Move Your Money

Shocking and very well put together. Discusses moving your money to smaller local branches to take $$ out of the big guys hands. Thanks to Ravenrocks for showing me this!

More info at Move Your Money.

Soap Making and Emergency Kit

In keeping with one of my goals for this coming year I checked out soap making books from the library. I know it's pretty easy but one must be careful and move slowly. I have a list of some supplies to scope out from our local thrift store. Things like a few mixing bowls and a stainless steel pot or two. I'd like to use all glass since some bad plastics bind to fat cells and that is essentially what soap is. Fat and Lye. I don't want my soap to be fat, lye and plastic.... mmmm moisturizing. I think I am going to follow down-to-earth's soap making tutorial.  It seems easy enough with out a lot of fussy extras, a good beginner soap.

I've also checked out some books about emergency preparedness and what it's going to take. I have a rather extensive first aid kit list. Which although daunting shouldn't take me too long to put together.  After our first aid kit is done I'd like to work on water storage. I am not sure what to use to store water, so I have to do some more research.

Emergency supplies

So the Haiti earthquake has got me thinking about emergencies. How would my house hold up in a 7+ earthquake? What would I need if we did have a disaster? I don't want to go all survivalist, but I'm thinking I need to get some precautionary stuff down.

At the very least a first aid kit for humans and animals. Maybe drinking water for a few days. I have all the food because of my canning. I can eat cold beans and dried fruit thank you if it comes down to it. Just some stuff to think about. I am going work on putting together an emergency corner of the basement full of gear. Better to have and not need....

Bread and Transformation

A video from TED about bread and transformation. This is Peter Reinhart a bread master!

Back to Blogger

Having been at wordpress for about 3 months we've jumped back to blogger. The address is the same www.oxrayfarm.com just the platform is different. Wordpress wants to charge you for every little thing. I like how much nicer the blogger community feels. The forums @WP are full of not nice people. Oh well live and learn. Blogger added new features in 2010 and some of those features were the reason I left in the first place. Although with this "template" we loose our About Us/Chickens tabs at the top of the page. We may go out and find some one to design a website then upload the HTML to get those things back. Blogger will even allow you to do that... for free. :o)

Honey Jar and Crochet hook case

We decided we didn't need to squeeze honey from a plastic jar. This is so much sexier! The artist from etsy is Mississippi Mud Potter.

My first crochet project, a crochet hook case. I haven't done all of it yet but I am almost there. From the book Chicks with Sticks guide to crochet.

Path to freedom has many steps

Butter making

I didn't get a picture of the process because I didn't know if it would work. But I was amazed how really easy butter making is. I got a pint sized container of organic cream at the grocery store. I plan to separate the cream from local raw milk next time, but for now this is how it went. I poured the cream in the kitchen mixer with the whisk attachment and turned on to high. After about 10 minutes the butter fat separated from the "buttermilk" it's not true buttermilk because it isn't cultured, but that's beside the point. The butter turns yellow like magic and you pour off the butter milk, then add ice water to wash the butter. This removes any leftover buttermilk in the butter and keeps it from going rancid. Keep adding water, mixing and pouring it off until the water runs clean and no longer milky. Salt if you choose and store in the fridge for a week, if longer freeze. I found this website complete with pictures detailing the process. Making Butter at Cooking for Engineers.

The microwave and living without it.

It all started with pizza. Pizza just never tastes the same microwaved, the crust isn't as crisp the cheese as perfectly melty. Yesterday afternoon over our leftover pizza, Jake and I got to talking about the microwave. I had seen somewhere that they aren't very safe, but I put that thought out of my mind because I love my microwave! I told Jake about the unsafe issues and he said: "well it makes sense, the microwave mess's up the phone and it's in the other room." Intrigued we wanted more information. This is what we were able to come up with:  


1. They don't know the long term effects. Which we took as, slow poisoning might not kill you.... but it sure isn't good! (According to Norbert Hankin of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s Center for Science and Risk Assessment, "We don't have a solid position on the possible health risks from exposure to microwaves due to inconclusive research." He concludes, "The real question remains whether there could be cumulative effects.")  


2. Microwaves alter the chemistry of the food. Some reports say it alter's the food so drastically that our bodies absorb very little of the nutrients in the food. "In the late 1980s scientists Hans Hertel and Bernard Blanc of the Swiss Institute of Technology tested blood from subjects both before and after eating microwave-cooked food. They reported that the subjects had a decrease in all hemoglobin values as well as increases in white blood cells and cholesterol."  


We stopped there, and didn't need to go any further. Our microwave is cleaned, pictures taken and being placed "for sale" on craigslist today. All excerpts and a worthy article to read Here.

image from mercola.com

Shelving

I spent the morning searching shelving. With our increasing farm library we need a spot to put all this lovely bound paper. But I don't want to just go and buy some random shelf. My top two ideas are pallet shelves or shelf from an old ladder. My mom has an old crappy wooden ladder but I'm not sure if she'll let me have it to hang on my wall. Maybe if I replace it with a new shinny ladder? Or I could build a shelf using some old pallets we have. However I think those pallets are going to be used in the seed starting effort this coming spring. We intend to make tables out of them, but that's a whole other story. Here are my two favorite pictures I could find of the ladder bookshelf. #1 "A" frame ladder hung horizontally on the wall. I think I like #1 best, it's rustic or if you prefer... ugly, but still I dig it! #2 is an old straight ladder cut in half and added wooden planks for the actual shelves.

Double yolkers

Straight razor shaving

We've been trying to using less and less things that come in packaging. Anything that must be used then discarded or even recycled. For example disposable razors. Now, we have been using just disposable razor heads for a while, rather than the entire razor being tossed. We even switched to shave soap that must be lathered with a shave brush (think old school here), thus reducing any shaving cream cans or tube waste. In our constant strive to do more, straight razor shaving was the only way to go. Unless we wanted to be really hairy, which suits me just fine. I shave once every month or two.... go hairy girls it's good for you! But, I still shave, I can't seem to go all furry. My legs I don't mind so much since really it's just your legs but I have a harder time with my under arms going caveman.

This is Jacobs first shave with the "Sweeney Todd". He did really well! It does take more time because it's a huge learning curve. I didn't get a picture of me shaving my legs for the first time, mostly because I didn't want of picture of me in my nickers online. But it went well, I didn't cut myself accept for a tiny nic on my knee that didn't even need a bandaid.


The razor we opted to buy is the only one made in the U.S.A. all other straight razors are manufactured elsewhere mostly, germany or china. We wanted to support our economy not someone else's. The blade is forged by Hart Steel, each blade is marked with the artisan's initials. The blade we received has TV stamped on it. Pretty cool!

Skills to Learn

I got this idea from Crunchy Chickens blog, she asks about what skills you would like to learn this year. Some of the many she listed I do want to learn but they require more space. I mean things like large animal husbandry. But it got me thinking about different skills we are already on track to learn. For example, we are already signed up for beekeeping lessons. Some of the skills I took from Crunchy's list but some I've added.

• beekeeping
• animal processing
• knitting/crocheting
• beer/wine/cider making
• soap making
• expanding canning knowledge to include more veggies
• gardening
• indoor seedstarts

I'd really enjoy knitting my own socks, hats, and gloves and even dish rags. That is the skill I am most eager to learn as it might keep me busy inside this coming Jan/Feb. I borrowed a book from a friend yesterday but it assumes you know the language. So I might have to get a knitting for dummies book from the library so I know what in heck is going on. What skills do you want to learn this year?