This looks interesting ....

20th LIVING ON A FEW ACRES CONFERENCE

  

On Saturday, March 20th from 9:00am-4:30pm at Deschutes County Fairgrounds, in Redmond, Oregon, there will be a workshop from OSU Extension Service focusing on people living on small acreages. 

Register with the University extension program: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/deschutes/ 

541-548-6088 

$35 before March 15, $50 after.

Hard Copies ....

For those of us who are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst, stocking up on food and supplies, etc.  what will happen if we really do lose electricity and internet?  What if that EMP attack  occurs and we no longer have computer access to everything we want to know all at our fingertips?  What if we cannot even get our computers to turn on?

When I buy books at the used bookstore, I am really buying hard copies of information that somebody has cared enough to put on paper.  Now I have begun printing out stuff of off the computer and the internet for my hard copies too.  How to make candles.  How to sew diapers.  How to make your own infant formula.  How to can.  How to use herbs and homeopathic meds.  Lyrics to Jimmy Buffett songs.  Lyrics to church songs.  Phone numbers for landlines (just in case they will still work).  Whatever is dear to your heart ... write it down, print it off and file it away.  If you do it now, it will be there when you want to use it.

I was reading an article in magazine the other day about organization.  Organization is dear to my heart, but going paperless is not.  The author suggested that you scan your recipes from your favorite cookbook into your computer and get rid of the cookbook.  Are these people crazy?  Even if your hard drive crashed you would be in trouble there.

There are so many great blogs and websites out there, full of information on self-reliant living and emergency preparedness.  Glean from those that interest you the most, and print out what ever you think will come in handy as you hope for the best and prepare for the worst.   I have been posting cool blogs that I find on the sidebar, and then check out their links to find new websites.  Please let me know if you have sites that you would like listed.  It's all free!

~ Kathy

Saving Your Containers for Transformation:

When I was at the used book sale recently, I found these two great books:

I don't know if they are still in print, but they were written in the late 90's, and are published by Leisure Arts.  Here is the website to that company: http://www.leisurearts.com/default.aspx

These books fit in wonderfully with my recycling plans.  I have have been recycling good containers: things like wine bottles, spaghetti sauce jars and even plastic juice bottles.  I am not putting these items outside next to the garbage can though, oh no.  I am reusing them ... for food storage and/or art projects.  I put my recyclables that I want to keep in a tote, after they are all cleaned up:

The books above help with the art projects.  They even show you how to make "kitchen angels" out of liter plastic pop bottles.  I didn't make her, but when I do make one, I'll show you how I did it:

I plan on using the wine bottles for homemade syrups and homemade kaluah.  The plastic juice bottles, and the spaghetti sauce jars will be filled with rice and beans at our house.  If I had more freezer storage, I would fill them with water and to freeze and use in the ice chest during the summer. 

A small bag of beans and peas will fit perfectly into a small spaghetti jar, with room for the bag they came in.  I like to keep those, because they give you instructions and recipes. 

I also save good boxes, large and small.  The larger ones I use for mailing gifts at Christmastime.  The smaller ones, I use for storage or gift wrapping.  These books have inspired me to cover my favorite boxes in fabric and then use them as decorative storage.  


So many ideas, so little time to get everything done that I want to do!

Cold Climate Gardening Seminar by Linda Sephenson:

L & S Gardens is presenting a Cold Climate Gardening seminar on Saturday, March 6, from 1pm to 4pm at the La Pine Senior Activity Center.  Linda Stephenson, owner of L & S Gardens, will present the What, When and Where of gardening in south Deschutes county.  Bring your gardening questions for a question and answer segment of the program.   Linda's books will be available for purchase.  A donation of $5 per person is requested with proceeds being donated to the La Pine Sign Project.  Coffee and cookies will be served.  For more information call Linda at 541-536-2049 or e-mail here at lsgarden

Cold Climate Gardening: My Adventures in Gardening

I have been growing flowers in containers each summer, in the front of the house.  However, that is about as far as I was willing to go regarding gardening.  I usually spend around $100 per season on flowers and hanging baskets.  I have learned to wait until June to even buy my plants; the earlier ones just don't seem to make it.

For several years, I have been wanting to try planting a vegetable garden here in La Pine, but I knew that was going to be a difficult challenge.  The reason being is that we have a short growing season and big temperature fluctuations that include freezing temps at night, even in the summer.

Last summer, I seriously studied our property, figuring out where to put the garden.  I have decided to use livestock fencing, and block off part of the back yard that gets lots of sun.  My idea includes a long rectangle of space backed up against the wood fence.  It will be filled with raised beds, drip hoses, a portable greenhouse and a chicken coop.  We'll put chicken wire along the livestock fencing so that the chickens stay in and the dogs stay out.  Cary has always wanted chickens, and now that I am trying to become more self-sufficient, I think that chickens are a good idea.  Fresh eggs.  No roosters.

I was so happy to find this book at Round Butte Seed Company in Bend yesterday.  It is written by Linda Stephenson, the owner of L & S Gardens here in La Pine.  Linda tells it how it is, in plain language, exactly how to garden here.  It cost $16.95, but that is pretty inexpensive for all the information that she has put there.

