My Corny Attempt to be Thrifty

I love recycling.

Years ago, while finishing up my bachelor's degree, I was enrolled in an environmental science class that I found insanely interesting. It altered the way I went about my daily routine...

...in certain areas. I mean, I still drive a Chevy Suburban, so I can't really say that I'm reducing my carbon footprint by much. Somehow, though, I just can't picture myself with a load of wood chips, pellets, and salt blocks neatly packed into a smart car.

So, to compensate for my gas guzzler, I cut back where I'm able. That means, we recycle our cans, bottles, and papers. We grow some fruits and vegetables in our garden. We grind sweet corn for our chickens....wait....what?!?!

Yes. You read that right. We had originally hoped to freeze and eat all the sweet corn in our garden. But sometimes hopes are pretty lofty, and other plans must be made. And if there's food in the garden that's no longer suitable for the family to eat, it will go to the chickens.

Forgive me for this brief side note:

We feed a LOT of  kitchen things to our chickens. The whole family knows that any fruits or veggies or breads that are not finished at dinner time should be scraped off the plates and put directly into the "chicken bucket." The chicken bucket is usually just a plastic pail (like the Halloween one from a McDonald's Happy Meal) that is filled up throughout the day and fed to the chickens to keep the feed cost down. In the picture to the right, I've steamed the unused stalks of broccoli and dumped them in the chicken bucket, along with some leftover mashed pumpkin that I didn't use for a recipe. The water left behind from the steamed veggies will be cooled and used to water the house plants.

And that's the end of the side note. :)


So I picked up the grinder I've been waiting to use and set it up in Hubby's shop...

...grabbed a basket and headed to the garden to pick the dried corn off the stalks...

...and tore the kernels off the cob (This was easier than I thought it would be - almost like pulling a tooth that's really, really loose.)

Then I poured the corn into the grinder....

...and turned the crank that makes the two discs full of teeth crack the kernels. 

After about one hour of cranking (and two sore elbows if you're over 40 years old), you'll have about 3 pounds of cracked corn for the chickens. It's a slow process for sure.

To make sure my effort was worthwhile, I gave a handful of cracked corn to the chickens. They approved.

Now it's time for me to try a few physical therapy exercises for my elbows.

May your day be corny and fun!

Sharon

My Antique Brother

He visits once every year. He's the middle of my three older brothers. He's not the one who's into photography. He's not the one who adores Alton Brown on the Food Network. He's my antique brother. 

Though he is probably an antique himself, this particular brother is the one who loves to go antique shopping. Therefore, I consider him my "antique brother." Shhh....don't tell him. He might take it the wrong way.

Anyway, he was here over the weekend, and we went to our usual lineup of stores, starting close to home and working further away. I don't claim to be a collector or someone who knows anything about certain collections. The only thing I can see is beauty; if I like it and I can picture it in my home, then it's good enough for me. My antique brother is a different story. He can spot a single collection piece five vendor booths away. I'll literally be staring right at something we've both been looking for, and I still can't see it.

He laughs at my inability to spot something. So does his wife. I still love them both.

Sometime in the future, I'll do a single blog post on my brother's display of Ransburg pieces. His collection is in the hundreds, I'm guessing, but here's a very small sample of his appreciation for colorful things from the past. He loves the craftiness, the quality, and the feeling of things from past decades. 

Did I luck out by having him for a brother or what? Sorry ladies; remember he's already taken. 

On last year's antiquing trip together, my brother came home with an armload of Ransburg pieces. After the shopping spree, he sat at my kitchen table and lovingly cleaned each piece he'd purchased. 

I returned with the usual - old pictures.

This quaint little scene won my heart last year. When I first saw it, there was a surge of happiness that ran through me. At the checkout counter, the gentleman behind the desk said, "Did you know this was part of a set?" 

Then he came back with the matching picture.

OMG! Cuteness at it's best! And for such a small price.

Two years ago, I found a mate for one of my favorite pictures in the bedroom. 

And this year...well, this year, I actually found something that wasn't a picture. Let's just say it was love at first sight when I saw this sweet dresser and mirror.

I'd been looking on Pinterest for ideas on what to put in the entry hall by the front door - something that said "welcome to the farm."

And there it was. 

Although I'm pretty sure my brother also wanted to take this home, he kindly helped me load it up. He even gave me a very concerned and sympathetic look when I hopped out of the back of the truck, banging my knee on the trailer hitch I'd forgotten to remove. 

Ouch!

It warms my heart to spend such quality time with my antique brother and to look around my home and see proof of our visits with each other. He's a gem.

Sharon

The Best Apple Crisp (ever made in my kitchen)

Thanks to the neighbor friend, I have a lot of apples, and after many apple pies, I decided to make apple crisp for hubby last night. Actually, that's not the truth; I made it for myself because hubby doesn't like apple crisp.

Until now.

Of all the recipes I've come across, this one just may be perfection, but there is one thing I need to apologize for in advance. I'm sorry that you'll want to eat it all in one sitting. I'm also sorry, dear hubby, that when I took last night's apple crisp out of the fridge to take a picture for today's blog post, I ate a whole bunch of it.

