There was a moment today, when I opened my fridge to get something out, and was suddenly struck with the realization of how much the contents of our refrigerator have changed just over the past year and a half. I’d give anything to have a photo of what we had in our fridge a couple of years ago. No doubt, it was full of expensive, processed, chemical laden foods we mindlessly ingested. It’s amazing how this lifestyle change has altered so many other aspects of our life.

As I looked into my fridge this feeling of pride slowly came over me. We are getting closer. There are still store bought things in there, several of which I could easily learn to replace with homemade alternatives. But we are slowly, slowly getting there. Let me give you a tour, just for kicks…

First Shelf

• Pitcher of Sweet Tea
• Half a gallon of fresh milk
• Pint of fresh cream
• Homemade Peach Salsa (what’s left of it!)
• Homemade Apple Jelly
• Homemade Italian Dressing

Second Shelf

• From scratch homemade Chicken Pot Pie
• Homemade mayonnaise
• Store bought sour cream- something I totally need to be making myself!
• Homemade BBQ Sauce (with the blue lid in back)
• Homemade Sweet Pickle Relish (still gotta get this recipe posted!)
• Store bought apple sauce- I’m dying for apples to come into season soon so that I can make my own apple sauce!!

Third Shelf

• Store bought carrots- our garden hasn’t yielded that many
• Fresh eggs from our chickens
• Store bought cheese- working on a cheese press so that I can make my own!!
• Homemade chocolate syrup- gotta have that chocolate milk every now and then!

Fourth Shelf

• Home grown cucumbers from our garden- saving for seed
• Home canned Bread & Butter Pickles
• Home canned Peaches
• Homemade Deer Jerky

Last Shelf

• Home grown carrots from our garden
• Home grown tomatoes from our garden

(No, we don’t have any drawers in our fridge. If you remember, we got this home as a foreclosure, and whoever owned (and trashed!) it before us took the drawers with them. Have you ever priced replacement refrigerator drawers? You can buy another whole fridge for the price of those things! Forget it. We just do without.)

I feel pride because to me our fridge is a little mirror of many of the things we have learned along this journey so far: how to make so many things from scratch, raising chickens, learning to grow a garden, learning to can and use a dehydrator, seeking out local, fresh food sources, and eating a healthier, less processed diet.

I think it says, we’re getting there.

And just in case you are wondering, our freezer is much the same.

How do the contents of your fridge reflect your lifestyle??

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Today my husband and I picked a couple of bushels of pears from Jerry’s mother’s gorgeously loaded pear tree. I think they are Bartletts. This was definitely a good year for pears! I wish so badly that I’d brought my camera to take a picture of the tree. The limbs were so heavy with fruit they just sagged to the ground under all of that weight.

We didn’t get to pick very long before the mosquitoes got too bad and we had to stop picking for the night, but there is still a ton more to harvest another day. They are still green, but pears are best picked before they ripen. To know when a pear is ready for picking, lift the pear (while still attached to the tree) to a horizontal position. If the stem easily breaks loose, then it’s ready. If the pear does not snap off easily from its branch, then leave it alone for a few more days.

Once they’ve been picked, pears need to be closely watched during the ripening stage. It is recommended that the pears are cooled for a day or two at 30*, and then allowed to finish ripening at 65*-75* for about 5 days. You can hasten this ripening by placing the pears in a paper bag with a ripe banana or apple.

You’ll know when the pear is just right for eating by gently pressing your thumb into the pear’s flesh a little below the stem. If the fruit feels soft, it’s ready. If it’s still hard, and doesn’t easily indent under slight pressure, then it needs more time to ripen.

Here is a good article I found on just this subject.

This is my first time trying to do anything with pears. I’m thinking pear preserves. Anybody have any tips about pears to share?

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Today, I got on this kick of trying to figure out how to convert my basic electric sewing machine into something that I could use off-grid. As I began looking into this subject, I was immediately confronted with my first question… what is a treadle, anyway?

For those like me, who know very little about sewing machines, a treadle (said like tred-dle, not tree-dle), is the foot pedal that was used with old fashioned non-electric sewing machines, as shown in the picture above.

After lots of reading online, I’ve found that it is possible to convert some sewing machines from electric to non-electric with several fairly easy modifications that one could do him or her self. I’m wondering if the one I have could possibly be one that is modifiable. I don’t think I can know unless I get inside my machine and check out all of the mechanisms within.

