Jason closes his journal... Thanks!! I love you!!

[inchworm]

In the bigger picture, I think being self-suffcient is a journey of self-discovery. We learn what we are capable of and what need help with. It is a life-changing journey. Kudos to all who walk with us on this journey

 

[freemotion]

We all have junk in our closets. Sometimes two peoples' junk collides and makes a mess. So the high road on both sides is to show compassion even in philosophical disagreement. Since this takes time for those of us who tend to be more reactive......I try to wait a couple days, sometimes weeks! before responding. It works well.... when I can show the restraint....

 

[modern_pioneer]

In the bigger picture, I think being self-suffcient is a journey of self-discovery. We learn what we are capable of and what need help with. It is a life-changing journey. Kudos to all who walk with us on this journey

Well said, a lot of smart folks on this board/ dot com.

In the works is a new video that I am doing to show folks how to cure, smoke and store their own bacon. It does take more effort to make your own than it does to roll into a store, grab a pack. But there is a huge cost difference with this.

I purchase my pork belly direct, along with all my other pork products. I pay $1.39lb for my pork belly, and it is of day or two day old meat, its as fresh after hang time as any one can buy. I noticed that a 16oz package of decent bacon was selling for about $4.50. My pork bellies tend to be 12-14 pounds with rind on. (BTW not all bacon is equal according to my tongue) I can say, without a doubt, Army bacon is the worst bacon ever made. Even some of my different bitter tasting smoking recipes far exceed army bacon in taste.

The video covers both brines and dry rubs recipes, these can be played with to adjust to what you like. The smoke recipe I will be sharing is one that I made myself after a few hundred pounds of pork bellies and a whole big mess of using different woods and seasonings. I do sell the bacon I make to friends and neighbors for $3.25 a pound, I gain a profit to use towards building a better smokehouse and for my time and effort.

Although this recipe IE is for bacon, I also smoke my own summer sausage, chops, fish and turkey.

The video is underway, and theres bacon in the smokehouse as I type.

 

[2dream]

Ok already with the bacon talk. I can't take anymore. I need bacon. Real bacon. I am running around in circles here with my head up screaming BACON, BACON, BACON. I think the boss thinks I have lost my mind. (Oops, maybe I should remove the word think from that sentence).

I know you were not aware of what you were doing to my physcic with all that bacon talk so I will let it pass. However, you are responsible for this craving you have flung upon me. So I must ask as kindly as I possbly can considering my extreme distress here that you cease and desist with all the bacon details. Or you could just send me some. Ummmm yes, sending me some would work.

Do you feel guilty yet? Are you sending me bacon? Did my ploy work?

Can't wait to see your video.

 

[modern_pioneer]

Yes it did work, and I didn't mean to do it. I fear that tomorrow will to long of a time for you to wait, so I made this Scratch and Sniff bacon picture for you.

Here is a printable version for you to have, saves on shipping cost too!!!

.......... ...........

 

[modern_pioneer]

Getting back on track....

Have you ever had a day when everything was okay, but nothing seemed right?

I went to make myself a PBJ sandwhich, and the last jar of jam was gone. Thats it, no more jam, so I grabbed the butter and I had a PBB sandwhich. I still like a good peanut butter and bannana sandwhich here and there. But there were no bannanas, if there wasn't any butter, I would have had a peanut butter and mayo sandwhich. What?... Try it you might like it!!!

I once ate a ham and ketchup sandwhich that DS fixed for us for lunch. I told him it was interesting and good, that was a mistake. For the next six months he fixed ham and ketchup sandwhiches, with different side dishes. LOL.. encourage a child, and they will grow.

So I taught him how to make grilled cheese sandwhiches with tomatoe soup. We both agreed that was very good, he added a twist when he made it for us for lunch, it was ham and cheese sandwhiches with tomatoe soup. It was better than ham and ketchup. LOL....

Tonight I had some personal time to look through the boxes Bobby brought over that belonged to Mom. One box was filled with xmas stuff. Another box was filled with stuff, just stuff. The last box was filled with photos, I found a picture of me 3 days old, and one of us together, my Mom sister and me. That is really nice, but I am not sure what all the other photos are all about. A couple pics of my Uncle Chuck who died in 1979. Perhaps these are pictures that were important to my Mom that I have no clue about.

Let me explain about chic-chic before you give me a hard time about teddy bears. It might have been 77 or 78 when I got a cuddle thing for Easter. I named him chic-chic because he was a one eyed stuffed chicken, with coverhauls. He helped me through many thunder storms as a child. I would guess that I out grew that stuffed chicken and she held it for personal reasons. So there he was.

It was really an adventure for me to look through those boxes, and it was great to find things that I remember as a child.

Is it me, or does time seem to pass too quickly?

 

[2dream]

Jay, first let me thank you for the bacon. That was very kind of you. I am much better now.

Is there no one left that can tell you who are in those pictures. I love old pictures and it drives me crazy not knowing who the people in them are. I do have some framed photos of people and I have no clue who they are or how they are related to me or even if they are related to me. But they were apparently important to someone in my family or they would not still be here. Some of my pictures are really old. I guess I keep them because I think its important for someone to.

I love ham and cheese sandwiches with tomato soup. You should try browned ground beef in your tomato soup. A great way to use up left over hamburger patties. Just crumble them up really small and heat them up with your soup.

PB and Jelly is the only way for me to go. I don't like jam much. Will add a bananna occasionally. I use to work for a man that ate PB and dill pickle sandwiches. YUCK

Awwwwe - the chic-chic story was sweet. I think we all had one of those as a child.