If I remember correctly, my husband said something like, "You know, this could be served in a restaurant. It's so good."

And it is. That's why I'm sharing the Winning Apple Crisp Recipe from Taste of Home with you.

Happy fall baking to you, and please let me know what you think of the recipe once you try it.

Sharon

Little Tornados and other Morning Rituals

I love these first few hours of the morning. They're so productive, all full of getting things situated and in order. 

The kids are awake and happily rattling of lists of things they forgot to tell me earlier. "Mom, I need $5 so I can eat at the choir Metro Fest today" and "I'll also need a check for $10 so I can buy a Pink Out shirt." These days, most of the things I hear from the kids are money requests, but I'll take whatever communication I can get. Though it's not much, I get just enough information to know the important things like there will be a tie-breaker playoff in the trombone section of band today, and there's a football game that's been rescheduled for somewhere and sometime tonight. I also picked up on the fact that my daughter felt she was having a bad hair day, and my son's knee is feeling better than it was yesterday. 

All this information was collected in a matter of ten minutes this morning!  Then they're off, like little tornados swirling around just long enough to stir things up before they move on to a new target (Let's take a moment to thank the teachers of the world.)

Then I'm left with peace and a very hefty to-do list.

As I walk back up the lane from the bus stop, a corn field on each side of me, I contemplate what tasks are at the top of my list. This is where I struggle; everything seems so important, but I settle on a few things.

1. The grass must will be mowed (There's a good 4 hours gone).
2. All bedding must will be washed.
3. The bathrooms must will be cleaned.

The basic daily chores have been done already. It seems I can't enjoy my own breakfast until I've taken care of the cats, dogs, chickens and horses first. They've all been fed, and the mums and other flowers have all been watered. The washer and dryer are humming busily, and the sink and dishwasher have been emptied. The trash has been taken out....the garage swept...the main floor vacuumed.

So here I sit with my cup of coffee and words streaming out of my head. This isn't a way of stalling; it's a morning ritual. If I don't get my coffee in and my words out, I can't continue my productivity. I'm not apologizing. I like it this way.

What are your morning rituals?

Sharon

Back to DewKist

This week is the first week of my retirement. 

(Before you congratulate me, you should know that my career lasted only one year.)

DewKist - where my soul resides.

I have a restless soul. The good thing about that is it causes me to try new things. I guess you could say I'm sort of an "experience addict," if there is such diagnosis. The bad thing about a restless soul is that the little voice in my head frequently whispers, "try this" and "Oh! Look at that! You should do that!" It's like a toddler standing in front of a heap of toys, and it never....ever....shuts....up.

So I tried working full time outside of the farm. 

But then the voice started in again, pulling me to stay home.

I've tried shutting it up. For one full year, I tried to quiet that voice and be "a normal adult." I figured if I hushed it enough, it would go bother someone else. That never worked for my children; I should have known the outcome.

Instead, the voice became louder.

While I was at my new day job, the little voice grew. It taunted me by reminding me of all the things I wasn't doing: 

• I wasn't fixing the fence.
• I wasn't working the horses.
• I wasn't making dinner.
• I wasn't writing.
• I wasn't cleaning out the chicken coop.
• I wasn't making pies.
• I wasn't making dinner.
• I wasn't creating.
• I wasn't trimming the trees.
• I wasn't mowing the yard.
• I WASN'T MAKING DINNER!

Basically, I wasn't being me when I was working outside the home, but I had to try that side of the world...you know...because of the whole restless soul thing.

So, I resigned.

I'm now back on DewKist Farm, bringing in the horses twice a day, working with them all. I'm here to watch over the horses who are boarded here as well and to talk with the boarders. I'm here to be of assistance to friends and neighbors who need my help. I'm here to clean the chicken coop, to tidy up the farm, to create, to love, and to be me, unapologetically.

As my husband finished a great chicken dinner and a piece of homemade apple pie, he walked towards his recliner and said these words, "Ahhh, my life just got better now that you're home."

Just keep telling me that, Hubby. Keep telling me.

Sharon

How to Get Rid of Japanese Beetles

The raspberries are starting to ripen. Every day, I get a small handful of my favorite fruit, but soon there will be more berries than can fit in my hand. I'll need an ice cream pail or one of the many other containers I have saved in anticipation of the arrival of more fruit than one family can eat. My age is showing, as I suddenly feel pride in saving Cool Whip containers as well. Sigh...I'm becoming my mother...or maybe my mother in law.

Wouldn't you know it; just as the raspberries started to develop, so did a hefty flock of those blasted Japanese beetles. I had no idea that they would leave their favorite trees to seek out the forty-some   Latham raspberry bushes we planted last year. How dare they!

I read somewhere that the beetles have to consume about 40% of the plant foliage before the plant dies. This is a theory I'm not going to test. These beetles must be stopped; they do far too much damage to their hosts. Furthermore, Japanese Beetles must like to have group get togethers. I can often find about six or seven beetles on one leaf!

