MyHouseIsAZoo2's SS Journal

[Myhouseisazoo2]

Figured I'd give a SS journal a try as it looks like all the cool kids are doing it... So here it goes...

Day one: Self intro
As previously stated in my intro journal my names myhouseisazoo2 and I was introduced to SS via BYC (which my Twinnie introduced me to)

In the last year I was able to get a mortgage for a home (yay!!) So now live in my own home with my twin sister our dog Lolly whom we rescued from a family that no longer cared for her in many ways, our two fish tanks one 45 w/ mollies one 55 w/ chilcheds. Our rescued red ear slider called Mikey who likes to sit in the water and do nothing all day. Our chickens (one of them is a show bird named suzana from my youngest sister and currently our only egg layer) who are being raised for show, eggs and meat production and my three blue swedish pet ducks Oreo, pinkie and bubbles.

We hope to turn our entire front yard into a multi bed garden after we refinance and hope to add rabbits for meat and fur later this year or next year.

When I was younger my family had lived in Michigan where we raised a large amount of our food; both produce and meat (we raised a lot of "strange" animals). Since moving to Arizona I've come to a startling conclusion that many people have no idea what/where their food comes from. I think the biggest problem contributing to this is the fact that most of us live in a disposable world where everything is less than a car ride away. Thus leading most of my generation and younger generations to not care about where stuff comes from. i will stop here with that rant cause I could complain about it for hours...

Anyway I see that there's a list of questions for us to answer but as its a lovely long list I'll only answer a few at this time

1. What state/province/country are you in and what is your climate like?
I live in the USA, Arizona and the area I live in has two temps/climates... Hotter than heck and okay weather. Which is decent for gardening as we generally don't get a killing frost or snow.

2. How many people are in your family? Marital status?
I have 6 people in my family. But currently live only with Twinnie.
Single and happy being so.

3. How would you define self sufficiency?
I believe being self sufficient can be as simple as being able to live on your own(ie paying your bills, cooking your own food being able to do your laundry) or as wonderfully elaborate as doing everything possible with your own two hands.

Personally I've got the living on my own down right now so here's to giving it a try on making things with my own hands!
guess I'll sign off here for now as Twinnie is getting impatient for me to get done with typing so we can go buy our table for our first culling attempts. We've three roos that need to go to freezer camp one which we found out last night is an egg eater

 

[Denim Deb]

Look forward to reading more about your SS journey. .

 

[Myhouseisazoo2]

Day two:
Hmm maybe its a little weird to label these by days makes it seem like I'm in a prison camp or some nior movie

So I think I'll talk a bit more about my ducks today. I purchased Oreo, Pinky and Bubbles from a lady I found online. At the time they where only a day or two old and I remember her having a little kid who was super scared that we where going to separate or eat them (the previous person whom had purchased from them made no inclination on hiding what he was buying them for) they where her last set of the year and needless to say I bought all three & I regret not one minute of it.
I tried to choose unisex names since we still aren't able to sex them (now that its over a month and a half later)
Pinky has a lovely pink spot on the bill, Oreo has a lovely black and white chest while Bubbles was named such for... Scrambling out of my hands doing a back flip tumble into my lap and promptly throwing up masses of bubbly vomit onto my legs. They started out living in my bathtub.

Where they stayed until about a week ago (finally finished putting in a sprinkler system so the grass isn't dead!) Now they live in a penned off area where they seem to constantly hide in a corner instead of wandering around (I think they wander when I'm not around) I'm trying to get them to be more friendly but they seem to want nothing to do with me even if I have treats, I tried to hold them for 15+ minutes each day and if I didn't hold them I would sit in the bathroom and talk to them (we didn't use the toilet in that bathroom the entire time they where there!) Also when old enough started letting them have mushy peas.

 

[Myhouseisazoo2]

Oh! Forgot questions
4. What would you do with your spare time if you had any resources you needed?
The better question would be what wouldn't I do?
5. Have you ever built a house , or other types of building? Do you want to?
When I was little and still lived in Michigan I helped my dad build two bedrooms onto the house we lived in. I built most of my chicken coop...
If the house was for me to live in forever then heck yes I'd want to.
6. Can you weld? Steel, aluminum, MiG, TiG, stick, Oxy-Acet?
I haven't wielded big things but I used to make small jewelry bits. I'm thinking of having my dad teach me how to wild so I can do a few projects that call for it.
7. Who or what inspired you to become more self sufficient?
The disposable lifestyle most people I know live. How horrid mass produced food is treated before becoming food, the feeling of accomplishment and pride I get being able to say "I made that. I grew that."
8 Cloth or paper?
For groceries? I prefer my reusable bags... However I've the horrid habit of forgetting them when I go in the store. In the plus side there's a place I can recycle all the plastic bags I end up with!

 

[Corn Woman]

Love the ducks.

 

[Britesea]

I adore ducks! I have about 12 now, with plans to buy more in the spring. Mine still won't let me get closer than about 4 feet from them, even when I'm dumping goodies out of the goody bag. I think that, if you really want them to be completely tame, you have to spend almost every waking minute with them. I've heard of people putting their ducks/ducklings in special diapers and letting them follow everywhere-- I think that's pretty much what you would have to do.
Since our drakes are destined for freezer camp, I don't want to become that close to them.

 

[Denim Deb]

I take it you have more than 1 bathroom?

 

[Myhouseisazoo2]

I take it you have more than 1 bathroom?

Yupyup I'm lucky enough to have two bathrooms

 

[Britesea]

Whew, that's a relief!

 

[Myhouseisazoo2]

For some reason I forget that some homes only have one restroom. They got a little plastic pool to play around in two night ago and they seem really leery of it. I know they play in it because the darn things filthy but I never get to see it... Maybe someday