Homesteading With katlupe

My New Site - Solar Baby!

Making A Living From Home

 Working from home enables me to live this homesteading lifestyle. I try to combine both jobs every day. When I get up and have my coffee I check my computer for sales and questions and my emails. Then it's on to some of the basic chores around here. I used to go outside in the morning and help my husband with the morning horse chores which includes bringing in our water for the day. Since my legs have gotten too painful for those chores, he now goes outside and does those chores alone. Some mornings I can hardly walk. Working at home though means that I can still do my job instead of having to go somewhere or call in sick every week.

When I first started my online business it was with every intention of selling my husband's music cd, Classic Fantasy, a soft rock cd. But before we got very far with that project he was injured in a work related accident. His right elbow was crushed and you know that puts a dent in a guitar player's career. So I started selling used items we had around here on eBay and then started buying used things at local thrift shops, garage sales and other places. I sold quite a bit and even opened my own eBay store. Then eBay started not being able to handle the load of so many people selling so many products that everyone started selling for as low as possible. So that makes it not a very productive way to make a living. It has even hurt people who sell antiques and other products off eBay in their own brick and mortar stores. Made everything lose it's value.

I tried selling homemade crafts such as crocheted items. People do not want to pay for those type of items. They would rather buy baby sweaters and doll clothes manufactured in China or India. Then I tried the dropship life. Oh my goodness, what a joke that is. You do not know when you list something for sale if they will still have it in stock when it sells. That is why you see listings with sellers saying "this item was in stock when it was listed and items do go out of stock................."

Many times I would get questions from potential buyers that I could not answer as I did not have the product here and could not look at it. I would send the dropshipper company the question and they would never answer as most of the time they were getting it dropshipped from someone else too! What a mess that was. Plus there were dropship fees and shipping fees that were usually where the dropshipper made his profit. A few dropshippers would say they were sending it UPS and then send it cheaper through the mail, but charged me for UPS. So what do I tell a customer who paid for UPS shipping?

Since my husband is a musician and a guitar player, it only seemed natural to find a product to sell that would reflect that. I became a distributor for Curt Mangan® FusionMatched® guitar strings. He produces a premium string with sonic clarity with none others even coming close in comparison. They are strings that create a tone that is purely perfect manufactured completely, 100% in the U.S.A. Combined with U.S.A. workermanship to produce strings with exacting core-to-wrap ratios and tolerances. When my husband put them on his guitar for the first time he liked them alot. Then he played at our church and everyone noticed and for other people to notice the difference is unheard of! So we were sold on them. He would never use another kind now.

So we have settled into a nice quiet life here. Working on the computer listing products or answering questions and shipping our products while we are able to be home all day. Of course, what most people do not realize is that if you are working at home, you probably work longer than eight hour days. I do not keep track of my hours. I do so many household chores while working and then during the summer I was also gardening, harvesting and canning.

The Self-Reliant Water System

Self Reliance - Today’s Topic Is Heating

Self-reliance is a big topic these days. People laughed at us preparing in 1999. Then when nothing really happened......though things did happen, but it was not visible to the mainsteam public. It was behind the scenes. There were people working nonstop behind the scenes and that is WHY nothing happened. Thank you to all those people! Anyway it is time to prepare and stay prepare. If nothing happens now.....do not stop preparing. It makes common sense to keep preparing until the day you die.

A very important item in your search for self-reliance is heating. Heating takes up much of your household expense money! Add it up for the year. Plus things are getting worse or so they say. It is being reported in the news that this year fuel costs will cause people to freeze and some to cut their budget by not buying the nutritional foods they need. So if you can find a way to live without paying a lot for your heating costs then you should think about doing it. At least for back up.

In the 9 years that I have lived here, I have paid maybe $200. total for heating. And that was for our kerosene heaters, which we have only had for the last 3 years. We only use them when it is just too warm for the wood stoves. Or, if we have been somewhere during the day, and come home to a cold house. We light them just to warm up the house, while we get the wood stoves going.

There are various ways to heat a house. But the most self-sufficient way is to use a wood stove. Not a pellet stove! If you have no source of heating fuel, what would you do? Or have you ever heard of the fuel companies turning off your tank if you did not pay your bill? They don't care that you just got rolled over by road roller at your job and can't work!

A wood stove makes it easy to find free heating fuel or very low cost. You can buy cords of wood from the state forest land in NY, for as low as $10. A FULL CORD. You can also go places that throw away pallets or crate wood. There is a tractor place in a small city not far from me that advertises it in the paper. Free Crate Wood. I saw it the other day, not good for building, but for fire wood, it would be fine.

I also gather branches in the woods. My husband cuts the trees down, and also uses downed trees in our woods. I gather alot of kindling, and we also use pine cones for fire starters. Another thing that works good for starting fires in your stove is dried corncobs. After you take the kernels off, dry out the cobs and save them for the woodstove.

We use several different kinds of wood. Pine is great for a really hot fire, or just for getting a cold stove to take off. It's also great for getting a high temperture on your cookstove. Most people will tell you that you can't use it or it's not good. Well, if you are cold, anything is good, if it'll burn. We have burned everything you can imagine. Remember the pioneers used to throw their furniture in the stove for firewood when things got bad! Let's hope it does not get that bad.....but then again......

Have a great homesteading day!!

katlupe

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13

Root Cellars - A Must Have For Homesteaders!

