This past spring & summer our grandson needed extensive dental work and the only dentist that I could find that would take our insurance wouldn't take his secondary insurance and because ours was the primary the secondary wouldn't reimberse for the co-pays so I was using part of my bill money to pay the dentist because they wouldn't make payment arrangements for the co-pays, so now with the holidays upon us I'm struggling to play catch up on bills and not enough money coming in to do…

I'm always on the look out for a good deal and so far over the years I've scored a number of them for things we need/want but can't afford new. Most but not all have been free and a lot of those were side of the road finds.

Some of the things I've found on the side of the road free have been a 60's era Hamilton Beach electric meat grinder that works fantastic, 3 fans for times like this when it's hot but not hot enough for A/C, trash bags full of enough like new & new bedding for…

Around here you never know what surprises are going to be waiting for you, like the morning I woke up to an egg that had hatched a week sooner than I expected, because I was putting eggs in the incubators at different times I was writing the dates on them so I could mark the calendar with the approximate hatch dates so when I put the duck egg in I marked the calendar well guess what Aracuna eggs are the same color as some duck eggs Then you have the ducklings that just have to…

I learned most of what I know from my Great Grandfather, He live right next door and he was always teaching me about gardening, seed starting, and animal raising. But I never really put any of it to use until many years later.

My adventure started in the early 80's when after 10 yrs of marriage I filled for a divorce and became a single mother of 1 collecting workman's comp. I was just barely paying the bills never mind putting food on the table so I decided to start a garden and…

A Parent's Prayer

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray my sanity to keep.

For if some peace I do not find,

I'm pretty sure I'll lose my mind.

I pray I find a little quiet,

far from the daily family riot.

May I lie back--not have to think

about what they're stuffing down the sink,

or who they're with, or…

I spent the day Wednesday & Thursday going thru my house and purging. Between the books and the craft supplies it was getting out of hand. I started with the books and went thru all my gardening , homesteading and how-to books boxing up any that I haven’t opened since the day I got them, I figured if I hadn’t looked at them by now I never would so they were just taking up space. I whittled them down from 2 piles waist high to 1 1/3 piles hip high. I did keep most of the how-tos, all the…

I had some signs printed to mount on the house so that we won't have any further issues with neighbors that move in then decided a year or two later they don't really like having a farm next door.

This land has been in the family since the late 1800's and has always had farm animals of one kind or another on it it just happens that the critters of choice for my sister & I are birds namely chickens, ducks, turkeys & one goose name Penelope, well 99% of the neighborhood love the…

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