Canning chili rocks!

If you prep you should can or at least know how to. You probably can the usuals of veggies and jams. Peaches and green beans. Did you know some of your favorite things can be canned too? I can chili, spaghetti sauce, and even tortilla soup often. I make huge batches every time I cook these family favorites and jar the majority of it. It can take a little extra time but it is so worth it in the food storage and for nights when I don't want to fuss. You would be surprised at what you can put in a jar!

The actual meaning of Libertarian. *Repost*

***I thought this would be a good time to revive an old post. See when it comes to politics the three of us are pretty aligned in thought but we do have issues we each differ on. We are pretty open to discussing them but since Ms. Maggy has a major case of life needing her attention (Full time job, Monster raising to say the least) and Gracie and I are a bit more free with our time I wanted to make one thing more clear. This isn't an anti-Dem blog. (Mags would want to make sure we were fair!) Or a for anything blog either lol unless it is for a more free-will based society. We definitely agree that there is way to much politicing and not enough actual benifit to it. Things are getting more and more complicated with the new laws and judgements and clarifications. We are of the KISS thought. Keep It Simple Stupid! So my earlier post wasn't about bagging on Obama. It was about the giggle factor of the bumper sticker and the creator's creativity.***


This is what dictionary.com has listed.

lib⋅er⋅tar⋅i⋅an 
Pronunciation [lib-er-tair-ee-uhn]

–noun
1.
a person who advocates liberty, esp. with regard to thought or conduct.
2.
a person who maintains the doctrine of free will.

–adjective
3.
advocating liberty or conforming to principles of liberty.
4.
maintaining the doctrine of free will.

Origin: 1780–90; libert(y) + -arian

I know that many people have no idea what being Libertarian means. We tend to believe that government has reached a bit farther into our lives than they should and that if the people were trusted more our country might just be a better place.

Hive progress

My bees are getting feisty! I no more than opened the hive than one of them stung my little picture taker. So no pics of the frames or capped brood this time. I left the inner cover off and took care of the sting. I decided that maybe it was time to fire up the smoker. I got it put together and read the instructions. I got it let and went back outside. I didn't have time to let it really get smoking but it was enough to get done what I needed to do.

There was one frame that had just hatched and been cleaned ready for more brood or honey. There was one frame that was PERFECT! Capped honey at the top, pollen in the middle and capped brood in the bottom. Way to go girls! now if they would just quit messing around with that burr comb and draw out the rest of the frames. I am almost certain I won't have enough honey to harvest this year, I may even have to feed my bees through the winter.

I cut off all of the burr comb and put it in a container so I could take it in the house. I had a friend over who was thinking about getting a hive next year. I took her some of the honey filled comb to try. The first thing out of her mouth (once she had gotten around the sticky honey) was "It's WARM!" I gave her the first taste, I had not ever tried it.

I actually got a look at my queen today too, she was busy going from cell to cell laying eggs. I was pretty excited to see her, I knew she was there because I was finding brood, but I had not ever actually seen her after putting her in the hive for the first time.

I got the hive all cleaned up and put back together and took all of my gear off. I immediatly dug into the comb I had cut off and bit into the richest honey I have ever tasted! It was incredibly sweet. At lease twice as sweet as store bought honey.

There was more than that in the jar, but by the time I got around to taking a picture, I had eaten about half of it! My allergies had been kicking my butt all day, but now my head is clear and I feel pretty good! Local honey rocks!

(You can't tell I am excited, can you?)

A dissatisfied fellow American?

I tend to stay away from major politics here. My feeling is we have far to much government and no one man can fix what is wrong. Not even a President. I think Obama has tried but what took decades to muck up won't be undone in a couple years. I am a bit nutty in that I have beliefs that can be labled very Dem and others very Republican. Honestly neither major party has what I want these days.

Anyway I saw this homemade bumper sticker and had to chuckle and take a pic. Driver even gave me a thumbs up hehehe. Being a Dodge family and having a husband much more firmly Republican it just was funny. I could see Hubby putting it on his truck LOL. I even sent it to him in text. If my cell camera shot is hard to see it says "Does this ASS make my truck look fat?"

Honestly we need a clean slate all over the place. People are realizing it as long sitting Senate and Congress members are voted out. We are speaking. To bad they just aren't listening.

drowning in produce

I never thought I would be growing "too much" food. My radishes are starting to taper off and I am getting ready to plant a second crop. My swiss chard is taking off and I can't eat it fast enough. I can't give it away fast enough either. It is a plant that tastes very similar to spinich. You can use it in a salad, you can put it on your sandwich, you can cook it, (my favorite is to boil it and serve it with a pat of butter and salt and pepper) the possibilities are endless. So is the plant...endless. The more you pick, the more leaves grow to take the place of the ones you harvested. I have a feeling I will be eating more of this plant than I ever thought possible.