I got a book from paperbackswap two weeks ago and have been reading it aloud in the evenings to my husband, and we have learned a lot from it. It really applies to us as we have this wonderful root cellar that we have not been using due to our mice problem down there. Today we cleaned it out. Since he is working on the foundation down there (he is in the process of building an additional room on our cellar to house our battery system and a water pump), he is able to work on some of the root cellar. He is determined to get rid of the mice and to make it an awesome homesteader's root cellar.

In this book, Root Cellaring - Natural Cold Storage Of Fruits and Vegetables by Mike and Nancy Bubel, they describe how they were canning so much food and it was so much work. Then when they got interested in root cellars and eventually built theirs, they learned to not can ALL the vegetables. Just the ones that don't last. They had 33 vegetables and fruits in the root cellar that were fresh and they ate them all winter. Not only that, they also stored cheese (encased in wax), nuts, wheats and grains, crocks of sauerkraut and pickles and potting soil for spring seed starting.......and a log with mushrooms growing on it.

So she would just take her basket and go to the root cellar and pick and choose what she wanted to fix for supper that night. It has many good ideas for us to use as we fix ours. By utilizing our root cellar we will be able to cut out a lot of the work of canning. I would only have to can things like green beans, tomatoes, tomato sauces, meats of course, condiments. And we could eat from our root cellar all winter, fresh produce from our garden or if it is something we didn't grow but can buy locally and store it for winter. I am really excited about doing this.

I know this book is pretty well known. I had it on my wish list forever, when I started I was about the 70th person who requested it. I FINALLY got it. It shows though, how many people are interested in having a root cellar. People are looking for ways to live on their land and the root cellar is a perfect homesteader's tool. It was the way to store your food for the future and now all people know is how to buy it at the store. Bring it home and put it in the freezer.

Lil' Red, My Little Red Hen

In my previous life, I lived a cushy life. Had my hair and nails done at a salon almost weekly. I had a membership at an exclusive health club plus I had a beautiful home gym in my home. I went almost daily somewhere to "race walk", like the various school and our local university tracks. Drove a beautiful corvette that I stored every winter. Now, I look at myself in my mirror and say "how did you ever stand it?" What a waste that existence was!

Now I think about all the money I spent on those trivial things.......and think about all the great homestead tools I could have bought instead! I keep picturing my first husband, (who was a Long Island transplant) if I brought home a pet chicken and told him, that she was going to be living in a dog kennel in our kitchen! Wow! What a reaction that would have set off!

My present husband and I were certainly meant for each other, just didn't find each other till later. So we are making up for all that lost time. Anyway, I received a call from my mother in August of 2000, and she told me to come to her house and she had a chicken for me. I thought she meant one in the freezer or something along those lines. She said to bring my cat carrier......??????? So when I got there, my niece was carrying a big Rhode Island Red chicken around under her arm. Now, I was into homesteading, but had no experience with chickens as of yet, but I had to act like I was not afraid of being pecked and know what I was doing. So I brought her home.

She had come onto my parents' porch the night before, and my father saw her and shooed her away. He had no idea where she came from. They live in the country, but do not have animals themselves. In the morning she was back on the porch perched on a bench with her head under her wing, sleeping. So the kind hearted Daddy that I have, fed her some scraps.

So I brought her home in the carrier and she seemed fine. I was cooking supper and my husband was sitting on our deck with the cats and our dog around him, when she just flew up onto his lap. She just sat there. I think she was trying to  butter him up to letting her stay.

I was trying to figure out where to keep her. We live deep in the state forest in upstate New York, and there are lots of critters out in that forest that like chickens. So I dug our dog, Nikita's puppy kennel out that she had long ago, outgrown. Made a little box for our chicken to sleep in. Added newspapers on the bottom and fastened a water and a feed dish on with one of those little bungee type hooks. I named her Lil' Red. Her and I bonded almost instantly. She followed me everywhere. Even met me at the car when I got home from shopping or anywhere. She was noisy when I was gone. My husband said she'd cackle like crazy if she heard me drive in the driveway and she was inside in her kennel.  

I knew absolutely nothing about chickens. So I went to our local feed store and bought a bag of laying mash and crushed oyster shells (they told me that I needed it for her). Soon it became apparent that she loved being a house chicken! I had read that you can't really keep one alone as they like to be in a flock and they won't lay if they are alone. Well, our Lil' Red made us and our other animals at the time, 2 cats, 2 horses and especially our dog, Nikita her flock. She would go out with the horses and they were fine with her there picking up their scraps. Nikita and her though hung out together and she loved to be out there with Nikita when she was eating a bone, so she could pick up the bits that would drop from it. Nikita would growl at her, and it never phased her one bit.......she'd just scratch and peck her heart away.

Then we got different cats. One in particular, Callie, really liked Lil' Red alot and hung out with her. Though there was a period in Callie's life where she got real sick and almost died. I nursed her back to health and she is good still today. But while she was sick, she would not turn her back on Lil' Red and acted like she did not trust her. Once she was okay again, she was back to playing with her and rubbing on her beak.

I will finish this story later this week.

Hope everyone has a happy homesteading day!

katlupe

My Frugal Grocery Shopping Plan

With the price of groceries increasing so much in the last few months, along with the price of gasoline and other things, I am diligently working on a very frugal grocery shopping method. Another important factor in my plan is that we have shut off our gas refrigerator with the hope of saving enough money by not running it to purchase solar refrigeration. So I have to sacrifice.

When you are not using refrigeration or a freezer, you have to preserve even the foods you bring home from the grocery store as well as your garden produce. So instead of buying a few different packages of meats, you buy the number of pounds of meat that will fill your canner twice. For me that is going to be 14 quarts. Many people choose to do pints of meat, but my husband is a hard worker and a big eater. So I have to do quarts.

