Preparing for the ducks

We have a long ways to go to prepare for ducks this year, but today the work began to convert an old chicken coop we built a few years ago into a duck coop for our ducks. When we built it we used salvaged pallets. We were able to use it for a few months but ultimately it was too small and did not provide roosting space for the chickens. However the ducks don't need roosting space, and the coop will be fenced in the orchard providing lots of space for the ducks to run around. The coop will just provide shelter for the ducks at night and from the weather.

Solar Panels and Winter

We are currently in the middle of winter. This presents a few challenges with solar power. Every morning we wake up to a fresh layer of frozen condensation covering our solar panels. I have three ways to fix this. The first is to let the sun warm up the panels and melt the ice. The problem with this is we lose hours of sunlight that could be powering our batteries. The second method is to scrape the panels like we do our car windows. This method is long, cold, and our panels are pretty high, so it also involves balancing on a ladder. Since I don't like to balance on a ladder in the freezing cold I try to avoid this method as often as I can. The third and easiest method is to pour some warm water on the panels to speed up the process which the sun will finish once some of the panels are exposed. The problem with the last method is that we must have enough power from the previous day stored in the batteries to get water from our well which is powered by solar panels.If there is snow on the panels then we first have to sweep off the snow, and then we can work on the layer of ice which is always under the snow. It is definitely a conundrum. However, we love our solar power, so I wake each day with the sun and get to work finding the method that will work best for that day.

Secret Ingredient Rice

Iron Chef Family
Tonight we played one of our favorite games: Iron Chef and our secret ingredient was Rice!
We ended up with three teams! I was super impressed with my oldest son's ability to work with his little brother (age 10) and sister (age7) as he listened to each of their suggestions and composed a dish with the help of both siblings and no complaining. He was a great leader as he kept the dish moving and they all worked together as a team. I also want to note that my 7 year old daughter made homemade tortillas for the first time and did a great job.
On the other team I had two teen age kids who both came up with interesting individual dishes.
However the winner was a surprise third team that arose because of need. My six year old son felt left out and needed a team so I sat down and listened to his ideas of what he wanted to cook. He was insistent on eggs. Additionally he wanted to incorporate corn. So he ended up making an omelet that had rice, corn and salsa in it. It was delicious and he won the competition. Congratulations Seth!!!!

New addition to the homestead

We are super excited to welcome the newest buck to our family. His name is Radar. He is 3/4 Nubian and we are so excited to breed him to our Oberhasli this next year. Thank you Knever Knight Farm for this beautiful little buckling. You can see some of the great things they are doing here.

Thrift Store Shopping

Some people have turned bargain shopping into an art form. For me, it is just rewarding.
For years I would go to the local thrift store look at the prices and think I can buy this new at Walmart for the same price or cheaper. Then I moved. Here there are several thrift stores, and a lot of people who just don't like to throw things away. As a result they take clothes to the local thrift store by the bag. One of our thrift stores has so many donations that they put the majority of the clothes in large wood boxes in front of the store and offer all you want that will fit into a 13 gallon size garbage bag for $1. This week I was able to purchase over 10 white and colored button up dress shirts for my boys in sizes that will fit my 10, 6, and 3 year old sons from the bin. I am so grateful for the ability to shop at thrift stores here where I live. I have also learned that kids love getting new things and they don't seem to care if it was something that was previously owned by someone else, its still a treasure to them. What is really cool about this is that I can focus our income and accomplish our goals of getting out of debt because I can buy clothes for the kids without spending our get out of debt snowball income on the clothes the kids need. Yes I still have to spend quite a bit at the store getting items I can't find, however its a lot less. I encourage everyone to find a few ways that you can save money in your local area, but when you do make sure you beef up your money going towards your debts. For example if you love to buy books and you get a book from the library, take the money from the bank you would have spend and put it on a debt. Don't just save the money buy not spending it, go ahead and spend it, just spend it on your debt and get out of debt faster. You can do it.

We paid off our addition, one step closer to debt free!

We are so super excited. Just eight months after getting our second shed that we have converted into a tiny house we have paid it off. We have tons more to do on our property. We still live in the middle of the dessert surrounded by lots of dirt with very little green to be seen anywhere, and its difficult to just go out and plant things because the dirt is mostly clay everywhere. However we continue to make progress and its super exciting to have our home paid for, ever if we are still building it. We really enjoy the shed conversions that we have done and love trying new things. I have decided one of my next adventures is going to be building some unique furniture to sell. I am really looking forward to designing and building some fun pieces.

One super exciting thing we have been able to do is to do some upgrades to our tiny house. When we first moved in we built our home the best that we could with the resources that we had. Recently we were able to replace our bathroom door with a beautiful wood door that we got on clearance. Over the next few months we have some more upgrades planned, but we are using cash or recycled products for everything.