My lettuce is also coming in thick. When I buy a head of lettuce in the store, I know I have to eat it within three or four days or it goes bad. When I pick lettuce from my garden, I can have it in the fridge for a week and it doesn't even WILT! It is still as crunchy and fresh as the day I harvested it.

My sunflowers are almost a foot tall and growing like crazy despite a neighbors claims that we can't grow sunflowers here. Because of that prior "knowledge", I planted every seed I had and well over 260 plants came up. I can't wait to invite this neighbor over this fall to see how hard it is to grow sunflowers here, lol.

The onions I planted are just as big or bigger than the onion plants I bought and are growing like crazy. I plan on dehydrating chopped onion pieces this fall to store for the year to come. I am toying with the idea of onion powder too, but we will see just how many we have. I have a sneaking suspicion that it takes A LOT of onions to make onion powder.

My pepper plants are doing good, but not growing much. they seem to have just stalled out and decided to stay this size. I am seeing new growth coming on, hopefully some blossoms in there as well. I would really like to make some salsa this year.

Speaking of salsa, the tomatoes are also doing good and they are actually growing a little taller. We are playing with the water system to fine tune it so that everything gets the right amount of water. The tomatoes seem to like what they are getting so we aren't messing with them much.

The cucumbers are putting out new leaves almost every day and I am looking forward to pickle making this fall. We tried a few new kind of cucumbers and I am hoping they will work well for pickles. We have four bush cucumber plants and four lemon cucumbers along with four pickling cucumbers. (gosh, I hate typing that word)

My jeruselum artichokes are getting really big and I think I will plant them a bit different next year. I want to do something similar to what we did with our potato plants. We have them in a small box that we can add layers to as the plants grow. If you keep putting dirt over the top of the plant, it will be forced to grow ever higher, producing more and more potatoes all the way up the stem.

My peas and beans finally came up (they were the last planted) and are 1 1/2 to 2 inches tall now. I have to figure out what will work best as a trellis for them to climb. Still pondering that one.

The corn is around six inches tall and can now flutter in the breeze. This is the crop I think the whole family is most excited about. We all love corn on the cob and I will also freeze any excess that we can't eat fresh. With three rows of corn, I think there will be plenty to freeze.

The squashes (zucchini, crookneck and pumpkin) are doing well as are the melons. I think those will be one of the more fun crops that the kids will enjoy picking and eating.

I am busy right now dealing with everything that is coming ready and I know it is only going to get worse as the rest of the crops mature, but it is certainly a satisfying kind of busy. And now I have proven to myself that I really can provide for my family. Now if I can only get a deer this year.......

Better prepared than I thought.

Some of the recent posts on blogs I enjoy are far less hopeful than I and it got me a little worried. We are hard pressed to hole up here. If SHTF this is not the place to be and as far as preps go we are a young couple with young kids and hubby is in a career that does not lend itself to retreat building while also focusing on our idea of how we raise our kids. (I am at home so one income.) I have been focusing on these hurdles and worries and seeing the posts seemed to create the right mix for my nightmare prone brain. Last night was a doozy.

A great thing about my guy is he lets me share the dream then tells me what we would do different in life. He was at work today though. I didn't feel comfortable really sharing the dream but did share the worry about our preparedness level with my BIL. He surprised me by detailing the plan. Where we would go. How we would have food, build shelter, have water, harvest crops. The boys have it worked out and are ready. He said they are wanting a couple more shotguns and probably a .22 pistol for us.

As far as prepping the house he said they both think getting a couple 55 gallon drums for water would be smart but otherwise he isn't worried. That was very comforting to hear. So there is a plan LOL just one not shared with me very well. I think we will make that Lila box soon as well as getting a get home bag in Hubby's truck. Get the meeting place figured out for escape in a long term issue and get the local water resources better figured out for short term things. And keep letting my guy do his thing. He has it under control.

Fun facts about chickens

Fact #1 A hen will sometimes kick a newborn chick out of the nest if it is a different color then she is.

Fact #2 A newborn chick can fall a long ways and be ok.

Fact #3 If you pick up tough little chick, it will imprint on you and scream if you put it down...ever.

Fact #4 That cranky hen will sometimes refuse to take spoiled chick back and attack it if you try and make her.

Fact #5 Spoiled little chick chirps at such a frequency to give surrogate mom a headache...chick gets her way yet again.

So you get the drift of what my day has been like? I learned all of these facts within about an hour of finding spoiled little chick this morning. I also found out that a little dog I had been babysitting ran one of our laying hens to death last night. So I lost one and gained one this morning. Too bad the one I gained will not lay until late this fall. (If she even turns out to be a hen). I have chickens in five different places right now because no one gets long. I have my three remaining laying hens in the chicken coop. I have Twitchy and her sisters in the chick pen in the chicken coop. I have the murderous rooster in the dog run. I have the setting hen and the other 6 eggs in a dog crate in the garage. And spoiled little chick is snuggled into my sons neck and for the moment mercifully quiet.