 

[modern_pioneer]

With the recent heavy rains there has been some mass flooding just southeast of us, some folks have lost everything they own. Tomorrow is a free haul away day for those folks, everything that needs to go to the dump is to be put out on the street and it will hauled away for free.

So for whatever reason, I had this idea in my head that I was going to hook up my trailer to the truck and go down and see what I could salvage. I think my thoughts were just finding some new stuff that I could use for a greenhouse I want to build. If I found something else I could put to good use, than I would load that too.

When I thought about it some more, I couldn't picture going down there, hauling away stuff after some folks lost everything. I imaged that folks would look at me and say what is he doing with our stuff. So I changed my mind, I can see a big difference in just driving down the street looking for stuff to use and going down to get stuff after such devastation.

With the recent rain I haven't been able to get up to the pond to fill my potatoe baskets. One basket, the one I planted the latest, wasn't frost damaged, will get it last filling of compost. The replanted basket is doing as well as the two that came back from the frost damage. Those are only half full now. I might not be able to fill them 3/4 of the way, as the plant needs time to grow.

Spiders.... Now I don't mind some spiders, and generally leave them alone to do there job. Last night when I was letting our dog out, there was a huge Wolfe spider outside at the top of my door. I didn't have the camera, and when I say huge, I mean it was every 1/16th of an inch of 4 inches around. It looked to be a few onces in weight. It was making a nest as I was watching. So I went in grabbed a wide mouth jar to put it in and take it elsewhere. Just as I was placed the jar, it jumped down on my arm, I freaked just because of the size. I went to brush it off and killed it. What sad is how old it must have been to grow that large. Also the amount of bugs it would harvest to feed itself.

The garden is good, but for some reason my eggplant is not doing so great. Peas are coming in now.

I purchased a vege strainer for my kitchen aid to speed up processing time for canning. I don't mind throwing a little elbow grease using the hand cranked one I have used for years. However, if I can use something to speed up my canning process I will do it. I don't ask or get much help canning, so I do it pretty much on my own. This year will be my sons first year helping me with canning. Of course while I am using the kitchen aid, he will using the hand cranked one, he has to learn all the old was before I will allow him to take the easy way out.

The chickens are doing well, we are still working with our dog on teaching her to leave them alone. She is already a professionally well trained guard dog, however it seems she just doesn't except the chickens as family members. Any ideas that you have and want to share to assist would be greatly appreciated.

Tom said his father took a chicken his dog killed and beat the dog with it. The dog never killed another chicken. But there has to be a better way...

Have a great day and wonderful weekend.

 

[Aidenbaby]

One of the things I did with our dog is "leave it" training. I also used something I saw Victoria Stillwell do. She had the dog in a down a few feet away from the pet rabbit (the dog had killed previous rabbits) and she gave the leave it command. When the dog got used to leaving it at that distance, she moved it closer. The dog had to be completely relaxed and barely giving the rabbit any attention at all before each time the rabbit got closer. Ultimately, she had the rabbit on the dog and hopping around under its nose while the dog was laying down. It was quite impressive but I think the average Joe should take it a little slower to be sure to instill the training more deeply. Repetition is the key to any training. That reminds me... my dog needs a tune-up with his heel.

Hey, I'm not trying to start controversy but how do you discipline your kids? You've mentioned several times that you don't believe in spanking (and I can very much relate) and I'm looking for pointers. No, I didn't really turn a 2x4 into a paddle. It sure seemed like a good idea when I was fuming from his willfullness but then my brain kicked in. If you don't care to post about it, would you PM me?

 

[freemotion]

Here is how I trained my dog, an avid hunter and killer of small rodents and birds, to leave my hens alone. If you do a youtube search, you may find the Cesar Milan video that I learned this from. He was teaching a large dog not to kill any more hens, the dog had already killed several.

I sat on the ground with a chicken held in my lap, sort of between my legs, held loosely with one hand so she could move around temptingly. My dog was loose in the yard with me.

He walked around, observing the situation. I pretended to be paying no attention to him or the hen. Just calmly looking around, totally relaxed.

He made his move from my right side, darting in to grab the hen. My free hand shot out, flat hand, and poked him sharply just where his neck meets his shoulder. I said nothing, but when he yelped a little in surprise and SAT, I looked at him and said, calmly, "What happened, buddy?" as if it wasn't me who did it. I spoke to him happily but included a firm sentence...."MY hen," as I looked at and patted my hen, and the words, "leave it" and "no hens." As a poodle, he picks up words quite easily and has a large vocabulary of word associations.

As I predicted, he got up and wandered away, then dum-de-dum, made the attack again from the other side. He seems to think the rules only apply in one direction and often has to be taught a new lesson two times. My hand shot out again, and poked him in the same spot on the other side. This time, he went straight into a down-stay, and held my gaze for several minutes while I talked calmly and happily to him, again with the above phrases thrown in. After a few minutes, he wandered up to the garage, many yards away, and lay down for a nap. Never happens when I am in the yard, he is always stuck to me like glue.

A couple of days later, before I had a chance to reinforce the lesson, I came home from work to see dh out in the yard with a loose chicken, the dog, and a couple of guests. They were paying no attention to the dog. He was aware of the chicken but paying no attention to her. I never had to repeat the lesson. Just had to reinforce it with words when we started to walk through the pasture off-leash, if he looked at a hen, I would quickly say, "NO hens!" and he would leave-it. It is no longer a concern at all for me. I did have to teach him that the guineas are considered hens, and I cannot trust him around little chicks, as they look and move too much like his favorite snacks, mice and chipmunks!