Back to Basic Living

I can’t think of anyone you could ask that wouldn’t say that Bernie and I are sickeningly in love. Most people we know gag at the fact that we’ve been married over 20 years and still look at each other all googly eyed. Seriously.

Even though I never imagined being married to someone for almost 22 years could be so easy, I will admit there are times when my ever-last-nerve gets plucked. And it’s usually over something like this:

Me: How hungry are you for supper tonight? Should I make a big meal, or a small one?

Him: I had a ham sandwich for lunch today.

??????

What kind of flipping answer is that????? He may as well have said “I wear purple underwear.” It gives me just as much of an answer.

Or as we’re sitting down to a lasagna meal, and munching on the side salad:

Me: Oh – do you need a knife?

Him: Not right now.

Me: Well, do you think you’ll need one?

Him: Maybe.

Or:

Me: Are you going in to town tomorrow?

Him: I bought soda last Wednesday.

*sigh*

I should just ask if he is wearing purple underwear. Seriously.

Bee Free,
Penny

Thank you for all the phone calls, emails, and comments to wish me a happy birthday. It was really nice and I appreciate every one of them. In the case of Julie, all three of them – the phone call, email, and comment on the blog. I guess I deserved it for taking such joy in her BIG FIVE OH birthday. But geez. Talk about bitter…..

I had a nice birthday. Other than a couple of rude and uncalled for comments, Bernie was sweet. The night before he asked me to set the alarm early for him so he could have enough time to get in 50 spankings. He took me to my favorite burger joint for lunch, and threatened to ask for a senior discount for me. Other than that, he was especially sweet and made sure I had a great birthday.

Today was a kind of lazy day for us. We slept in until Elvis decided we had slept long enough and started yowling for breakfast at 6:30AM.  I got up, fed him and Priscilla, made some coffee, got a fire going in the wood burner, and then sat in my chair and wondered why turning 50 had bothered me so much. I think it’s because I still feel so young. I really don’t feel, nor act, like a “grown up”. I pout. I cry when I get a splinter. I talk to chickens. I play in kiddie pools with my great neices and nephews. I even dance naked in the yard when Bernie has his friend take him up in an airplane to survey our property. Ooops. Maybe that’s too much information.

I guess the point is, I am not old DAMMIT! And I don’t appreciate a big fat honking number making me feel like I am old! I think I’ll take my mother-in-law’s advice. I’m just going to pick a freaking number and say that’s my age. And it won’t be as dad gum big as the number I turned on January the 9th at 12:20AM. I just need to coordinate with her and make sure my number isn’t bigger than hers. We need to have some credibility, after all.

Today we have ice. Again. Everything has a big, fat layer of ice on it. Other than collecting wood and checking on chickens, we spent the entire day inside. Sometimes it amazes me that I can spend 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with no one other than my husband – and still love every minute of it. It doesn’t hurt that he is just as crazy as I am. Here is a typical Saturday conversation between us:

Him: What’s for supper?

Me: I don’t know. What do you want?

Him: I don’t care. Whatever you fix.

Me: How about meat loaf?

Him: I’m not feeling very meat loafy.

Me: How about stew?

Him: Hmmmm. I’m not feeling very stewy.

Me: Well, what are you feeling like?

Him: I was thinking about tacos.

Me: Well why the heck didn’t you say that in the first place?

Him: I thought maybe you had something else in mind.

Me: I’m not even hungry. Are you really hungry?

Him: I think I’m getting hungry. How about I make supper tonight? I’ll make the tacos.

Me: You don’t cook.

Him: Yes I do.

Me: You cook eggs. All you can cook is eggs.

Him: I can cook bacon. And sausage. Don’t forget how I can cook sausage.

Me: Well eggs, bacon, and sausage have nothing to do with tacos.

Him: If I can cook eggs, bacon, and sausage, I can cook anything. I’ll make the tacos. If you’ll help me.

So we go into the kitchen and other than browning the meat, I end up cooking supper. And then Bernie says “I made a pretty good supper, didn’t I?”.

“Yes you did honey, thank you.”

“I told you I could cook.”

Honestly. I’m losing ground here.

Bee Free,
Penny

You were a good boy, T.C.  I hear you’ll get a bowl of cereal each night for a bed-time snack. I bet you get a king sized bed.  And I imagine they’ll put you in the choir. You always did sing better than Daddy.

You’re a tough boy, T.C. And we miss you.

It’s starting to warm up on the homestead a bit and I’m beginning to believe Spring really is right around the corner. We’ve got some trees budding out, and a red maple in the front yard is even blooming right now. There are several trees in full bloom in town, but we’re a couple of weeks behind them out here.

This week Bernie worked inside painting when it rained, and outside cutting more firewood and spreading the mulch he made. It’s sad we still need firewood, but even when it warms up to near 70 degrees during the day, it’s not unusual for the temperature to dip into the 30s at night. We’re slowly warming up though, and soon we’ll be missing the fire in the fireplace. I can’t wait!