I look at my local stores' flyers, and my local Price Chopper sends me their's in my email as soon as it is available. I buy my meat there so that is where I start. I know that the day I buy the meat, I have to come directly home and start canning. So I have everything ready to go. Go early in the day and get started and you will have it done before you know it.

I have been studying my grocery receipts and check book to see exactly where my money has been going. What I found was that we have been spending way too much on food out. We don't go out to eat often, but we do pick up pizzas, subs, wings and very rarely, Chinese foods (my favorite). So I am going to nip that in the bud right now, before it becomes a habit.

Then I listed most of the meals I make and the ingredients needed for them. Now I will try to stock up on those ingredients and not sway from my lists for anything extra. So for now my plans are to can ground beef, ground turkey, chicken and turkey. Plus canning chili and beef stew. That doesn't sound too expensive nor too hard to do. Jackie Clay, my favorite writer (Backwoods Home Magazine) says you should can about 3 varieties of chili so you don't get tired of it. So I will do that, one being a vegetarian type, as sometimes I serve it with a sandwich and do not want the extra meat.

For now, my plan is to have the food on hand for 20 different types of meals. That way you do not eat the same meal too many times in any month, unless you want to. The most important part of my plan is to purchase the food, especially the meat, when it is on sale. I am looking forward to trying this and will let you know how it goes and how much money I have saved.

Have a wonderful Homesteading Day!

katlupe

Breakfast On The Homestead

Making Herbal Vinegar Today!

I am making a herbal vinegar today. I collect jars of various sizes and use plastic lids for them. For vinegar you would not want to be using metal lids as the vinegar will affect the lid and corrode it. So stick to plastic in this case. I never use plastic containers if I can help it. Glass. My best friend taught me that and she was right about that. Smell that plastic container!

Apple cider vinegar is my choice for my health. It was used by the father of medicine, Hippocrates. He only used honey and vinegar as remedies. With good reason too! Apple cider vinegar aides your digestion, reduces cholesterol, lowers blood pressure, useful in preventing as well as aiding in treatment of Osteoporosis, useful in bringing thyroid and metabolic to normal levels, reducing cancer risks as well as making wrinkles and grey hair less noticeable (that will probably get everyone using it immediately!).

You can purchase organic online or in your local health food store, but I just use the pasturized one right off the shelf of my grocery store. Wide mouth jars are easier to work with as you will be removing the herb when you are done. Fill your jar with fresh-cut fragrant herbs including the stalks, fruits, roots and even nuts. Fill the jar really well, all the way to the top with the herb. Be sure to chop your herbs finely. Best results and highest mineral content will come from a jar full of herbs! Really fill the jar. This will take far more herb or root than you would think. Then put your room temperature vinegar in the jar to the top. Cover and date and put it in the back of a cupboard away from direct sunlight, but it does not have to be dark. Don't forget about it. Leave it for six weeks.

Herbal vinegars taste good and are good for you. So use them often as they boost the nutrient level of your diet with hardly any effort and at harly any cost at all. Some easy ways to incorporate them into your every day diet:

Add a spoonful or two in your bean and grain dishes for flavor.

Of course, use them in your homemade salad dressing.

Add them to cooked greens.

Add them to your stir-frys.

Make soups that welcome vinegar like a borscht.

Always use your herbal vinegar in recipes that call for vinegar.

A spoonful in a glass of water sweetened with blackstrap molasses will give you a mineral jolt. Use this as a coffee substitute as it prevents and also relieves the discomfort of arthritic pain.

Plants That Make A Tasty & Nutritional Herbal Vinegar:

Apple mint (Mentha sp.) leaves, stalks
Bee balm (Monarda didyma) flowers, leaves, stalks
Bergamot (Monarda sp.) flowers, leaves, stalks
Burdock (Arctium lappa) roots
Catnip (Nepeta cataria) leaves, stalks
Chicory (Cichorium intybus) leaves, roots
Chives and especially chive blossoms
Dandelion (Taraxacum off.) flower buds, leaves, roots
Dill (Anethum graveolens) herb, seeds
Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) herb, seeds
Garlic (Allium sativum) bulbs, greens, flowers
Garlic mustard (Alliaria officinalis) leaves and roots
Goldenrod (Solidago sp.) flowers
Ginger (Zingiber off.) and Wild ginger (Asarum canadensis) roots
Lavender (Lavendula sp.) flowers, leaves
Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) new growth leaves and roots
Orange mint (Mentha sp.) leaves, stalks
Orange peel, organic only
Peppermint (Mentha piperata and etc.) leaves, stalks
Perilla (Shiso) (Agastache) leaves, stalks
Rosemary (Rosmarinus off.) leaves, stalks
Spearmint (Mentha spicata) leaves, stalks
Thyme (Thymus sp.) leaves, stalks
White pine (Pinus strobus) needles
Yarrow (Achilllea millifolium) flowers and leaves

So what could be easier? Just one new idea to add some nutrients to your diet today.

katlupe

Our Summer So Far

This year I have been so busy. My garden is thriving and my husband is getting alot of work done on our house. As much as he can do with his crushed elbow. He does push himself. I on the other hand have been experiencing health problems for the first time in my life that seem to effect my daily living. I had my appendix out in 1982 and a parathyroid, of which you have 4, I had one out in 2002. Other than that, I didn't usually get sick or anything like that in my whole life. This I figure is Menopausal related. So I am kind of limping along. The hot summer does not help when you are also experiencing hot flashes.