Getting out of debt

I love to read articles that tell me how I can get out of debt or save money. I don't know why I continue to be drawn to them. The truth is I find very little useful information. I read things like:

• Don't buy junk food (okay this is good advice but lets face it the healthy treats I love cost more than the junk food so although I love this advice, its not saving me money maybe calories but certainly not money)
• Don't eat out at lunch - take your lunch to work. Okay who can afford to eat out and where do you find all that money to go out to eat for lunch. Eating out is a treat for a date night or a celebration not a lunchtime activity. And for that matter, lets celebrate getting out of debt. Save eating at the fabulous restaurant for a reward when you pay off a bill, not as a daily activity.
• Give up an addictive habit (hmm I don't drink, smoke, or play the lottery). 
• Negotiate a lower rate on your credit cards. Come on, its those dumb cards that got you into trouble in the first place. Stop using them. Cut them us and ban them from your life. 
• Cut your cable bill. Seriously you have a cable bill. You are broke, struggling to pay your bills and you are at home watching cable. Something seems wrong with this picture.

And the advice to get out of debt can be just as helpful interesting.


So I have decided to post my own advice here for everyone to read, or at least those who manage to find my blog in its obscurity.
How to save money

• Use the library (if you decide you love a book and want to reference to it repeatedly then go ahead and buy it, but most books can be enjoyed and returned to the library)
• Shop at the thrift store. We love this, we find so many great things shopping at the thrift store, but its important to buy just what you need at least until you are out of debt. Don't buy things just because they are a good price.
• Trade services. Its great if you can find someone you can trade services with like babysitting for piano lessons. However if you can't try other avenues like learning from the internet. 
• Get rid of your cable bill and for that matter any bills that you don't need. Come on you know what they are.
• Take advantage of free music lessons if you can. The public schools often offer Choir, Band, Orchestra and sometimes other music that your kids can learn at the school for free or an extremely reduced rate compared to private lessons.
• Have family game nights instead of vacations for a while. 
• Take advantage of free community events. Actually if you want to go to a good concert or play you might actually enjoy one from the local high school.  There are lots of free (or super cheap) community activities that you can enjoy when you are taking a break from Vacations and getting out of debt.
• Plant a garden. Well this can be interesting. Here you must set a spending limit. The first time we ever planted a garden we spent $100 on supplies and didn't get anything out of it. Last year we buried a few seeds on a family night and reaped a whole lot of food.  The idea was we just planted a few seeds and didn't spend a lot of money. If we hadn't gotten anything, we wouldn't have been out much. However the first time we spent $100 and got nothing. 
• Work, work, work. I can't say this enough. I am a stay at home mother, but there are dozens of things I do a week that save my family money because I am willing to work and so something myself instead of pay someone else to do it. 

How to get out of debt
Stop buying things you can't afford.

• For most of us this means don't use credit cards EVER because if you don't have the cash for it, you can't afford it.
• Don't buy a car without cash.
• Don't buy a house that is more than 25% of your take home pay.
• Don't take out a second mortgage.
• Don't spend more than you make. Tell everyone NO when they invite you to do something that you just can't afford. And lets face it when you are getting out of debt you can't afford just about everything because to get out of debt you need to one stop spending and two put extra money on the debts until they are gone.
• Don't buy anything that isn't necessary until you are out of debt (with the exception of small rewards that you pay for with cash built into your getting out of debt plan)
• Do pay extra on your debt.
• Do pay extra on your debt.
• Do pay extra on your debt.
• DO PAY EXTRA ON YOUR DEBT.

However the best advice I can give is just as follows. Stop spending money on purchases that are wants not needs. Too often we are plugging along and someone tells us about a great sale, a fabulous book or an amazing once in a lifetime vacation we just have to take. Here I like to apply the advice of Dave Ramsey. Live like no one else so later you can live like no one else. There has to come a time when you tell yourself NO until you can afford to tell yourself YES. And finally, DON'T GIVE UP! If you have kids, love them enough to teach then how an adult is supposed to act. That is be responsible and stop spending money you don't have. Its a terrible thing to teach them by your bad example to spend money you don't have. Your really teaching them how to live a life of bondage to debt and your not happy there, why would your kids be. Rather work hard at getting out of debt and show them a better way. And there you have it.

The Essential Life

In February 2015 I began working on another aspect of our self-reliance goals. Although I greatly appreciated our modern medicine and the ability to go to a doctor when we were sick, I also wanted to not go to the doctor if I didn't need to. I wanted to start learning about herbal oils so that I could use natural remedies to help heal our family. I had to do this in two parts. (1) Acquire oils and (2) learn how to use them.
I decided that adding an automated purchase plan and allocating a portion of by monthly budget towards buying oils would allow me over time to acquire oils for my family. However a step I skipped at the beginning was purchasing a good reference book. A few months ago I was given a reference book that our family has found extremely helpful.