If you are interested in converting your sewing machine from electric to  non-electric with use of a treadle or hand crank, here are the best articles I could find on the subject. If you know of better instructions, please do tell!

Now, if only I could find a good treadle…

Converting Singer Sewing Machines From Electric to Treadle or Hand Crank

How To Convert A Serger To A Treadle

How To Convert A Modern Sewing Machine To A Treadle

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It has been almost a year since I’ve purchased any special facial products for myself. I used to have a very particular beauty regimen. With most things I buy, I am not a brand snob, but when it comes to cosmetics I definitely have my favorites! My daily facial routine looked like this: Liquid Neutrogena Facial Wash, St. Ives Apricot Scrub, and Estee Lauder Day Wear Moisturizer (though with a $40 price tag this was always given to me as a Christmas gift).

But as I began to pull our purse strings tighter, I simply couldn’t justify spending so much money on my own vanity. If I couldn’t get it for close to free with coupons, I wouldn’t buy it. And when I ran out, I ran out. Eventually, my stash was gone and I was determined to learn to improvise.

Since my bathroom cabinets were still stocked with tons of baby wash I’d snagged for pennies with coupons, I’ve been using that to wash my face. I’ve actually been really pleased using Johnson’s as a full facial soap. I can even use it to safely remove my eye makeup since it’s “tear free”. Everything continued along just fine, until I ran out of my favorite exfoliating scrub.

I could really tell a difference in my skin as month after month went by without my Apricot scrub. Oh how I longed for that extra polish! I did my best to scrub deeply with a wash cloth, but it just wasn’t the same, and you could see the difference. My poor face wasn’t so clear anymore.

And then, last week, I got a gift card to Target. Woo-hoo! Straight to the cosmetic department I went. I snatched up my Neutrogena, some Apricot Scrub, and some eye liner. But as my total rang up I was astonished at the price, over $17!! For just these three things!

Forget that! I said to myself. Back to the store they went. I’ll save that gift card balance to use with coupons for better deals on other things. I just can’t blow that kinda dough on this face.

When I got home I was determined to find a better alternative. Come to think of it, I was pretty turned off at all of the chemical ingredients my favorite things had in them as well. Do I really want to be absorbing that junk into my body? Surely there was a natural way to cleanse my skin.

As expected, a simple search quickly led me to tons and tons of homemade beauty recipes, some more extravagant than others. I still have a year’s worth of baby wash for general cleansing, but I really needed a good recipe for face scrub and moisturizer. After combing through several, and picking the ones that sounded good to me, I gathered my ingredients from the kitchen and headed to the sink.

Here’s what I’ve tried…

Face Scrub: Brown Sugar & Honey

• 1/4 tsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp honey

I found this amount to be exactly enough to cover my face and part of my neck, without any leftovers to be wasted. I expected the mixture to be very sticky, but I’d washed my face with very warm water before getting started, so the moisture remaining on my face watered down the honey and made it glide nicely over my skin. It wasn’t sticky at all. The scrub was nice going on, and did a great job exfoliating! I rubbed it all over my face, and massaged it in well. (There may have even been a couple of times when I just couldn’t resist licking the sweetness from the corners of my mouth!) It washed off easily when I was done. End result: nice, smooth skin. As soon as my face dried, though, I really needed to moisturize.

Natural Moisturizer: Olive Oil

You are supposed to use Extra Virgin Olive Oil, but I only had Pure Olive Oil. To use this as a moisturizer, I wet my face again and left it slightly damp, then dipped my finger into the olive oil and rubbed it all over my face, massaging it in. If you have oily skin you might want to avoid your “T” zone.

It felt a little thick and greasy even though I only used a tiny amount, and I fully expected to break out in horrible acne by the end of the day. But actually my face was nice and smooth, and felt very hydrated. Next time, I’ll try to use even less oil though.

I’ve been very happy with the results of this new facial care combination. I’ve also been using Witchhazel as a toner. One thing caught my attention in particular after using these natural alternatives. Not long after washing my face I was holding baby Xia, and pressed my cheek against hers in an embrace. Immediately I realized that I didn’t have to worry about what chemicals might rub off of my face onto hers. That was a comforting feeling.

I’m gonna keep using these recipes, but here are a few other recipes I’m keeping in mind as well:

Recessions Proof Beauty: 10 Homemade Facial Scrubs- just a forewarning, I read elsewhere that the baking soda scrub can really dry out your skin.