Saturday, my sister in-law and her husband came up for the day and brought my husband's father up with them. We had a really nice, relaxing day outside by our outdoor fireplace. We cooked hamburgers and hot dogs on the charcoal grill and I put a pot of baked beans right in the fireplace to cook in my cast iron Dutch oven. They were the hit of the day! My father in-law hadn't been here in a few years, since 2003 or close to that time. My mother in-law's health had gotton bad and she was not able to travel very far, so he hadn't been going anywhere either. He was quite taken back by all the work my husband had done on our place. And as I said above, it is not easy for him to work with his bad arm. He paces himself and does a little and comes back and does some more.

Over 5 years ago, I purchased a cherry tomato from Johnny's Seeds called Matt's Cherry Tomato and it was a heirloom. Well, we loved those little cherry tomatoes! They were so sweet and really tasty. Every year since then they just grow wild around our garden area. And many times they come up in a raised bed somewhere, so they must be in the compost also. This year, I have a spot I didn't see and they are coming up there real strong with a big thick stem and big leaves. This year, I will make sure to save the seeds and have a good supply for future gardens. I believe Johnny's still has them for sale, but the price of seeds is going up.

Yesterday, we went to visit our very close friends who moved here from Texas last year. They are an awesome couple. In this next year or so, they plan on building a earthhouse and they have a beautiful piece of land for that. They gave me a taste of her Stevia plant yesterday and I was familar with it, but had never tasted it or seen it before. It was so sweet! Like sugar. Even my husband loved the taste of it. So I think I will be growing that also. Pretty neat when you can grow your own sweetener, don't you think?

I have been busy designing a website for friends of mine who are going into the solar business online now. They have been in the solar business for 10 years now, but now they cannot keep ignoring the online potential. So I have made them a beautiful site, if I do say so myself. But have had some issues with Domain Direct who was their old server. Today, I am hoping it will all be tranferred to the new one I found for them and then I can get back to work for them on the site. The guy is a solar installer so it just made so much sense for him to sell the panels and equipment too. I will be giving the links for their site soon, but today I am not sure the transfer has been completed. When it is, I will let you know.

I promise I will be back in the next day or so. Tomorrow though, we have to drive to Owego to our church which is about 54 miles from here. We hadn't been able to go since Father's Day and now we have to get there to edit and upload the videos of the sermons on the church site. So we figure we will be gone all day tomorrow as there is about 7 of them to do.

Have a wonderful homesteading day!

katlupe

Meatless Is Not As Hard As It Looks!

I have two very close friends who are vegetarians. They always check what is in anything to eat. If they eat in a restaurant they have to ask about the ingredients or what is available. One time one of them and another friend and myself had gone to a small town diner and she asked about the spaghetti that was the special for lunch. It had meat in it. There was nothing really available for a vegetarian except for eggs. I felt sorry for her that out of all the food the diner served they could not make a meatless sauce and just add meatballs for the meat eaters.

I have taken an interest in vegetarian eating for two reasons really. First, meat is way too expensive. Second is that right now, we are living without refrigeration. I am sacrificing so that we can buy  a solar refrigeration unit. Our refrigerator is propane and actually, I have two right now. I  am hoping to get them both cleaned up and sold. As much as I loved having a gas refrigerator, since they just work so much better than the electric ones, they just have to go. It is the price of propane that has caused me to shut the gas off to the refrigerator. Our goal within five years is to be fuel free. So this is part of realizing that goal.

I have discovered that many dishes that you automatically add meat to, can be just as great without that addition. It also makes the dish much more healthy. So we only eat meat when we feel we really need it or are craving it. It's hard to give up when you've eaten it your whole life. Of course, with the meat not being as safe in the supermarkets as it used to be makes it pretty easy for me to make the change. 

I love to make stirfries and have been making them with every vegetable I can find, but no meat. Don't even miss it in there. My husband will eat meatless as long as I make plenty and it tastes good. I hardly ever have leftovers. Last week, a good friend of ours came over with a wonderful picnic supper. She is one of my vegetarian friends. And she brought the makings for sandwiches, but with cheese instead of meat. We loved it! Not long ago we had ordered subs from the local sub shop, and there was too much meat on mine. I gave the meat to my dog and ate it with no meat, just the vegetables and it was out of this world!  So I think meat is just a idea in your head that you have to eat it.

I made a list of recipes that have no meat in them and discovered that I have quite a few. I could eat a whole month or more on meatless recipes. And my husband and son would love them. I just do not make a point of the no meat. Just fix the meal like always and no one ever says a word about the missing meat. I am also going to be experimenting with the meatless sandwich. Now I think I could come up with some very good combinations.

There is no question that it is healthier. I have a friend who lives with a man who used to only eat meat. He would cook up a big pan of meat and that is all he would eat. Needless to say, he does not look very healthy and has absolutely no energy. Does not exert himself in any way. I think that is what the meat does to him, not to mention the kidney stones he had. She has changed him a little bit, but meat is still the center of his diet.

So after I experiment with my meatless recipes I will post them on here. You have to make sure to get your protein from other sources. I will have no trouble with that as we do eat a lot of beans and rice and other sources. I also like to cook with international recipes and they seem to make meat the smallest part of the dish. So I will be doing that too. Just less meat. More vegetables, fruits, whole grains and good fats. Can't wait to get started!

Here I am! I am back!

I am so sorry that I have not been on here in a month or close to it! I have been so busy I can't even begin to tell you all that I have been doing. My garden has been taking alot of my time. I haven't been going anywhere or on vacations like most people do. I did that in my younger years, and for now, I just want to be home. If it was up to me......I'd never leave. We have been having cooler temperatures for summer weather here in upstate New York. Not that I am complaining! I actually like it, even though I grew up in the hot state of Florida.