We have really loved the information and the easy use of The Essential Life.
However before we got this book we were left to discover for ourselves what oils we would use and when. I started with a kit that had several oils in it. Then I started purchasing the oils that weren't in the kit and learning when and how to use the oils. When my daughter was born 6 weeks early I started using Onguard daily to keep from getting sick as I was  in and out of the NICU daily. When my son cut the tip of his finger and stitches didn't work the end fell off. A friend suggested we try Helichrysum and his black finger began to heal and he started getting feeling back to the end. When my 2 year old son had a yeast infection on his diapered bum I was able to use Lemon to bring comfort and healing to his sore bum.  When I  suffered from an infection on my foot from a cut I was able to use Lavender. All of these times (and more) I was able to use natural herbal oils to help heal and comfort my family.  We still go to the doctor if we need to, but I have really enjoyed the ability to use the herbs that our Earth holds for the benefit of my family. As I have we have become a little more self-reliant.

Self-Reliance is about helping others

A large part of our homesteading goals have been focused on becoming as self-reliant as we can. Recently I have realized that this often means working with others. Self-reliance is not a solitary life, rather one in which we work as a community to survive. As we become more self-reliant we obtain more ways to contribute to our family's survival and that of our community. In this way building our skills and knowledge are extremely important and valuable. When we started our tiny house build our first focus was to get a home finished that would provide a shelter for our family. Since that time we have realized that helping others do the same is extremely valuable. I now look at our tiny house as a canvas for learning and sharing.

Progress we have made
Recently we were the recipients of a large amount of reclaimed wood. It has been a joy finding various ways to use this wood in our home. Here are some of our projects that we have been working on. Please keep in mind that most of our projects still need work to be completed. Almost everything in both of the pictures was built using reclaimed wood. The one exception is I cut out the city chair rail on the located on the right of the barn door and installed it before I got my reclaimed wood. However I would have loved to do that project with reclaimed wood. The bookshelf, the ceiling above the bed, the white painted wood on the walls in the bedroom, the barn door and the wall the barn door is installed on are all done with reclaimed wood. I have really enjoyed building these things for our home, and I enjoy coming up with fun solutions for our spaces in our tiny home. When I first started looking for wood that was free I saw many posts on using shipping pallets. Not only are these difficult to retrieve the wood from but most of the wood we found from these pallets was in terrible shape. I applaud anyone who is able to create beautiful furniture and builds from this wood. However I have yet to be able to do anything but build some really ugly enclosures for my animals from pallets. However, I was blessed to get some wood that was destined to be tossed after its use as an enclosure for some large signs that were installed. I felt really blessed to receive this wood, and I went to work as quickly as I could when I got the wood to use it in my home. I didn't want the sun or weather to damage the wood as much as possible. Although I love how my projects turned out, I feel that I have learned a lot; as I work on future projects I hope to refine my skills as a builder to make more beautiful pieces for my home.

Frontier House

It all started several years ago with Frontier House, a show featured on PBS. We weren't the only ones. I have actually talked to a lot of people who have been inspired by this show that was its own experiment. Three families were chosen from a group of applications to be on a show that would set them back to the days of the Homestead. It was in fact, a failure of sorts. They lived on their homestead in Montana for a summer. One summer is just barely a vacation, hardly enough time to  One of the families cheated and none of them lived on the actual homestead for very long, but it got to us, a lot of us. We started thinking could I do that? How would I respond to that particular situation? And there were lots more questions with only one way to get the answer, and that way was to start our own Homestead. It was rough on those families and it was apparent that homesteading was definitely not for everyone. However, it was so intriguing for some of us that the ideas just took root and grew for years until the opportunity presented itself to find a way to start our own homestead.

I remember watching one episode and the commentators on the show mentioned that one of the families cheated. They weren't supposed to trade with anyone outside the make believe community. However on a real homestead, you need to trade with anyone and everyone that you can. It is very important to establish your homestead community. This may include other homesteading families or it may be people or businesses outside of the homestead community.  As a homesteader we need to make a life for ourselves utilizing our homestead as best as we can. If I look back to the fictional series Little House on the Prairie we see that although the Ingalls family lived on a homestead where they were able to raise animals and grow food that they harvested, they still were dependent on their community for a lot of their needs. They more they skills they possessed translated directly into an increases ability to survive especially during financially difficult times. Likewise, any time we become more diversified or our homesteads become more diversified it increase our ability to survive with the ups and downs of any economy.

Homesteading can be a difficult life, and the more self-sufficient you want your homestead to be the more difficult it can be because you are working to create an environment where you are the provider. That means that you do the work instead of paying for food or consumer goods that someone else has created or provided. You are the person going out in the cold or the heat and taking care of the animals and the plants.

It can be difficult to understand a homesteader. Many of us are beginners. A rancher or a farmer often has generations behind them that led to their current lifestyle, however most of the modern day homestead are turning back the clock just a little and changing the course and direction of their lives. They are putting their course on a different path then the one they were raised on.

It is more difficult and that makes some people wonder why we homestead. Although there are a lot of similar answers out there, you will also find that each and every story is unique. I have talked in other posts about some of the reason why our family choose a homestead, but its important to understand that this life (this homesteading life) isn't one level. There are multiple reasons why we and other families do this. And despite the difficulties and the struggles there are also multiple levels of rewards.