Preparedness Challenge

This week for the preparedness challenge over at Homestead Revival, I….

Made olive oil lamps! This was actually easier than I thought it would be- the instructions can be found here on the Mother Earth News website. These would be very nice in the event of a power outage if you did not have or want to use a battery powered flashlight.  One of the BEST things about these in my opinion, is that if they tip over, they immediately extinguish since olive oil has a high flash point (we actually knocked one over in the kitchen sink just to test this out- sure enough, the flame disappeared right away!). This was very important to me since I have a two little ones who love to grab at anything shiny. Of course, these should be put out of reach of anything flammable or anyone not old enough to play with fire, but I appreciate the safety feature just in case! My husband would tease that this particular aspect would be more likely to keep ME from burning the house down than the KIDS…. But moving on!! J

Yes, I know olive oil can be expensive, but I used the cheapest stuff I could find- a 1.5 liter bottle of store brand oil only cost me about ten bucks- and it goes a long way! The only other required materials are a glass canning jar (any sturdy glass container would probably work, but these refract the light really well! Plus, when these are not in use, you can simply put the lids on for storage), a piece of flexible wire and a strip of 100% cotton twine or cloth (I cut a few strips from a cheap dish cloth) that has been soaked in salt water for about thirty minutes and then air dried. Two tips that we learned while doing this- it is important to keep the wick no longer than a quarter of an inch long, and the oil needs to be level with where the wire is holding the wick. If you want the jar to appear fuller, try adding some water to the bottom of the jar before adding the oil and wick.  The first lantern took about 10 minutes to put together, but once we got the basic premise down, we started experimenting with other jars and were able to assemble each lamp in less than three minutes!

My two year old even enjoyed this project, as he sat safely in his high chair singing, “happy buh-day to tooooooo!!” every time we lit a match!

Notice how the brightest lamps are the plain pint jars- a quart jar might work even better!

Please head on over to Amy’s blog at Homestead Revival and check out some ideas for getting prepared for whatever may come!

Small Steps Toward the Bigger Picture

I am most definitely a dreamer. One who craves a more sustainable lifestyle. Simple, but not necessarily easy. There is infinite value in hard work. A hot meal never tastes better than when it comes after a long day of manual labor. But dreams occupy my brain space much of the time. Simmering on the back burner, flirting at the edges, until slowly, one by one, I gain the knowledge, the resources, and most importantly, the courage to start transforming those dreams into reality. I often (such as now) get impatient, wishing that everything could be just so, right now. Then I get annoyed at myself when I realize that the instant gratification I was wishing for is exactly the sort of mindset I am supposed to be battling against. To everything there is a season.

When I look back at how far we've come in a relatively short period of time, I really have no room for complaint. Sustainable living is a journey, and, especially when one did not grow up living this way as a daily lifestyle, sometimes it can feel like a slow, grinding journey. However, small changes have really had a large impact in the grand scheme of things. When I look back on everything together, it seems like a lot. Here are some things we are doing:

 

• Homemade chicken stock (SOO easy with a crock pot!)
• Purchasing grass-fed beef (most recently in a frozen bulk order. Ever seen how much meat makes up a quarter of a cow?)
• Eating truly cage-free, free-range, pastured chickens
• Buying eggs from the farmer’s market (what? Eggs aren’t supposed to be thin & watery??)
• Reading food labels – trying my dandiest to avoid high fructose corn syrup and GMOs (genetically modified organisms)
• Regularly shopping at the farmer’s market
• Eating new vegetables (who knew cabbage could be so tasty?!)
• Planting a garden
• Starting seeds under grow lights instead of buying all transplants
• Using heirloom seeds
• Using unbleached and whole wheat flour
• Learning how to work with sourdough
• Made the switch from salt to REAL salt (it’s prettier anyway!)
• Experimenting with more “whole” sugars such as Sucant, Rapadura and honey
• Threw out the pancake syrup in favor of real (to die for!) Vermont maple syrup
• Buying local and in season as much as possible
• Buying USDA organic items as much as possible to avoid pesticides and GMOs.
• Stopped going to most fast food places (haven’t had a McDonald’s burger in almost a year! Woohoo! Can’t even remember the last time we went to Taco Bell?)
• I did not buy one “fresh” tomato all winter
• Froze corn, okra, and strawberries (sauce and jelly) for some summer treats during the cold weather
• Stopped using shortening
• Made the switch from margarine to butter
• Started using more olive oil
• Using USDA organic canola oil for high heat stir frying. Still researching a possible switch to coconut oil
• Started using whole fryer chickens instead of just parts
• Began baking more things from scratch- including assembling typical “convenience” food items- in my own kitchen
• Started seasoning and using cast iron cookware
• Make homemade laundry detergent and use vinegar as softener
• Using a clothes line for drying as much as weather allows
• Purchasing whole milk instead of 2%
• Paying (Please, prepare yourself) up to $9 a gallon for whole, cream-top, un-homogenized, certified organic, low temperature pasteurized, grass-fed milk. Plus, I am even considering driving about an hour one way to purchase straight-from-the-farm-fresh milk – a.k.a. “raw” milk, though I greatly dislike that term. You don’t call your fruit “raw raspberries”)
• Considering the possibility of investing in a few laying hens.
• Plans for learning how to water bath and pressure can (my current preservation repertoire involves freezing and a little bit of dehydration)
• Clearing clutter out of my home and attempting a more natural, "wabi-sabi”style
• Reading, reading, reading! I read so much about this stuff that sometimes I feel like that’s ALL I’m getting done! Building a homestead in my head! But I guess you have to start somewhere!

 

Strawberry freezer jam from last year, & a daylily from my front yard

These changes have come slowly over the course of the last year. Most of them just get incorporated into the daily routine so that the "change" was as simple as switching out one thing for another. Others take a bit more forethought and deliberate action, such as remembering to thaw out the beef instead of picking up a package from the store, or taking the time to go outside with a two year old and ten month old and hang laundry on the line.

Often, I feel like these things don't add up to very much in the grand scheme. Half Acre Homestead said it perfectly- I often feel like an "urban-homesteader-wannabe"! I don't have my own goats or cows or rabbits or bees or chickens (yet!). I don't brew my own gasoline or spin my own wool. I don't even have a wood stove. Some days it's all I can do to remember to feed the dog and comb my hair. BUT, I am willing to learn, I have a lot of research under my belt and am willing to do a lot more, and I have a HUGE desire to pursue these endless dreams. I am learning (very, very slowly) to be content with where I am, while slowly building up to the simple, self-sufficient lifestyle we desire. That's the best I can do right now, and that's okay.