Since it is so muddy, one of my little girls, Georgie Girl, my beautiful horse, is stressed over the mud she has to walk through in her paddock. She hates mud more than anything. I think she is counting the days to the first snowfall as that is her favorite time of the year. I don't mind it so much, but do for her and for my son who has taken over the job of cleaning my horses' barn.

I have also been very busy doing a web design job for a solar equipment intaller and distributor. It is very interesting since I live with this kind of stuff every day. Makes me really appreciate our equipment and how amazing it truly is! To think those simple flat panels are powering my computer right now while I am writing this. If I see some good deals I will tell you about them in case anyone here wants to get started generating their own power.

I have decided to save every $5. bill I get. I read about doing this somewhere recently and it sounded like a good idea. Trouble with that though is that I usually just use a debit card and do not carry cash too much. Maybe I will pick up $20. a week from the credit union and take it from there. Sometimes, I need some cash for something. Especially if I splurge and buy Chinese food (my favorite!) as they never take cards or checks.......just cash.

Yesterday, we ate fresh green beans from our garden for the first time this year. They were so great! I hope I have enough planted to eat all summer and to can at least 40 quarts. We eat them alot and never have any left over for spring. So I think I have planted enough to give us extra. Hopefully, this rain will let up a bit and give us some sunshine. I know I am also going to be having a awesome potato crop also.

I will get back with some good recipes in a couple of days. For now, I will just give you an update on our life here.

katlupe

Making Ketchup/Catsup At Home

Making Your Own Mustards

With the prices of  everything going up in the stores, it is time for everyone to get back to making their own condiments. Every penny counts now. Making your own bread is a given. But how about all that money being spent on salad dressings, seasonings, conditments, etc. There was a time when those items were not even sold in stores. Time to get back to that time again. Plus, they are healthier for your family and taste much better when you make them yourself. So much fresher too! So I am going to be posting a different type of product every day just to give out those recipes for others who would like to do this too.

Horseradish Mustard

1 cup dry mustard
1/4 cup honey
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup vinegar
1/4 cup oil
1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp. grated lemon peel
5 tbsp. horseradish

Combine ingredients in a food processor or blender. Mix well, jar and seal mustard. Age two to four weeks, then refrigerate.

Basic Dijon-Style Mustard

2 cups dry wine
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, pressed
1 cup (4 oz.) dry mustard
3 tbsp. honey
1 tbsp. oil
2 tsp. salt

Combine wine, onion and garlic in a saucepan. Heat to boiling and simmer five minutes. Cool and discard the strained solids. Add the liquid to the dry mustard and stir until smooth. Blend in honey, oil and salt. Return to the saucepan and heat slowly until thickened, stirring constantly. Allow the mixture to cool and place in a covered jar. Age the mustard six to eight weeks or to suit your taste, then refigerate to maintain flavor.

To create variations, take a cup of the basic Dijon and add one of the following:

Honey Dijon: Add 1/2 cup honey.

Hot Honey Mustard: Add 3/4 cup dry mustard and 1/2 cup honey.

Citrus Mustard: A tablespoon of lemon, lime or orange juice and one tablespoon of honey.

Jalapeno Mustard: Two tablespoons of canned jalapeno peppers, chopped and one tablespoon juice from the can.

Dried Herb Mustard: One tablespoon of dill weed, lemon thyme, tarragon, rosemary or basil.

Smooth Mustard

1/2 cup mustard seed
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
Dash of salt
Dash of turmeric

Grind mustard seed in grain mill, blender or food processor. Combine the resulting flour with 1/4 cup cider vinegar and 1/2 cup water in the top of a double boiler. Stir until smooth. Cool and thin as needed with water or cider vinegar.

Chinese Hot Mustard

1 cup dry mustard
1/4 tsp. corn oil
2 Tbsp. honey
1/2 cup water

Mix ingredients. Jar and seal. Age two weeks, then refrigerate.

I hope you enjoy making these!

katlupe

I Get My Electricity From The Sun!!!

I live in the middle of the state forest in upstate New York. All my neighbors are the wild kind - well, the close neighbors anyway. I just can't see my neighbors. Living out in a secluded area you might think could be a hardship, especially if you knew that my house is "off the grid". Now I hope you know what that term means, since you are reading a homesteader's blog. Just in case, I will tell you. It means that the power company does not have poles and wires strung to my house. I certainly like it that way!

You see, I have not had to pay a electric bill for over nine years now! Yes, that's great! The house I live in, has never had wires hooked up to it and the electrical grid is about a mile away. This house was built in the 1850s, and has never had any kind of wiring inside - not even the telephone. Until I put it in.

Most people think, to live "off the grid" you must have a big fancy solar system, that will cost so much money that it won't pay to unhook from the utility companies. If you wanted to, you could hook up with a small, add as you can afford it system, like I have. When we first moved here, our system consisted of two fork lift truck batteries (deep cell lead acid), one 50 watt solar panel, an automotive inverter, a small charge controller, and a old car we used to charge the system when there was no sun (Hey! I live in New York! You need twice the amount of panels that other places do.).

The batteries store the energy until you need or use it. The inverter converts the 12 volt DC (Direct Current) from the battery into 120 AC so you can plug in your normal household appliances. When the charge level is low, you can use a generator to recharge the batteries. A charge controller is a small unit that receives the power from the solar and controls the amount of power that goes into your batteries. To prevent the batteries from being overcharged, it automatically stops charging once your batteries are full. Meters are necessary to keep you aware of what is going in and going out at all times. Fuses or circuit breakers are a neccessary part of your system in the connections between the batteries and other power components (in my case, solar and the generator).

