Yet another pallet project I would like to build that I found on the internet. So many ways to use free stuff!
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Here is a nice stack of different recipes for making homemade laundry detergent that I’ve collected over the years. Do they work? Yes, I’ve had good luck with them. At the time I was using them, we had a relative who was in trade school living with us. Every day he was mechanic grease from head to toe–the clothes still cleaned up nice!
Making your own is a discipline and it’s not for everyone, but it definitely saves money–sometimes just costing pennies a load! Before you get started, here are a few tips:
Read more at... http://tipnut.com/10-homemade-laundry-soap-detergent-recipes/ So, I was going to get a dairy cow, but the deal fell through. Now, I am very
glad that it did. Me without milk is like a tree without roots, and without a good dairy output (I am crossing some sheep to come up with bigger milkers but that is another story), I am verklempt and need a cow yesterday. Or so I thought. Hello, goaties. A friend of mine found a baby doe that looked like a deer (doe, a deer, deedeedeedo), and said it was a Nubian, which is the dairy goat breed that I had put on my wish list of livestock to obtain in the future, in my dairy farm quest. In the future. The opposite of now. Against my better judgement, I get dragged by my two youngest daughters and my best friend to go look. Of course the baby is adorable, but when I am told that she is 1/4 LaMancha and 3/4 Nubian, I know she isn't what I want. A mixed breed wrecks my plan for a pure Nubian herd, and any future pure bred sales. I decide against getting her, as I really wasn't even in the market for goats at the time, and I wanted a pure bred Nubian. Unfortunately, my girls were already in looooove. And when we got up to leave, little deergoat runs after my youngest, bleating her little baby bleat and breaking my heart, because that means she already loves my kid, right? I hung my head, knowing I had lost this battle. My kids are now deergoat's kids. The owner brought out some milk so we could all taste it, and to us it tasted just like the 2% you buy at the store. SOLD! Pay the lady and load the goat onto the laps gleefully perched in the backseat of my vehicle/livestock hauler. We bring her home and figure she can be buddies with our Southdown Babydoll wether, so she bunks with him. And cries, all...night...long. So of course the next day I decide that the transition is difficult for the teeny weeny displaced adorable baby goat, and her sheep buddy just ain't cutting it, AND, I rationalize, one grown goat won't produce enough milk for my family anyway, so what do I do? I go straight back to goat lady and buy another one. My youngest daughter just loves tiny things. While visiting the goats the day before, my daughter was loving on a black goat that was 3/4 LaMancha and 1/4 Nubian, so she had little bitty ears that my daughter that were the cutest things. She had been disappointed to leave her favorite goat at the farm, but she didn't complain, and was happy to have deergoat. When I told my girls we were going back to get the one with the tiny ears, very loud "yippees" and "yays" were my reward. So I am not in the market for goats at all, and now I have two. My husband, thank God, is a very understanding man. I read and read and read before I buy things. I knew that I wanted milk goats at some point and had done preliminary research, but nothing heavy. Now I have two dairy goats, so I start seriously looking at milk quality and production. In my research, I found that Nigerian Dwarfs have the creamiest milk, and attempting cream and butter were high on my list. I had gone to the state wide 4-H show to look at dairy goats last fall, and saw a sign that said, "The Jersey of Dairy Goats", not paying particular attention to what breed it was because I was only interested in Nubians. After my purchase of these two not 100% Nubians, I was thinking perhaps I would buy a buck of this "Jersey" goat breed and cross him to my girls. I start looking online to see which goat produces the most, and the creamiest, milk. Nigerian Dwarfs appeared on my radar, and I decide if the two I have are successful for us, we would add a ND in the future. Future. Like maybe in a couple of years. The word future and I apparently do not get along. Sure enough, ONE MONTH later my very favorite localish farm posts on their facebook page that they are getting out of Nigerians and all of theirs are for sale. Here is someone I trust, have bought many animals from before, and she has a baby doe for sale. You guessed it...a couple of weeks later our two goats had turned into three. So, we now have three does, born this past summer, that will hopefully give us some kids, and milk, sometime next fall. Meet Hazel, our Nigerian Dwarf, Alice, the spotted Nubian, and Black Betty, the LaMancha (ever heard that song, whoa Black Betty, Bam-a-lam...that is the song after which she was named, by my 9 year old). Please visit http://www.mypatriotsupply.com/Medicinal_Herb_Garden_Seeds_s/57.htm to view, direct link to the homepage is www.mypatriotsupply.com for all kinds on heirloom seed, bulk emergency foods, and various self preparedness supplies. Good, family owned, trustworthy company.
I am of the opinion that everyone should know at least a little about treating medical issues at home. This collection would get you on your way to being stocked for basic health problems. However, as with all things, if you don't know what you are doing with herbal medicine, or currently take any synthetic drugs, please seek the advice of a professional before you ingest anything. Many times people feel that if it is herbal, it is safe. That may not be the case, depending on the herb you are using and the medications a person is using. If in doubt, buy something else from the website! Be self reliant, folks. Well, my old page counter stopped counting for some reason. Had to spend an hour yesterday researching decent stat counters, then putting it up on each page. Sadly, now it looks like this site has only ever had 40 visitors. grrrrrrrrr
Decided to use http://statcounter.com/, we'll see how this one works. As this blogger writes, I too have planted sugar maples, bought stevia seed to gro indoors (and in my future greenhouse), and plan to add bees. But this article has me adding yet another way to add sugar to my homestead. Sugar beets! Read on...
"It started like this. In my quest for self-sufficiency, I wanted to have the ability to produce my own sugar if need be. I planned on adding bees to the farmstead this last spring – but ‘we’ spent money on a new chainsaw instead. My next thought was maple trees? Not unless I could pay to put in a bunch of 10 year-old sugar maple tress, hope they all lived, then maybe in another 10-15 years I would have some young smallish trees I might be able to tap. Stevia plants? I found out, not only do they not grow in my zone, but I have noticed through watching my friend’s attempts that they are rather finicky to grow indoors and don’t like big shifts in temperature. That wouldn’t work in our house with wood heat. Then I found my answer through my grandma. Sugar Beets. They used to grow them when my grandma was a kid – but not just a couple of rows of them, they would plant a small field of them. She said that when they used the sugar from them, it was always like using super dark brown sugar. So if you were using it in something like white cake or egg nog, that it would darken the color of what you were making but she remembered it still tasted really good. She said they processed them outside, because they smelled a little. Sugar beets contain 10-16% sucrose, compared to a sugar maple sap at 2% – this is why you need up to 40 gallons of sugar maple sap boiled down to make one gallon of maple syrup. The process is a tad quicker with sugar beets." Read more at... http://americanpreppersnetwork.com/2012/12/how-to-make-your-own-sugar.html |