Patandchickens' journal - please think good thoughts for my cat!

[patandchickens]

I wish we could just fully complete one thing before we had to start another!

So true! So unlikely to ever happen though

I think the part I don't like is the part where you KNOW how many other things there are to do. Wouldn't it be nice to be just some low-level employee who didn't have to worry about the overall plan, just show up to work and they say 'ok, you're replacing the garage gutters today' and then when you're done 'go and fix the basement faucet now' and so forth.

Well of course I wouldn't REALLY like that, but there are certainly moments when the concept has considerable appeal

Pat

 

[patandchickens]

A Brief Explanation Of Why I Am On A "Self Sufficiency Forum".

Really it's because the subjects included here are of interest to me (and the company's entertaining ), not because I would say that I am actually Striving For Self Sufficiency in any recognizeable way. I'm not trying to live off the grid, nor preparing for the total collapse of society or for the end of days, nor am I a-feared of the commercial food supply, nor am I trying to get back to some romantic old-timey ideal.

I just think that certain things are practical, sensible ways to live, and certain other things (like most of what tv and magazines and stores and Madison Avenue are so desperately, and so effectively, pushing) are not.

I don't want to live like a scaled-down-to-Walmart-budget copy of the turn-of-the-last-century Rockefellers or DuPonts. Keeping up with fashions and trends does not interest me in the slightest. I think it is just morally wrong to buy something new when perfectly good (often BETTER quality) secondhand ones are otherwise gonna be thrown in the trash.

I'd rather cook stuff the way I want it than buy prepared meals or eat in a restaurant. I'd rather grow some of my own food, at least the easy stuff like tomatoes and beans and lettuce and herbs and eggs and chicken meat, than get substandard and sometimes inedibly bad stuff trucked in from the other side of the continent. I'd rather learn to build or fix something myself than write a check to have someone else do it for me, leaving me just as ignorant and useless as before I wrote the check only a good deal poorer

Part of it is probably being raised by a Pennsylvania Dutch mother; part is probably having lived on very little money during grad school and for a while thereafter; and part I dunno. (My sister is very different from me, despite same parents same upbringing. Go figure)

On the other hand, once I know how to do something, I don't really see anything wrong with farming some jobs out to others Like, I *can* sew pants and blouses, but I dislike the fiddly bits of blouses and require a lot of time and Vocabulary to produce a decently-fitted pair of jeans-type pants, so I buy them (usually at a thrift store) rather than making them. You know? Call it lazy if you want, maybe it is, but I have only a certain amount of time and energy and do not feel that I get any bonus points for doing everything all myself when a reasonable alternative exists for something I hate.

Anyhow, that's why I am here - to get more good ideas about stuff that IMHO a sensible person should darn well be able to do for themselves

Oh, and also, apparently, to become the forum's unofficial Crazy Cat Lady <vbg> (gee, I only have four, that's not SO bad. Although the only thing limiting it to that is the fact that we take them to my parents' house in PA twice a year for vacations and can't fit more than 4 carriers in the car now that we have kids... )

Pat

 

[pioneergirl]

(My sister is very different from me, despite same parents same upbringing. Go figure)

Yours too, huh? Mine is a city girl all the way and can in no way understand why I live like I do, or have the ideals that I do....like you said, go figure.

 

[Henrietta23]

I just said the other day, not enough hours in the day to get all that needs done completed! We have so many partially finished jobs around here it just isn't funny! I wish we could just fully complete one thing before we had to start another!

I'm finding I want an extra two hours at the end of each day to keep up with each of your journals and give them enough attention!

 

[patandchickens]

I'm hiding in the computer room while the kids do heaven knows what (it involves a lot of shrieking) with my DH watching them So I will add:

Today was the last nice-ish day before what's forecast to be a VERY rainy weekend, and with the ground already saturated and ditches filled I am expecting serious mud. So after DH got home this afternoon I ducked out to the barn and rode Archie, the one rideable horse - could be the last time this year, as we have no riding ring and once the paddocks turn to mud, game over. If it *does* turn out to be the last ride of the year, it was a good note to end on -- in contrast to much the past few weeks, Archie was nice and soft and stretchy. The wheels fell off a bit when I didn't get him set up before asking for a left lead canter, but we got it sorted out pretty well and once he was all soft and stretchy and balanced again I figured I'd better call it a day and end that way Every year I say I'm going to get rid of him, since I really don't ride him very much and after three years he is not *much* less green than when I bought him... and he does have a bit of a buck in him, which I do not care for... but you know, although he is certainly not one of the great athletes of the equine world, he has good basic instincts and is fun to ride, and he IMPROVES my riding which is a real plus with no instructor around... so I guess he can stay. One more year. Always "just one more year"

And then while dinner was cooking I put most of my garlic into the garden -- "most of" because I really had not sat down and calculated how MUCH area I was going to need, and turned out to be woefully short on prepared ground. So tomorrow before the rain starts I will have to drag the kids out there to play while I put in the last of the garlic, and then I think cover the whole shebang with a tarp and boards or it will turn into a bathtub and everything will rot.

The stupid voles are digging up and eating tulip bulbs that've been in place for 2 yrs now. THEM I wouldn't mind drowning and rotting. The voles not the tulips. Well, the tulips are so chewed now that I don't think there's any question of them surviving. Grrr.

Uh oh, the 1 yr old is now on the computer room (spare bedroom) bed "sorting through" what would appear to be bills. Time to go!

Pat

 

[patandchickens]

Well, as noted on another thread, today's attempt at 30 minute mozzarella failed fairly thoroughly. The result, sort of a wet ricotta-cream cheese hybrid, tasted wonderful but with a weird texture, and frankly did not do as well in lasagna as one might have hoped :/

But, Natalie has got me semi-convinced that I may have not had enough rennet, so since it is supposed to pour down rain all weekend, I may hit the milk store tomorrow for another gallon and give it another go.

The chickens really liked the whey! So at least SOMEONE was pleased with the outcome.

Well actually I kind of was too... even if it didn't *work*, it was really neat seeing how the curd congealed when the rennet was added, and then how the whey separated out and all that. I've never even SEEN cheese made, I guess it should not surprise me that it didn't 100% work the first time.

I do wish the catalog/website copy for the kit had given a little more clue of how complex and finicky the process is, though. I was rather taken aback by the NON easiness of this supposedly "easy" thing. A little more mental preparation might've helped. Hmph.

OTOH, by forcing me to have lasagna for dinner instead of chicken croquettes as planned, it provided me with an extra hour of cooking-free time after DH came home, so the rest of my garlic is now planted and tarped over against the coming rain, and I spaded over another 40 sq ft or so of turf to enlarge the garden. Which I wouldn't have otherwise.

Yay homemade cheese

Pat

 

[punkin]

Keep us posted on the cheesemaking, Crazy Cat Lady. I might give it a go myself soon.

 

[2dream]

Oh do keep us posted. I have always thought I would love to know how to make cheese but have never tried.

 

[patandchickens]

Bought from a local farm, not home-grown (maybe some other year):

Harry drew the 'blueprints' (his term ) which he's holding, then he drew the design on the pumpkin with a washable marker and I cut it. John (whose nickname ironically is 'Pumpkin') was in charge of pointing and making hooting noises.

I need to get pix of their halloween costumes -- ants. Yes really, ants Hopefully tomorrow...

Pat

 

[FarmerChick]

very handsome kid there Pat!
the other I can't see but I am sure that is a cute kid also!

nice pumpkin!