Setting up your system can take a few hours to a few days. It all depends on how much you know about it and how big of a system you are installing. A small system like this isn't too hard for someone who knows something about electrical power. You can also hire a certified installer to do it for you.

Now, our system has been enlarged a little since then, and we keep adding to it. We now have have four fork lift truck batteries, a meter, a bigger and better charge controller, two more solar panels, and a generator, that is made special for this system. It is a DC only type of generator. The rule of your alternative energy system is to buy a really GOOD engine driven generator and then use it as a little as possible!  Soon, we will be adding more panels, and putting them on our new barn's roof, to get better sun. Possibly adding a wind turbine in the future.

Two of my panels show in this picture, and the generator is underneath them. Very simple!

I have learned to use very little power, in fact, I run my online business using two laptop computers which are on six days a week for over eight hours a day. Of course, you have to watch how much power is coming in or going out. And when you buy electrical appliances, you have to be sure they are not power hogs. Even buying a gas cooking range, I had to order one online from Backwoods Solar. It has absolutely no electrical parts at all......no clock, timer or lights. If your power goes out and you have a glow bar in your oven, you can't use it. I do use a Servel gas refrigerator. But as I build my system, I will be buying the SunDanzer Solar Refrigerator and the freezer. These are both chest types and are much more efficient than an upright model. They use way less electrical power, than even the newest energy efficient models on the market now.

One other point that I thought would be worth mentioning, is that many states now have rebates, grants and tax incentives for people who want to install alternative power systems. In New York state, I know that you have to be connected to the power grid system to get the rebate and you have to use a certified installer. I don't know about the other states, but it is worth looking into.

You can do all the things most other people do, such as watching movies or television, listening to music on a stereo, whatever you want. The only thing you do different is to keep an eye on the system and be aware of your power usage. But that's worth not having to pay that electric bill every month!

Another nice thing is that you never have power outages. Not even when the weather creates the outage. I had a tornado hit my home in 2000, over 300 trees down on my small piece of propterty and 6 on my house. Did not disturb our power at all. Of course, if a tree had come down on my panels or equipment that could have made a difference. But it did not.

My Xantrex Charge controller was a welcomed addition to my small system!

So if you are thinking of changing over to solar, you could just add some equipment and hook up your lights or entertainment systems to start with. Learn as you go. Start small and study it and learn what it would take for you to be completely free from the power grid. But you have to start somewhere and if you don't take that first step, you'll never do it. Beats talking or dreaming about it. Just do it!

Hope you all have a blessed day!

katlupe 

Homesteading Thoughts from katlupe

Yesterday, I was off my computer due to storms in my area---not because I was experiencing a power outage! No, I NEVER have a power outage due to having control over my own power system. It was because our internet service was effected by the storms and we had no internet service. Of course, I can't complain as that does not happen that often.

Cool here today in upstate New York, but that's ok with me too, as I am baking bread and hate to heat up the house with the oven on a real hot day. My favorite cookbook is fast becoming The New Laurel's Kitchen. Having been cutting down on meat due to the price and the health issues, I had to find some new recipes. My husband is happy to eat a meatless menu as long as it is good and it fills him up. He is a big eater and does alot of work around here and deserves to enjoy his meals.

I had recently re-read the famous homesteaders' book, Living The Good Life by Scott and Helen Nearing. They did not raise any livestock at all, did not even own a pet (course, I can't go that far.....having a group of 7 pets who I dearly love!) . We decided that we would only raise chickens so we could develop a good laying stock of our own eggs. Other than that, we are growing as much of our fruits and vegetables as we can. I like the way the Nearings set their goals down in advance before they did something. Plan. Plan. Plan. And then follow through. I spend most of my day outside working in my garden right now and I know it will be worth the work before long. I will be working on my plan and will post it here when I get it worked out.

I buy dried beans in bulk all the time. Then I can them in pints, not all at once. About 4 different types at a time and put them on the shelf. That way I can use them for quick meals and not have to soak them or anything like that. My family has gotten used to eating them a few different ways. They really taste better than the store bought canned beans. I am learning ways to cook them more for a main dish rather than as a side dish which is the way I used to fix them.

I belong to a great little group of homesteaders from NY and one close to the border PA homesteader. We have a forum we talk on. We trade, sell to each other, barter, give each other stuff for free, shop together, meet for lunch, borrow stuff from each other, exchange ideas, comfort or worry about each other. It's wonderful having a group of people who are all into the same things we are. Understanding what we are talking about compared to talking to family members or others who have no idea why or what you are doing. I think we all basically met on the Homesteading Today Forum. So anyone out there reading my blog today that lives in NY and would like to join up with us, just let me know. We are a serious bunch, not wanabees. All of us are homesteading in some way or other. So if you are a wanabee and need some help you are welcome also. We'd love to help someone get started!

Many blessings to all homesteaders here today!

katlupe

Happy Father's Day To All Fathers!

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers in our homesteading world! Fathers are an essential part of the homestead lifestyle. Where would we be without them? My father is not a homesteader by any means. In fact, he was not happy with our choice of this lifestyle. Having said that though, he has taught me many things. Because like it or not......he did grow up on a farm.

