for drying a window depends a LOT on your water. Doesn't work too well with hard water, takes a lot of rubbing to get the streaks out.

We did rabbits. Safely confined in cages, what harm can a little rabbit do? We got 5... Good white meat. Kevin had had rabbit before, liked it, and agreed to do the butchering. Then ducks. We needed a red meat option. Muscovies. 16 of them (some ducks and drakes for breeding, and a few extra...

Kale dries very well, so do beet tops and other greens. So if you have surplus beyond what the animals use, get them on a screen in the sun. They can eat crispy chips in the winter. :) You can do the same with sunflower leaves, squash leaves, the outer cabbage leaves, lettuce, etc.

I use a double edge safety razor on my underarms and legs. They are fairly thickly infested, my husband teases me when I shave, using the term "deforestation". (My dad was a logger...) Honestly, you won't notice a lot of difference in the use. You do have to be careful not to slide it sideways...

The reason we have cultured buttermilk, is because the farmers used to let the milk set out for a few days to separate the cream. It is easier to pull it off of cultured milk than fresh. This helps with goat milk also. When you leave out raw milk, it cultures and tastes about like cottage...

We do this a lot. If it is wrapped in paper, you can toss it into a zip bag before thawing it. Big stuff thaws just fine also, just takes a bit longer. As long as it thaws within an hour or so, it is perfectly safe - there is only ever a thin layer of meat that is at room temp, and not for very...

I would not accept it. I would take back the part they replaced, and tell them they needed to compensate you, at the average going rate for the quality of your meat, for the meat that was "lost". It is their responsibility to do so. They have insurance to cover loss in such cases, that is why...

Depends on whether the milk has been pasteurized or not. Raw milk turns to buttermilk when it goes off. Usable for cheese, butter, etc. In fact, makes the BEST tasting cheese - I deliberately let my goat milk sit on the counter for two days before making cheese, because it tastes so much better...

Hmmm. Got made the human face to replenish the skin under normal conditions. He didn't tell Adam and Eve in the Garden to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, and to be sure and moisturize twice a day. Lotions and potions were developed as a response to a PROBLEM. One that does not...

Green beans store longer if blanched for 1 minute before drying. Many veggies do. You don't have to with onions, garlic, peppers, celery, or carrots. Potatoes require cooking until they look clearish. Too little, and they turn black in storage and are inedible. Too much, and they get crumbly in...

When we made breakfast link sausage, we just used the sausage stuffer attachment, and piped the sausage out into skinless links, onto a cookie sheet. Froze them, and then popped them off and bagged them. Worked great, no casings required. Of course, that really only works for unsmoked sausage...

I love the book The Four Season Harvest. He talks about growing things in the winter, and suggests some winter-hardy crops. He's doing it in Maine, so it is doable in places you would not think it was. He also discusses winter storage of cabbages, squash, root crops, etc.