AC DOWN!!! ........ and other stuff.

So I want to write. I always want to write but I am fabulous at putting it off for whatever reason I can. I think the current theme has been not wanting to stay up since it has to be done after Monkey goes to bed plus not wanting to approach a pretty violent but necessary scene. I am approaching this book again on the basis that my heroine is not a ninny. I kind of created her to be originally. She took long standing physical and emotional abuse and it wasn't until she became pregnant and her father died that she found the courage to leave. Now I am not coming down on abused women. Before I met and married my guy I had a pretty ugly relationship. It happens. It can happen to very smart very confident women and it can take them by surprise. I just don't want to write that story. I think a lot of the reason for the change in how I view her has come as I have gained more confidence in myself as a woman. My awesome guy has always been 100% supportive. He has always had confidence in me, found me beautiful, and pushed me to be more. He married a wuss. I honestly was a wall flower and in certain ways still am. I hate confrontation and often stayed quiet even if it meant allowing myself to be hurt. That has changed over recent years and as that has changed the view of the women I want to write has changed.


I knew I needed re-writes for this book. If any of you have been to my website and read my rough work you can see what I mean. This book, so far titled "Kat's Escape", has a great plot. I love the theme. But before I run the gauntlet again of agents, especially after my horrible last experience, I want to do some re-writing. I plan to pull in the POV aspects. In the first chunk of the book I jump to other characters POV (point-of-view) and away from the hero and heroine and villian(s?). I also want Kat to be stronger. Signs of her husband's junk will have been there but the actual physical fight is going to be the catalyst. Being hit and her father's death is what makes her leave. So I am on that scene. Husband has finally snapped his carefully contained leash and beaten her to a pulp and raped her. I have to write that. I plan to skirt the rape. More of a fade to black as he undoes his pants and approaches type thing. I don't have the stomach for that despite the fact it is needed for my story line to go as I need it to. I mean she does have a pregnancy to contend with after all.


So I am avoiding. Avoiding because of the violence which is hard for me to write on a few levels even though I write romantic suspense which typically has some violence for the reason of overcoming it. I am avoiding because I don't want to give up sleep though my husband would understand and even be thrilled over it. At the root I am avoiding because my confidence as a writer is still shaky. The agent debacle totally tore my confidence up and getting back into the grove has been rough. In a way blogging helps because it releases some of the tension but I need to get back to my stories. I have a whole series for youth that needs written and all the other stories that pop through my head. They need telling and I need to just stop letting fear rule. Uggg.........


Oh and to top it off the AC is down. In the desert. With temps hitting 108 at the house. Poor hubby has had it hit 112 at work. Yuck.

The Blog Roll!!

So our blog-roll is a work in progress as we make friends, discover wonderful writers, and expand our interests. Recently we have added a few to our list and we are very happy to have them, some are oldies under new names, others are followers who I finally took the time to check out in return and discovered wonderful blogs. All on our list are worth a look and cover a range of topics from prepping and food storage to gardening to guns and all the fun in between. I use Google reader so I read all the new posts of those on our list and try to comment on posts that really get me. It is a great way to follow all the different types of blogs. Check it out!!

Xenogenic? Why yes I am.

I have a smartphone. I am the geek in our house so Hubby loves getting me gadgets and they get used LOL. My phone has 2 screens of educational things for the girls including a couple different word of the day type applications. The word of the day yesterday for the Dictionary.com app was xenogenic. It means to be completely different from either parent, or from the source of an object's creation. As usual Bug read it and rolled her eyes a bit but I had to chuckle a bit. If ever a word fit me it is this one.

My biological mother left a long time ago and I am better for it. The one goal I had as I thought about being a woman, wife, and mother was to be her opposite. She is an addict and to this day has not kicked her many habits. My younger brother and I are very lucky our dad took us and left when he did.

I am a lot like my dad was at my age. Outdoor oriented with a love of learning. I think the biggest difference is he was just having me where I have a decade of good marriage and a 9 year old. So I am more family based. Now he is happily married and very successful but his interests are completely different than mine. Hunting is not his thing and the idea of planning is more to about making sure he has the financial security needed for a comfortable retirement. Good goals of course but our thinking just differs. I am also a very emotional person. I cry when I am mad or sad or happy. It has made father/daughter bonding challenging sometimes.

I think being the oddball homebody quiet one has probably hurt some relationships. My dad's side are very smart, educated well spoken and my biological mother's side just doesn't know me. I am very lucky in my in-laws and in my adoptive family and friends. Even if I am an oddball they still love me for it and work with it. I love all sides of my family, I do, I just wish I knew how to help them see that just because I am a stay-at-home shooting, hunting, anti social goof doesn't mean I don't love them. I would move mountains for them.