At 89 years, he still plants a big garden, still works on his own vehicles and goes to the junk yard to get parts (they know him there). He even has been working on his roof! I tell him not to go up there and that my husband would be happy to do that, but he wants to do it himself. Very self sufficient. When I first started getting into this life, my father is the one who taught me how to can. He grows grapes and we canned lots of grape juice and jelly. Next he showed me how to can beets. I took to it real quick! My favorite thing to do now.

When I was a child, we lived in central Florida right along the St. John's River. In fact, the area we lived in was called the "Bass Capital Of The World". Can you tell I grew up in a fishing family? My father's favorite past time. I went fishing with him all the time. And I loved it. We spent hours fishing and talking. My mother loved fishing too and she would pack us a picnic and we would spend the day swimming and fishing. Great life for my brother and me.

Unfortunately, my son did not grow up with a father like mine. I married the wrong man and by the time I knew that it was too late for me. So I ended up divorced from him after he had an affair with a topless dancer who could not dance anymore. So she wanted to be taken care of and my husband wanted that job. Actually, it was a good thing he did that to me, as my life is so much more happier and I am more content in how it has changed. And that is going from a life of luxury to being VERY frugal. But I love it! And I love being frugal! It took me awhile though to come to this lifestyle.........my life is totally involved in this homesteading life.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Sunday. I did. Our Pastor Joy gave us a sermon that totally supports what all of us homesteaders are working on at this time. And she is not a homesteader and does not know anything about it. She just goes by the Bible.

Have a good evening everyone!

katlupe

Cutting Your Electric Bill

Living off the grid, I have many people contact me to ask how they can cut the cost of their electric bill, without changing over to alternative energy sources. For anyone who is trying to cut energy costs, here are some ideas to get you started.

Main Energy Users

You can apply some of the same principles an off the grid home uses, but use it to drastically cut your electrical power usage. Of course, the main energy hogs are the ones that use heat, such as electric heat, electric hot water, electric stove and oven and the electric clothes dryer. Air conditioning, as well. These appliances use huge amounts of your electric power, eating up your watts as soon as they are turned on.

Used to be switching to propane or natural gas for water heating, home heat, cooking and clothes drying, along with more efficient refrigerators and freezers would offer much savings. Now it is questionable with the price of fuels. Research before you buy or change over to another system.  For an air conditioning alternative, there is evaporative cooling systems. Changing to energy efficient appliances can instantly cut off more than three quarters of what you usually pay for electricity.

So the very first thing I tell these people  to do, is to change all their light bulbs to the newer compact fluoroscents. Screw in light bulbs should be mostly compact fluorescent lights, using about one quarter the power of regular bulbs while giving the same brightness and color. Timers are great for children's rooms and rooms that the lights get left on.

And especially for anyone who is thinking of replacing a computer. Replace your big desk top computers with laptops. They use much less power. We run 2 laptops over 12 hours a day on very little power. A desk top (actually it is the monitor) uses as much in a few hours, as our's do in a week. The monitors are what you have to watch. There are newer more efficient ones added to the market every day. So really look at what kind of power they will be using and costing you to run. If you must use one of those old big ones, turn it off when you are not using it.

Newer gas cooking ranges have what is called a "glow bar" in the oven. It uses electricity, so even if your power is out, you can't use the oven. This is an electric red-hot glow-bar pilot in the oven that consumes 400 watts all the time the oven is used! Instead, look for one of two types of pilot light ovens. An oven with regular gas flame pilot light is the simplest. Better is an oven pilot that lights by electric spark when the oven is started and goes off when the oven is finished. Propane or natural gas stoves with gas pilot lights need no power connection at all.

Another option would be no options! Yes, that's what I did when purchasing my brand new Premier propane range, It has no timer, no oven light, no light on top and no clock. You can purchase a separate timer for a few dollars just about anywhere. And most people already have a clock in their kitchen anyway. Same with lighting. Remember you do pay for all those little options. Plus they are electric users.

Ordinary AC refrigerators and freezers run on over 200 watts AC, and run many hours a day. Most have less than 2 inch insulation. Fortunately, special refrigerators and freezers are available which use less than 30% as much energy. Sunfrost refrigerator products have 4- to 6-inch insulation, and a quality compressor on top where it can’t put heat back into the box. The RF-12 model runs 50 watts for 12 hours a day, totaling 600 watt hours a day. Compare that to the standard models which use around 3000 watt hours each day. Just think how that would cut that electric bill down!

It goes without saying that another big saving for any household is to hang your laundry outside. I do that, and even in the snowy cold winter of New York state. It is no big deal to me, and I admit to liking the way my home looks with my laundry hanging on the line. You could use a gas dryer and that would give you some savings, but of course there is the price of the fuel, and it still uses some electricity.

The Staber washing machine is also built with the off the grid family in mind. But what a savings for the family on the grid as well! It is a simply designed machine with under 200 watts running power, with only a larger surge at the start of the spin cycle. Which means that 165 watts per load is way less than any other regular washing machine uses. It's a double plus, as it uses less than half as much water per load as other machines as well. Spins faster than others, saving more energy in faster drying on the clothes line or in your dryer. So if you do alot of wash each week, this is a good way to save on the electric bill every month.

There are some appliances that consume your power twenty-four hours a day, even when you think they are turned off. Televisions, stereos, office equipment, garage door openers and many, many others. These appliances, really need to turned off when you are not using them. By turned off, I mean the plug is  pulled out, or on a outlet strip that is turned off. Remember little things count when you are trying to cut your usage back.

So you see, you can drastically reduce your bill, but you have to work at it. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Once you start living this way on a regular basis, you should see your power bill drop to about 100-300 kilowatt hours a month.  That would be a welcome change, I am sure.