Charlotte gave me a Mimosa she had in a pot for a couple of years. I’ve kept it inside, but she left it outside year round, so I finally decided it was hardy enough to plant outside now. Bernie actually did the planting, but I told him where I wanted it and then stood by and gave lots of advise about digging the hole. I’m sure he really appreciated that.

Bernie plans to start building raised beds in the next week or so for the vegetable garden. We have some old tires, so I decided to go ahead and put my garlic in one of them. I bought some garlic plants from someone a few months ago and kept them in a pot inside by a window. They did pretty well inside, but are apparently quite hardy, so I decided to go ahead and put them outside in one of the old tires. I also used a tire to plant some lettuce seeds. And last fall I put some potatoes in a tire and covered them with a very thick layer of pine straw, as My Dear John suggested. I dug out the pine straw over the weekend and couldn’t restrain myself from digging around a bit to see if anything survived the winter in there. Sure enough, I found potatoes and several with tubers already!

We went into town today to pick up a few things. We can’t hardly go to town without stopping at Bernie’s all time favorite store on the face of the entire planet – Tractor Supply Company (TSC). He got 50 more fence posts, and I got a chick feeder and waterer. I know I can’t get chicks right now, but I told Bernie that TSC will be getting their baby chicks in the middle of April and that means that all the chick supplies will quickly sell out around that time. By getting the feeder and waterer now, I won’t be searching for them when we finally do get our chicks. Amazingly, he said “That’s probably a smart idea.” I interpreted that as “Yes, you’ll be getting your chicks soon.” Yay! Not much longer and I’ll have baby chicks to bore the snot out of you with!

We’re getting our barn shed and garden shed built here this week. I’ll be sure to post some pictures. My garden shed will end up being what we add the chicken coop on to. Hopefully, we’ll start the coop project very shortly after we get the buildings erected.

I’ve been soaping a fair amount lately and working on a formula that is a little more moisturizing since my demented sister claims her skin is just too delicate for my already moisturizing bars. I made Bernie test one and he seemed to like it, although he asked me just to make him his regular soap. I do think there is a market for both types. Some people like a bubbly, cleansing soap and some people like a creamy, luxurious soap. I’m pleased with both recipes and can’t wait until the newest cures so I can test it out on other unsuspecting family members. Hey sis – expect a package of soap from me soon.

Bee Free,
Penny

Well, it’s getting close to Christmas and that means it’s time for our annual 600 mile holiday pilgrimage to my parent’s home – and that means the time is getting short to get all the Christmas gifts together. I’ve outdone myself this year. I AM FINISHED! Really, I am. And this year each and every gift is home made. Every stinkin’ one of them.

We’ve established just how much I enjoy the whole obligatory gift giving tradition, but since I’ve started giving home made gifts, I find it’s a lot less hateful, and I even find myself in a good mood over it. At least with a home made gift, chances are slim I’ll find it in my sister’s garage, where she stages everything that is headed out to Good Will and where I’ve found many of my previous Christmas gifts to her. She may throw it away, but I’ll never know about it.

I still have some home made butter to make for my mother, but I dont’ want to do that until right before we go. I want it to be as fresh as possible. And don’t worry – I didn’t spoil the surprise by typing this on my blog. My mother is about the only person I know that doesn’t read my blog. If that doesn’t tell you how bad I suck at blogging, I don’t know what does. My own mother. Geesh.

Hey, we finally waxed our cheddar cheese and put it up to age. Feast your eyes on this gorgeous hunk of red heaven:

We’ve been busy cutting up a couple of deer that a friend gave us. I don’t know where he shot these deer, but they were freaking enormous! We got the largest backstrap we have ever seen out of the buck. That’s gonna be some good eating.

My Dear John just had some surgery on his wrist yesterday, so he hasn’t been able to email me today about how much I stink at blogging. I thought it might be a pleasant surprise for him to get two whole blog entries from me within just a couple of days of each other. Plus it might keep him busy for five minutes or so to give his poor wife a break.

That’s it for now from the homestead. Oh – and by the way, I am keeping my vow to step outside at least once a day. It is, however, going on two weeks since I left this place or have gone any further than the mailbox. Bernie’s making noise about forcing me to ride with him to the dump tomorrow. I think he worries people will think he must have killed me and buried me in the middle of this 65 acres. Not that he cares what people think – he just doesn’t want them snooping around the property.

Bee Free,
Penny

Well, we went to check on our bee hives yesterday and were really devastated to learn we have now lost all of them. We’re very sad, but determined to learn from it all and start again next year. You can read about it on The Bee Buzz.

As depressing as it was to learn we lost all our hives, one thing is certain on a homestead – life must go on. We have so much to do we really do not have time to focus on failures. We have to move ahead and continue to establish ourselves here.