Recipes For Facials, Scrubs, Toners, and Masks

Food For Great Skin

What about you? Have you been using the same products for years? Do you have a favorite beauty recipe that you can share with us? Or maybe you have a beauty recipe flop to warn us about! I’d love to know what you do to keep your skin looking its best.

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A few weeks ago I decided to harvest all of my onions, as the tops were all dead, and I wanted to clean the garden bed out. I put them in a basket and sat them on a shelf in my kitchen.

Yesterday, I was making dinner and the recipe called for onions. Oh good, I’ve got some of those! I pulled them out and began peeling back their flaky outer layers. As I prepped them for the cutting board, I began to notice that every one of the onions I had peeled had this black stuff on it, underneath the skin. I figured it was just dirt, no big deal, so I washed it off and kept peeling more onions.

I was about to start chopping the onions up, when I started to wonder about those black spots. I wasn’t so sure it was just dirt. I mean, if it was dirt, why was it underneath the layers and not simply on the surface? I hopped on the internet and searched for black spots on onions. Sure enough, I quickly discovered what it really was: Aspergillus Black Mold.

Evidently, it’s a pretty common fungus among home grown onions in particular. It comes from the onions getting too hot or humid while being stored. Maybe I should have stored them in the fridge? I definitely should have allowed them to dry well before storing though.

It was really hard throwing away all of my onions. I was so tempted to just wash them off and use them! *Sigh* But of course, it wasn’t worth the risk of making my family sick. Oh well. At least the pig enjoyed them!

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I am so addicted to making these rolls. My mother-in-law so generously shared the recipe with me, and boy have we been devouring these puppies! They are super easy to make, especially if you have a bread machine.

NaNa’s Dinner Rolls

*Makes 12 rolls (never mind the missing one in the picture, I just couldn’t resist!)

• 3 cups bread flour
• 1/3 cup dry milk
• 2 tsp yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 3 Tbsp oil
• 1 beaten egg
• 1 cup warm water (not hot)
• *butter for tops of rolls

Mix all ingredients together well; I put them in my bread machine and set it to “dough” to mix and knead, this setting allows the dough to rise for about an hour. When the dough is finished rising, knead a little more then pull off 12 equally sized pieces to place in each section of a greased muffin pan. You can also just plop these pieces onto a greased cookie sheet.

*TIP: Flour your hands well before you knead and pull the dough. If it starts sticking to your fingers, don’t wash them, just rub more flour onto your hands. Otherwise, it will be all too much like pulling taffy… a mess!!

Allow the dough to rise for 30 more minutes. Preheat oven to 400*. When ready, bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the tops are browned. Immediately after removing them from the oven, rub the top of each roll with butter to make them soft and even more delicious.

*You can also use this bread recipe for cinnamon rolls or a soup bowl!

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If you look closely into the trees that line one side of my front yard, you will see the fence we’ve made to keep deer away from our young apple trees. It’s made from pallets, free from my husband’s old job. He used to bring home truckloads at a time, and stack them in a clearing beside the woods. It took a little time before we had enough of the same kind of pallets to line our yard, but eventually we’d gathered the right amount for the job. We could have easily made a fence out of various pallets, but I wanted to make it look as good as a pallet fence could possibly look, so it was important to me to keep a uniform look the entire length.

I drug each pallet into the trees, one by one, and leaned them up against each other or against a small pine. We didn’t have any posts, so we just overlapped them slightly and screwed them together. We will eventually go in and put proper posts here and there, and make sure that they are all even along the top, and not staggered in height. I’d also like to paint it dark brown, to make it blend in more with the trees. One day it will all be covered with ivy and beautiful flowers I plan on planting along the border of the yard as to disguise it.

But for now. It is there, doing it’s job, keeping unwanted animals out of my future little Eden. And it was free, *smile*.

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It was such a beautiful day today! It wasn’t too hot, a little bit cloudy, and a light breeze was constantly refreshing us. I couldn’t let a day like this go to waste, I wanted to build something!

Looking around me I spotted a few good pieces of material- some tall wooden stakes, and scrap chicken wire. Immediately I knew what I wanted to do, a chicken run! Chickens are wonderful for clearing weeds and bugs from garden beds, and their manure will be wonderful fertilizer for next year’s crop. Plus, with a pesky fox after my chickens I need a way to keep them safe. I raided Jerry’s workshop (sorry hun!), and grabbed a rubber mallet, some long screws, the drill, and a loaded staple gun.