If you are interested in setting up your own small homestead and small solar system, I have detailed the way I did it in my eBook, My Homesteading Journey. It is only about 60 pages or less and has photographs as well. It is listed under links on this page.

Blessings to each and everyone reading my blog today!

katlupe

"For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands, happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee." Psalm 128:2

Relief From The Heat!

Finally had real relief from the heat last night. It was 54 degrees when I got up this morning and since all our windows and sliding glass doors in the kitchen were open, it was chilly in here! I did not care.......loved it. So this morning I am working upstairs in my house going through two big piles of paper. Where does it come from? Most of it ends up in my box behind the wood cookstove as I use it to start fires. So I guess it's worth something.

Last night for dinner we had pizza that we buy from our local convenience store. We buy it there as it really is the best pizza we can buy locally. I like making it myself, but the heat has been keeping me out of the kitchen. I usually buy three and save the leftovers for the next morning. The store gives you a card and punches it every time you buy a pizza and after you buy your tenth pizza you get a free one. They do that with milk too. So yesterday, we got one free pizza. Good thing too, as they used to have pizzas for $5.99 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Stopped that little deal last month due to high cost of everything. Hope they don't stop the free deal on the cards.

We have been cutting down on as much meat meals as we can. I have two friends who are vegetarians and they, plus the health concerns of eating meat, has been partly my reasoning. Till now. The cost is also helping me change our meals to more vegetarian type meals. I like it myself. I figure if you don't eat meat as much, you can take the same amount of money I used to spend on the meat portion of my grocery budget and buy a really good cut of meat that I wouldn't normally buy. Or puchase some top grade meat from local farmers and homesteaders. I don't raise any livestock that would have to be killed. It's just not something I want to do.  Animal care is a lot of work on a homestead. The only ones I plan on getting in the near future is poultry.

Last night we had a scare as a big, old type airplane flew over our house and seemed too close to the tops of the trees. Scared all of us.......even my husband who does not scare easily. My son was outside and he saw it and thought it was coming down. He said it wavered and seemed very shakey and maybe had a problem. All I know is that it sounded like it was going to hit the trees or our house or both. I protect our house and property surrounding our home, including the state forest and us and all our animals with the Blood Of Jesus  every day, so I should have known better. Maybe he would have crashed into us, if that protection wasn't there. I remembered to thank God for that protection afterward and again before I went to sleep.

If you leave a comment on here and I am supposed to respond to it and don't, please don't take offense. I am still figuring out this site. It took me awhile yesterday just to go to the blogs of the people who commented. I am not new at computers, pretty savvy at that. It's just the new site takes some time for me as I am also working on other things while I am on the computer. I have several windows up on the computer, and also I am working around my house or running out to the garden or to work on another tub of laundry.

The Lord has given us  another beautiful day here today. Lots of power coming in too. Very peaceful as not many cars drive by our house all day. All I can hear right now is the birds and the sound of my dog, Nikita dreaming as she sleeps.

Happy homesteading to all who read my blog!

katlupe

Living "Off The Grid"

Our weather has cooled off a bit since yesterday, so today is a little more tolerable. The sun is shining though and that is very good news for my garden. But it is also good news for our energy system. What I forgot to mention on  my introduction blog is that I live in an "off the grid" home and have lived this way for over 9 years. I forget to mention it, as it has become pretty routine for us around here. The shining sun though, makes for lots of power and we can use anything we please for the summer months.

Our system was much smaller when we first moved here. It has grown over time. We keep adding a componet here and there. It is still small by most people's standards. For us though, it works. Now with my son here, he is not quite as happy with it as my husband and I are. So for him, this may be a temporary shelter, though he wants to build a small cabin on our land so he can have his privacy. Fine with us! We like our privacy as well. A small system is pretty affordable, and when you add up the cost of your electric bills for 9 years.......well that is way over what we have spent on our small system!

Living in an off the grid home just makes it so you have to be aware of what your appliances and things are going to use as far as the power goes. I like the fact that I have not paid for electric or heat in all the time I have lived here. Paid for gas for the generator, which we use when the sun is scarce. And of course for each new component as we add one. We heat and cook with wood, so the chainsaw is our expense there. Our mortgage is low and so are our taxes because "who would want to live in an off the grid home anyway?"  

We have a gas refrigerator which worked fine all these years. There was a time in 2003 that we turned it off just to see if we could live without one. We lived a whole year that way. Was not real easy if you enjoy cold drinks and buying lots of cold stuff at the store. But this year, we had to turn it off as the propane has started bothering me. I do have a propane cooking stove also, but that does not seem to bother me only when I first start the oven. It is time to get solar refrigeration......but first need to add one or more solar panels to the ones we have. So for the time being we are using the cold water method of keeping the food cold. Cold water in an ice chest. Just no meats to keep over. If we buy meat, I cook it that day.

I have been doing alot of writing lately as I sell eBooks on my website, as well as some other things. The eBooks though, are my thing. I have always written and it seems to be a good way to earn a living from home. I love getting sales for those products as there is no packaging involved. They take a lot of time writing them and researching the info though.

I got so excited when I had someone purchase my book, My Homesteading Journey when I first listed it on my site. She was located in Los Angeles, and I spent my time day dreaming about her trying to find her way out of the city to the homesteading lifestyle. Then I got the idea to Google her name........it was kinda unique so maybe it'd come up. Well, it did. I did it again. It was the same. Her father is a BIG celebrity in the entertainment world. And she was too, but not as big. So you never know who is going to be reading your stuff.

Have a great day!

katlupe