I had a Date

With Papa Bear and Liam Neeson.  The planets and stars aligned. Daughter was able to stay with the Marine so we could go out a few hours.  We went to see "The Grey." Can't tell you much about it as almost everything would be a spoiler.  If you go to the theater to see it make sure you have an empty bladder as there are moments that will scare the pi$$ out of you or at least it did me!  I wondered why they didn't do several things different in the movie.  Not really a survivalist movie as I thought but all in all a good movie.

After the movie we went to Outback for chicken and ribs grilled to perfection on the barbie.  We usually get one of their great steaks when we get to go there but we grilled steaks at home a few days ago so I opted for something different. Everything was good as usual but I think anything is good when I don't have to cook it.  When you stay at home and cook over 1000 meals a year, you get a little tired of your own cooking.  We don't get out much but I had a great time in the few hours we did.

Hope everyone has a good week.  I'm going to be planting more seed trays to be ready for gardening season.

Egg Carton Seed Starters

Using scissors, cut the top of the carton from the bottom.

 Trim off the edge that locks the carton.

 Using the point of a pencil, poke 4 or 5 drainage holes in each compartment of the egg tray.

Set the egg compartment into the top of the carton which is now the bottom of your seed starter.  When you water your new seedlings, the excess will drain into the bottom of the tray.

  Mix your seed starting mix with warm water.  Add water a little at a time and squeeze your mixture.  You only want it damp enough to be able to squeeze a few drops of water from it.  Too much water in the mix will cause your seeds to rot instead of sprouting.

Fill the egg compartments with the moistened seed starting mixture all the way to the top.  Pack the soil lightly.

Using a pencil, make a little dibble in the center of each compartment for your seeds.  Put 2 or 3 seeds in each little hole you made and gently press the soil to close the hole.  Gently water the top to settle the soil and seeds.  Don't use much water.

I use a marker and write the name of the seeds I have planted in the carton.  this one happens to be some flower seeds.  I have tomatoes, peppers, dill and other flower seeds planted in my trays.

 Cover the top with clear plastic wrap and use a small piece of tape on each side to hold it down.  I also used some 2 gallon freezer bags as shown here.  This will create a little greenhouse environment and hold the moisture in.  Place the seeds in a warm location.  Sunlight is not necessary until the seeds sprout as long as the trays are in a warm spot.

 When the seeds begin sprouting, remove the plastic and place in a sunny location.
 If the soil looks or feels dry I will begin to water with a weak solution of plant food to get the seedlings off to a good start.

 
When the seedlings have grown 2 to 4 true leaves, I will transplant to 4 inch pots to finish growing before I transplant into the garden.  I'll do a post on this process when they are ready.

It's getting closer to garden season and I can't wait.  I love knowing I can provide good nutritious non GMO food for my family beginning with an egg carton that would normally go into the trash.

I love this picture!

Someone needs this today

The “dumbing down" of American society

This street painted sign was outside a Manhattan high school in NY.


A city worker who asked not to be identified told the Post regardless of who made the mistake, a student or administrator at the school should have noticed and reported it some time ago.  You can read the entire story here. 

Welcome and Thank You!

Oh my goodness... I have picked up several new followers the past couple of weeks.  Thanks to all of you for hitting that follow button.  Here they are and with a link to their blogs if they have one. Check them out when you get a chance. Tell them Mamma sent you!  If I missed anyone, please comment and let me know.

• A Girl and Her Gun
• Meadowhawk
•  johnnybgood
•  Terria Fleming
•  Ron @ *TOGBlog

Standing Outside Looking In

No...Not my friend Stephen's Blog .  Just a cute shot I wanted to share of my Texas grandson standing outside looking in.

Bad Wind Storm

We had a terrible storm that hit at 1am and again at 3am this morning.  Papa Bear and I both jumped out of bed thinking the roof was about to come off the house. We had to wait until daylight to see how bad the damage was.  When we went on the porch we found the flag pole down.

The Martin house was down.  It took out an apple tree when it fell.

It took out part of the fence surrounding the pool and GS's play yard.

A small arbor was blown down that a coral vine grows on each year,

 The west side of the fence was only laid over with one of the 4 x 4 post snapped.

This gate got slammed pretty good.  It is supposed to open out not in.

One of the hoop houses is partially destroyed.

 The covering on the shade house was ripped down the middle.

 Two of the walls blew off the turkey house

 The two walls slammed into the old side of the fence and has caused it to lean.

 Mom's patio table and chairs outside of her camper (beside our house)was turned over and she lost some skirting.

Either the camper shifted some or the steps.  Mom was awake during the 1st storm and we slept.   We woke up during the second storm at 3 when I thought the roof was blowing off!.  I looked out our back patio and didn't see Mom's lights.  I was going to go get her and bring her to our house but she was asleep and by then the winds had died down.

I thank God none of us were hurt and our home itself had no damage.  All cats, dogs, chickens, goats and turkeys are accounted for and no injuries!

I called our insurance company at 7:30 am and they actually had an adjuster out here by 9:30 am.  I am impressed.  Of course since Hurricane Katrina (which didn't hit Florida) our homeowners insurance has tripled in price.  We'll see how everything goes.  Now comes the clean up....ugggggg

Thank you and Welcome

Thank you Country Life for hitting that follow button!

If you get the chance, go check out her blog on Country Life .   She writes about her family and their life on a 100 acre farm. 

Alien Invasion

Was cutting up peppers for stir fry last night and found this pepper growing inside a pepper.  Grandson said it looked like an alien.

A Wart..............

on an egg.

Do you think a frog peed on it?