Bernie started working on the fence for the cleared area where the house is. I am SO happy. As I mentioned in my previous post, a fence means we can have a garden and get goats and chickens – along with a couple of dogs to discourage wild life from getting too close to any of it. He amazed me with what all he’s accomplished in the past couple of days. The posts for the upper part of the yard are all in place. He still needs to put in corner posts, but I am quite pleased that it’s coming right along! Our ground is mostly rock, so I expected it would take him much longer. But Bernie is nothing if not tenacious about things like this. We’ll have a fence before you know it!

Even after working on the fence all day, Bernie was more than willing to help me put together a little composter. When we lived in town, he built me a really nice composter out of boards and chicken wire. That thing was great! When we moved to the homestead he and Tex promised to make me a turnable composter out of a 55 gallon drum, and I know that one day they will. But with so many things to do around here, I figured my turnable composter is pretty low on the list, so I wanted to start a simple one to make due until they have time to build me another. I put a page up on the Back to Basic Living website, with step by step instructions on how we built it. Check it out!

I also started a batch of sour dough starter. There’s nothing like home made sour dough. Making a starter is easy and requires little more than a water or milk and some flour. I’ve done this before, but it’s been a while. I was inspired by TxCloverAngel on Homesteading Today. If you’re interested, check out her post. She started hers with milk, and I started mine with water. I’ll be interesting to see how it all turns out.

And if you’ve been wondering about that last batch of grape Prison Wine I started, well, it’s going along GREAT! It’s been bubbling and fermenting for over two weeks. I should be able to bottle it in another couple of weeks. Prison Wine really rocks! But you probably won’t remember that after a glass or two……

Bee Free,
Penny

The past couple of weeks have really been hectic. We had about 40 bikers here for the TEA (The Extreme Activist) annual party. This is basically a family reunion of sorts for the Biker Republic. It is always intense, educating, and fun. We had a great time and from the first in to the last out, it lasted almost a week. We are exhausted. It’s taken us all week to clean up – even though every one did a great job of cleaning up after themselves, we still had shelters to tear down, dishes to do, stuff to put away, trash to haul off, etc.

And someone, whose name I won’t mention (Spotman), left me more than just memories. Death Flu. I have been sick as a dawg all week. Friends and family are wonderful – but they have germs. And they aren’t afraid to share.

So we are finally all alone on the homestead and I’m feeling well enough to drag my tired body to the computer keyboard. It’s fall now – the trees are just bursting with color. Bernie cut firewood the past two days. He’s gotten quite a lot accomplished, but informed me he’s no where near finished. Here’s what he’s got so far:

He’s got some stacking to do, but I’m seeing lots of toasty evenings in front of the fire with cats!

We’re starting to plan the garden for next year. Early spring will be lettuce, onions, garlic, potatoes, carrots, and radishes. We’ll bring out our horseradish in the next week or so and get that planted too. The summer garden will be tomatoes, squash, corn, cucumbers, snap beans, green peppers, banana peppers, jalapenos, habenaros, Tabasco peppers, and maybe some okra. That’s as far as we’ve gotten so far.

Soon it will be rifle season for deer – and turkey. We have seen plenty of both here in the yard this year. I’d love to see plenty of both in our freezer.

The bees are fabulous – the girls routinely find their way up to the house to visit with us. I swear they just come to say hello – it’s all I can do to keep from just kissing their little wings right off them. This weekend we’ll put on the hive reducers, remove the supers, and start feeding everyone. They’ve done a great job this year. They deserve a little break as the cold weather rolls in.

Bee Free,
Penny

Wow. Yesterday was one week since we permanently moved out to our homestead. The week flew by. I helped Bernie move on Monday, and then worked from home Tuesday through Friday. Fortunately, they keep me pretty busy at work, so it makes the work day go by quickly. By the time I finish (somewhere between 2PM and 3PM), Bernie is home from moving stuff from our home in town and he and I get busy unpacking or doing one of the other 5,000 things on our list of stuff that needs to get done. I didn’t leave the homestead all week long. And I never even thought about that until Bernie mentioned it today. I never even missed it.

One day last week Bernie stayed home and unpacked a couple of rooms on his own. Man, that was great! Not only did I love knowing he was here as I worked from my office, but he served me breakfast and lunch at my computer. I actually felt a little guilty. I’m usually the one that takes care of him that way. But he assured me he is fine with it. He’s really getting a lot done and I would actually rather be working that doing what he’s doing. It’s a lot of work – and none of it fun.

Tomorrow we plan on working a little around the house in the morning, and then Bernie will watch football all afternoon. That’s fine by me – I plan on making some bath gel, bath salts, bath bombs, and lip balm from bees wax that a couple of businesses in local towns are selling for me. If I can find a few minutes to put together a website, I’ll be selling them there soon. I’ll be sure to let you know the website address.

The cats, Bernie, and I have settled in to living on the homestead quite nicely. I’m not sure who enjoys looking out these windows the most. We’ve had a cat in a window since we got here – and Bernie and I are constantly looking out one window or the other in complete awe. What a nice view of the world. I prefer it.

Bee Free,
Penny