I haven’t been able to go and visit my friend Addy for a while now, with the kids being sick, and everything going on. The last time I saw her was when Titus had Pinkeye and she was kind enough to invite me over to get some Eyebright to treat him with. That was a couple weeks ago. And I was so sad last week… she had invited me over to make soap, and I was SO excited about it, but the morning I was to go Titus woke up with a 104* fever, and I had to cancel. That was the first time that she had actually invited me over too. Hopefully I’ll get to do it another time.

I do however, have a few things from my last visit that I can share. I think I’ll just list them for you to read:

She cooks with Enamel and Cast Iron Pots and Pans. She said that if your cast iron pan gets really dirty, you can put it in a fire and it will burn all of the crusty stuff off, and will also “season” it.

She uses a Food Dehydrator to not only make dried fruit, and fruit roll-ups, but she also has a cool trick using a tomato paste spread (like the fruit roll up process) which when done, she cuts into strips, rolls up and packs into jars. Then, whenever she is cooking and she needs a little tomato flavor, she just takes out one of these tomato rolls and grates it into her recipe. She said it gives a really strong tomato flavor, without all of the tomatoes. What a cool tip!!

She also showed me how she uses an Egg Slicer to cut her bananas into perfect slices for dehydrating.

She showed me her favorite Homesteading book called, The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery. It is jam packed full of everything you need to know to be a Homesteader. I can’t wait to get this book and see what all I can begin doing now!

She told me about how she makes Strawberry-Fig jam using Strawberry Jello instead of Sure-Gel.

She doesn’t cook with any salt; if it needs some salt, they just put a little on before they eat.

We talked about homeschooling, and she told me that the cost of her home school curriculum for an entire year was cheaper than a year’s worth of lunch at the public school.

Birthdays aren’t a huge expensive celebration. One year, the youngest daughter was thrilled to death to go fishing with her “Pa” for her birthday. She even bought her own fishing rod with her birthday money. Imagine if more children were as grateful for simplicity as that!

We talked a little about discipline, and she asked me if I’d ever read To Train Up A Child. I told her that that is my absolute favorite book on the subject, and she showed me several more in the series that I hadn’t seen. I can’t wait to read them as well!

Anyways, that’s all I have for you for now. Just a few cool tricks, and some great advice.