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I just finished my 3rd trial bucket and it has failed miserably.   I am returning to the old store bought stuff until I have no other choice but to make it.

I guess our water must be too hard for it to clean properly or either all of us get our clothes dirtier than most people who rave about the stuff.  I used the original recipe of  1/3 bar of Fels Naptha soap, 1/2 cup washing soda and 1/2 cup borax.  The next bucket I doubled the washing soda and borax.  The third bucket I doubled the washing soda, borax and used an entire bar of Zote bad mistake there.  The entire bar made the batch like a very, very, thick jello instead of a gel.

If anyone has tweaked the detergent recipe and made it work for you....please let me know what you did.  At least I have a lot of ingredients in storage if I can't get to the store for the powdered stuff.  I did like the light scent that was left in the clothes.  At least they didn't smell dirty!

Oh Lord...Here comes another pound!

 I was looking for an easy recipe for brunch Grandson could help with and remembered the German Pancake on Enola's blog.   I helped Grandson with the instructions and he did most of the work.  Only took a few minutes to put together and 20 minutes to bake.  After it finished baking we sprinkled powdered sugar and cinnamon over it and served with maple syrup. It tasted like french toast!

My cast iron skillet was about 10 inches so I added 6 eggs instead of 4.  That was the only change I made.  Grandson wants to do another with pictures so you may get step by step instructions from the six year old grandson at a later date.   Thanks to Enola for a quick and easy recipe that tastes like you spent hours on!

German Pancake
(8 inch skillet)                                                                     (16 inch skillet)
1/4 C butter                                                                          3/4 C butter
1 C milk                                                                               3 C milk
4 eggs                                                                                 12 eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract                                                               1.5 tsp. vanilla extract
1 C flour                                                                            3 C flour
2 T sugar                                                                            6 T sugar

Place butter in your cast iron skillet, place skillet in a 425° oven (or 350° (a hot oven) if using your wood cookstove) for 2 minutes or until butter melts and pan is very hot.  Combine milk, eggs and vanilla in bowl.  Beat until combines.  Stir in flour and sugar.  Beat with egg beater (or mixer) until smooth.  Pour the batter into your hot pan.  Bake for 18 - 20 minutes or until puffed and brown on top.  Serve with berries or butter and syrup. Sprinkle with confectioners sugar.

Thank you and Welcome

Thanks to my newest reader Nikki who hit that follow button!  When you get the chance go check out her blog The Story of a Lifetime.  She has a beautiful family with not one but two sets of twins!

Good for Her!

Oklahoma teen mom called 'hero' for fatally shooting intruder

I always say when seconds count...the cops are minutes away

My Apologies

For those of you who are linked to my blog and never saw your blog linked, I apologize.  I thought as long as I was seeing your blog in my dashboard that other people did too but that wasn't the case.  I hope I have now remedied that.  If you do link to me and don't see your blog on mine, please let me know and I'll fix it.  I appreciate the readers I have and learn much from all of the blogs I do read.

Flour Storage Part 2

The oldest flour I could find packed in Mylar bags with a oxygen absorber were from March 6, 2011 so they are only 10 months old.  I opened one up yesterday and there was no odor what so ever and I baked 2 beautiful loaves of bread.  I will keep experimenting opening one of these bags each month or so to see how long it last before it goes rancid.  Using the food saver bags were a bust.  At least for flour stored 3 years in them.  Now I am wondering about other food I have in them.

I love the Mylar type bags I get from the LDS.  They are 7 mils thick.  If you are really into saving,  they can be washed, dried and reused. I wash mine in the dishwasher and then place them over a mason jar on the counter to dry. They are that strong.   I cut them in half for smaller size items I need to store.

I use a iron on a high setting to seal them.  You don't need a fancy machine.

One of my goals this year is to dehydrate a lot of items.  I'll be putting a few things in jars but a majority will go into the Mylar bags.  Dehydrating takes up way less room and are as light as a feather.

Strange...creepy crawly strange....

While searching the web for long term storage of flour in Mylar bags I was led to survivalistboards.com

While there I decided to look around and found a forum discussing dreams they have been having.  A lot... I mean a lot of the members seem to have very similar dreams of soldiers, bombings, being fenced in, tsunamis and more..  I had a dream of a tsunami once....even before I knew what a tsunami was.  I only dreamed it once maybe 30 years ago but it was so vivid that I can remember every detail today. 

All of the talk of dreams reminded me of a verse in the bible and was even brought up in the forum.

Joel 2:28
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:

Flour Storage

Today was bread making day.  Grandson goes back to school tomorrow so I need fresh bread for his lunches. 

The other day I found flour in my food storage that was packed in the food saver bags, heat sealed and then packed into a 7 gallon bucket with a stick of spearmint gum to deter any creepy crawlies.  The flour was packed December 2008.  I baked 4 loaves of bread that turned out beautiful.  Then we tried a slice. blehhhhh.  It had a strange after taste I can only assume is from the old flour.   

I know that I started packing flour in Mylar bags a year or two ago with oxygen absorbers.  I am going to go through the food stores and find my oldest flour from these bags and see how they have held up.  3 years in food saver bags was a total bust. 

Another lesson learned before it was too late.  I guess if you were really hungry you could eat this although it it has probably lost what nutritional value it may have had.  Since we are not in dire straights, I will purchase more flour and bag it up in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers.  I'll make some flour and salt clay out of some of this old stuff and make some Christmas ornaments for next year.  The rest I can make into hoecakes and feed to the chickens and goats so it does not go to waste.

I do store wheat for grinding.  It is stored in #10 cans and supposedly will last for 30 years and is in my long term storage.