Together, they eat a leaf until it resembles a finely crocheted, lacy skeleton. (see picture below)

Not wanting to spray any chemicals on the fruit, I turned to the internet to find another solution, since the beetle traps weren't doing an adequate job. My search turned up a very easy, safe alternative. Other people suggested the best way to get rid of these pests is to fill a bucket (or a Mason jar, as I did) with some soapy water. Then I was to simply shove the jewel-colored nibblers into the bucket. The soap weakens the surface of the water, leaving the beetles unable to rest atop it.

I learned a couple of things as I did this:

1. Japanese Beetles play dead and then roll off the leaf. As long as I had my jar at the tip of the leaf, I just had to scare the beetle a bit with one hand while I held the jar with the other. Rarely did I have to touch a bug. This is a good thing! :)
2. Although the bugs appear to be dead in the water after a few minutes, they most likely aren't. My first collection was "dead" for at least a half hour when I buried them in the dirt. The next day, when I went to bury my second collection in the same hole, I was mortified to unearth live beetles from the day before! EEEEK! I'm pretty sure I'll have a nightmare or two about beetle corpses crawling towards me for revenge. Needless to say, my second collection will be left to sit in the soapy water for a few days. 

I've been going out three times each day to remove the beetles from the raspberries. With so many plants, it takes a looooong time to get them all. You can see the five rows we have below.  

Now, if you have a strong stomach, and you'd like to see the beetles I collected midday, you can scroll down to see the picture of the Mason jar with 100+ beetles. 

I'll give you some space so you don't see it by accident....  

keep scrolling if you dare....

Ugh...gross, I know.

Happy harvesting!

Sharon

Battle of the Screws: A Beautiful Tale of a Fixing and Bonding.....hahahaha!

"We're going outside to fix the gate to the chicken coop and the fence the horses broke," I told my youngest son. "And I'm bringing my iPhone with for taking pictures of our progress so I can write a blog about it."

Yep. That's what I told the boy who had slept in until almost noon. I suppose I could've woke him up hours before, but, every so often, a mother likes to have some extra peace in the house. Yesterday was one of those days. I ate breakfast ALONE. I sipped my coffee ALONE. I unsubscribed from unwanted emails ALONE, and I browsed through Pinterest ALONE. Ahhhh....the peace.

Now, it's not my fault that we headed out to work at the hottest part of the most humid day we've had so far. I mean, he could've been up earlier, right? But when we both walked outside, the blast of heat almost knocked us right back on our behinds (preferably on a couch in the wonderfully air-conditioned house).

I had told him to grab the power screw driver and fix the little white gate leading to the chicken coop, which, by the way, I'm pretty sure he is responsible for breaking in the first place. It was a simple task. All he needed to do was take out the four existing screws and screw them into a new location, since the wood had rotted around their current location. After hearing him make multiple runs from the workshop to the coop on his four-wheeler, and after hearing the sound of a hammer, I decided to check in with him.

"It's not gonna work," he said quickly. "We'll have to let Dad fix it."

If you're a parent, you'll recognize this as an excuse for a 12-year-old boy to get out of work.

"Why?" I asked. "What's wrong?"

"The screws have nowhere to put the screwdriver. They have flat heads like a nail," he answered.

The third board from the left is now secure!

Determined to make this boy work, I walked over to check out this rare type of flat-headed screw. I had purchased this little gate at a wonderful local antique shop in town called The Junk Asylum, and it had been painted with a nice fresh coat of white paint. The screws had collected a fair amount of the paint, giving them the appearance of being filled in. So after a small amount of chiseling, the screw was exposed and we made the repair.

Next on our list was to repair the two boards the horses had broken. I assume this happened while they were all huddled together swatting at the excessive amount of flies that have recently taken over the acreage. In any case, we needed two 1x6 boards that were eight feet long.

Finding the boards was easy. I had my helper measure out the correct length.

"Measure twice," I told him. "Cut once."

Cutting them with the circular saw was easy too.

Carrying them to the barn was easy. (Well, my helper did have a small setback here as he claimed a board suddenly nailed his hip bone, causing him to drop to the ground. This may have been an attempt to rest.)

What was surprisingly difficult was identifying which screwdriver tip needed to be put into the drill. On those two measly boards, THREE different types of screws had been used. THREE! A few required a phillips; I can handle that. But suddenly, there are screws with squares and screws with stars? It was like a kindergarten matching game for adult carpenters! Can you imagine how long it took me to find the square and star attachments in just the right size? Ugh!

Just what is the purpose of this?

I'm clearly not ready for new shapes.

Two new boards and one new headache

By now, we were both sweaty and short-fused. The horses were trying to help us, and if we were really on task, the flies would bite our arms and legs, causing us to drop a screw or board. My son claimed he had allergies, and the grand vision I had of us happily working together to fix things had quickly turned into the reality that kids don't naturally want to work very hard.

I had to laugh at what my son said when I told him we were finished with our job.

"It actually was kinda fun fixing stuff," he said as he smiled and rode quickly away on his four-wheeler.

I suppose, in a way, it really was fun. :)

Sharon
P.S. Notice how there are no pictures of us working. There's a reason for that; we weren't really in the mood for photo ops. LOL