Last night, as I was reading the first few pages of this book, I realized that the raised bed idea was actually a pretty good one, and figured out how many boxes that we need to make, and which kinds of plants to put in each box.  I learned that root plants need different fertilizers than plants that grow on top, like lettuce.  Keeping them in separate beds will make it easier to give everybody what they want and need.

To say the least, I am pretty excited about this new project.  This is the year, if everything goes the way I would like it to.  Hopefully, by the end of the season, we will have some home canned veggie's from our own garden.  That sounds like fun to me! 

Here is a link to Linda's website.  I just learned that she has several books out, including a couple on dutch oven cooking.  I guess that I'd better go to their nursery and get some of those too. 

 http://www.lsgardens.com/

Dutch Oven Cooking:

Dutch Oven Cooking:

In my effort to half-way "go back to the old days" theme, I am interested in how to do as many things as possible without electricity.  In case of emergency.  Electricity is fine by me in all other cases.  I am not an extremist.  So, anyway, I have decided to learn how to cook in dutch ovens this summer.

Last year, I bought these cast iron dutch ovens and griddle at Bi-Mart.  They were unseasoned, and I got them in the camping department.  It is much cheaper to season them yourself.  (The seasoned cast iron is in the housewares department and costs $15.00 to $20.00 more per item.)  Seasoning is not difficult, I just slathered them inside and out with shortening and baked them in the oven on low for several hours.  You might want to do this on a nice day so that you can open the windows if things get a little smokey or smelly.

 

This is the griddle (you flip it over and it is a grill) and the smaller cast iron dutch oven that I have.  I will not be able to use these on my stove, but I can use them in my oven.  I guess when you have a flat-top stove top  using these will wreck the burners, and we can't have that.

 

This is the grill side of the griddle.  This large dutch oven has legs on it, so I could use this on the stove if I want to.  However, I already have my favorite pots and pans, and the stove requires electricity, which kind of defeats my purpose here.

I figure that I have several of choices on using my cast iron.  On the propane BBQ, on the propane stove in the travel trailer, with charcoal, and with fire.  I think that I can figure out the BBQ and trailer stove, so I want to learn how to cook with charcoal.  

I have learned so far that there is a real science to cooking with charcoal:  so many pieces of charcoal on the lid and so many underneath equals 325*, for example.  I bought a bunch of charcoal last year at Costco.  Charcoal is kind of expensive, come to find out.  If you get a good deal on it, go for it.  You can always store it in a new, clean plastic garbage can lined with a garbage sack to keep it fresh and dry. 

Also, I am printing out recipes and making a notebook on all of this stuff, because if you don't have electricity, you may not have computer access either.

Below are some links to dutch oven cooking.  When I actually do some of, I'll give you a step-by-step photo tutorial of what happens.  I know you are on edge waiting for that post.  I just hope my first meal turns out better than that dang rock candy!

"Seven Secrets of Dutch Oven Cooking"

by Roger L. Beattie

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/beattie47.html


Byron's Dutch Oven Cooking Page
http://papadutch.home.comcast.net/~papadutch/


Dutch Oven Dude
http://www.dutchovendude.com/ 


U.S. Scouts Website:
http://www.usscouts.org/cooking/cook_05.asp

Dehydrating Experiments:

Dehydrating Experiments:

Our house smells like oranges.  It is a very pleasant smell, in my opinion.  For some reason, I have been getting some good deals on food lately.  I keep expecting prices to be higher than they are.  Bags of oranges, 2 for $5.00.  Bags of onions, 2 for $4.00.  Bags of potatoes, 2 for $4.00.  Not wanting to pass up on a good deal, I went ahead and bought those bags of oranges, onions and potatoes. Then I had to figure out what to do with all that fresh food.  It does not last forever, as we all know, and there are only two of us here.  I get tired of finding rotten potatoes in the cupboard.  So, I decided to start using that food dehydrator that I bought last year at Bi-Mart.  

I started with the oranges.  I cut them in half, cut the ends off and then sliced them at about 1/4" thick.  The first bag of oranges were not very sweet, so I have decided to use them for crafts.  They were still a little moist and sticky when I took them out of the dehydrator, so I let them dry overnight on cookie racks.  That didn't help dry them out very much, so I got to thinking about how well the rice worked on the orange spice balls that I made before Christmas.  I used a medium sized bag of rice and a cake pan; layering the orange slices with the rice.  In a few days, those oranges should be very dry and ready for use in making a garland.

The second batch of oranges were sweeter, so I plan on keeping them around for snacks.  I dried the ends too, and I am going to put them in my blender and grind them up to use as a spice.  I bought some banana's also.  I have dried bananas before, and they turned out pretty good.  I put them in little jars in my refrigerator so they will last longer. 

These were from the second batch. 

I tasted one, it was good but a bit tart.

We'll see how the other things turn out.  Dried onions should be easy, and will be so much cheaper than those in the little spice bottles that we get at the store.  The potatoes will be a little trickier and more time consuming, since they need to be peeled and blanched (in the microwave) before placing in the food dehydrator.  

It sounds like fun to me!