First, I hammered the stakes into each corner of one of the unused garden boxes, and screwed them in place. Next, I stretched the chicken wire as tightly as I could around the stakes, and stapled it to the bottom of the box, and up and down each of the stakes. I secured it this way all the way around except for one side, which I designated as the entrance. Here, instead of stapling it, I put a few screws up and down the corner post and simply stretched the wire over the screws to hold it in place. This way I can easily pull the wire aside as I need to gain access to the chickens and feeders.

Once the sides were done, I stretched a piece over the top and stapled it to the top of each stake. I used twistie ties (from sandwich bags) to secure the top wire to the wire along the sides. Add a little shelter, and waterer, and the chickens were ready to play! Now, to catch the little rascals… Good thing I had Jada to help me!

It wasn’t long after I had finished when it began to pour down rain. I mean, hard rain! Knowing that chickens will die if they are left out in a downpour without any shelter, I went to check on them to make sure they were okay. Sure enough, the dumb things were huddled in a corner of the run getting completely drenched. I made my way inside with them, caught them both, and put them inside the little house I’d put in the run. Maybe they didn’t know what it was? Maybe it wasn’t big enough? I looked around and found something bigger for them to get into (I myself getting completely soaked) and thoughtfully put the new, larger “house” in the run. They stayed under the shelter, and when I checked on them again after the storm had passed they were fine.

I’m wondering how long it will take them to scratch up all of the weeds and clean the bed out for me. Obviously, we wouldn’t leave them in there over the winter, just as long as the weather is nice. Most of my garden beds are the same measurements, so when they are done with this one I’m thinking it won’t be that hard to move the run to the next box. If tomorrow is nice I might build another one for my other two chickens.

Forget manicures and hair salons… scrap materials make me happy.

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If you are into sewing (or like me and desperately want to learn how!), and you love aprons then you might wanna check out this free ebook! There are 8 really cute patterns to choose from, including this adorable number:

My Jada would look so precious wearing this in the kitchen with me!! I have GOT to learn to sew!! This would make an adorable gift idea as well.

Seven other cute ideas, Check ‘em out!

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Though there isn’t anything “big” that we can do here, we have come up with lots of little things that could help us earn extra money from home. Of course, everything takes start up costs, some more than others, so we can’t do everything we want to all at once. But here are some things we have in mind:

1. Breed & Sell Rabbits- We already have a bunch of rabbit cages we got for free off of Craigslist, which came with dozens of water bottles and feeders. And we have a nice grassy area we could fence in for them to graze on. As we all know, rabbits multiply like crazy, so we would easily have lots to sell. We could raise and sell them for pets, for meat, and for fur.
2. Raise Turkeys to sell- Turkeys are one of those animals that don’t take a lot to feed, and grow very quickly. I think there would be a good market for naturally raised Turkey meat.
3. Breed & Sell Goats- For meat, and for milking. We could also sell goat’s milk, and make soap and cheese from it to sell as well.
4. Breed & Sell Dogs- Still not sure if we wanna do this yet. But, if we could get a good male and female pair, and raise good farm dogs for local farmers, we could make a little extra money that way. Just a thought.
5. Sell plants- Growing plants (veggies or flowers) from seeds would be the cheapest to start doing, and could be marked up significantly. I could easily get a pack of 50 seeds for a dollar or two, and sell the plants that come from each seed for $1 a piece or so.
6. Sell produce- If I ever manage to grow enough food in our garden that we actually have any extra, we could obviously sell it.
7. Sell farm fresh eggs- We’ll have to increase our flock size, but whenever we get enough hens we can start selling the extra eggs.
8. Sell chickens- For meat, or laying hens; as our flock multiplies.
9. Sell fertilized eggs, or incubate eggs for others.
10. Teach canning, bread baking, soap making courses from home.
11. Sell fresh medicinal or culinary herbs or plants.
12. Sell wild blackberry bushes- we’d just have to dig them up and pot them.
13. Make soaps to sell- The materials would be the biggest expense.
14. Sell honey and candles- I’d love to have bee hives one day. But that’s probably a while in the future.
15. Sell freshly baked breads and other baked goods. We’d have to get our name out there though to build a good customer base.
16. Jerry could make wooden toys to sell- Though this would be very time consuming.
17. Sell paintings and crafts- I’m pretty handy with a paintbrush and love to make crafts, but again, it is so time consuming, and who has TIME?

Well, that’s all I got. Whatcha think? Can you think of anything else we could do to make a little money from our land? How do you bring in extra cash from home?

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