I can't help myself!

Sorry I can't help myself....

I'm ordering from a local source this year.

Maybe you guys should check these guys out!

Have a Blessed Day!

Lisa

Young Entrepreneur

After much begging, promising, negotiations and pleading.

We have come to an agreement.

Jamie is starting his own business.

Rabbits.

Hmmm.....wasn't it a few years ago I said I would never, ever, EVER get rabbits again?!

Well never say never.

I think at this time he's older and more mature than he was when he first tried it.

Well for one thing, these are meat rabbits and now that he's become the "great white hunter", he won't mind turning cute little bunnies into rabbit stew.

That was the big issue the first time.

It shouldn't be an issue this time.

I hope.

We'll have to wait and see.

But we're really proud of him.

It's been two weeks and he's really taking care of them.

He got a buck and two does and until the business takes off, he's promised

 to only breed one doe at a time.

I don't want to be overrun by rabbits.

He actually saved his money to start this venture. 

We only had to invest a little bit.

It's nice to see him have some initiative to do something.

Most teens his age stay inside and play video games.

So we'll have to wait and see.

We'll keep you informed.

And if you know someone that wants a rabbit, 

send them our way!

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

Vampires need not apply.

Ok, we like garlic, well really we love garlic.

I started with 3 bulbs a friend gave me 4 years ago.

This fall I decided I was going to expand.

I just used to plant a 5 X 5 bed.

This fall I planted a 5 X 12 bed!

Then I planted the 5 X 5 bed.

I have a problem...

By the time I was done I had planted 

over 140 cloves of garlic.

So that means if they all grow I'll be getting over 140 bulbs of garlic!!

Ack.

Oh well, we'll be safe from vampires.

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

Slow Cooker Granola Recipe

I've noticed that I've mentioned it before, but I've never posted my slow cooker granola recipe.

I've tried granola recipes before that you bake in the oven.

But the problem with those is that I usually end up burning them.

Then one day a friend of mine mentioned she had a recipe that was easy to make.

I must admit she was right.

So here's the almost (I did burn it once)foolproof 

slow cooker granola recipe!

Ingredients

5 cups rolled oats (the old fashioned kind)

1 cup sliced almonds

3/4 cup sweetened dried cranberries

3/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1/2 cup chopped dates or raisins

1/2 cup sesame seeds

2/3 cup maple syrup

1/4 cup corn oil

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

pinch of salt

Combine everything in a lightly oiled slow cooker and stir.

Cook on high uncovered for 1.5 hours

Stir occasionally

Reduce heat to low and cook for another 2 hours. Stir occasionally.

Use within 2 weeks.

It fills a 4qt slow cooker.

The ingredients aren't written in stone.

I never use coconut or raisins anymore.

Last batch I used dry, roasted, unsalted peanuts.

I also dried blueberries, pumpkin seeds, hemp, flax and chia seeds.

And Voila! a nutritious breakfast for the next two weeks.

I also use in on top of yogurt, ice cream...the possibilities are endless!

I tried adding this to my website but I cannot figure it out for the life of me!

My last helper had written step by step instructions on how to do it and I think the website people changed the format on me...again.

grrrrr....

Oh well...

Have a Blessed Evening

Lisa

Santa's coming to town!

Last year we decided to visit Dave's parents at Tideview Terrace where they are staying.

We also decided to have fun with it.

Read about it here

We only had enough stuffed toys to do the two houses his parents are in.

But the residents enjoyed it so much, we were determined to find enough stuffed toys for everyone this year. That meant 90 stuffed toys and 90 stuffed toys to wrap also.

So I've been collecting stuffed toys all year long.

I'd go to thrift stores and buy some. My mom would go and find some also.

By the end, I was missing a dozen or so.

So I put an ad on Facebook and got a whole bunch there also.

By the time I was done I had more than enough.

(But there's always next year ;) )

We were going to bring Emilie the elf like we had done last year.

But I couldn't find her new costume I had bought for her anywhere!

I had even written on the calendar where I had put it, so this year I'd know where it was.

But it was gone....we didn't need it anyway. Emilie passed away a week before the event.

So after I had wrapped 100 gifts (just in case some young children were there visiting their grandparents) Santa and I hopped in his trusty sleigh (GMC Sierra) and off we went.

This is what 100 gifts and a Santa suit looks like

Santa had also had surgery 3 weeks before the visit and couldn't lift anything more than 5 pounds.

So guess who lugged the bags?

I'm telling you...it's not cold in those places. By the time we were done, 

I was sweating, I mean glowing, profusely. 

Santa was soaking wet!!

But everyone had an awesome time.

Because of privacy issues, I can't put up pictures of the residents. So I'm posting some of Santa's parents and a friend of the family.

It's so much fun seeing the smiles on their faces. It's worth all the glowing and work we have to do before hand.  Next year we'll hopefully be able to bring Simonne as the elf since some of the residents love the animal connection as much as the Santa visit.

I hope ya'll had an awesome Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa

Homesteading 101

A few months ago I wrote an article and sent it to several magazines, including the one that had bought an article from me last year.

But I got rejection letters from all of them.

Saying it was informative, but more suited to a blog, not a magazine.

I'm not sure why. One of them the writing is exactly like this one.

Oh well...you win some, you lose some.

So I thought I'd post it here for all of you to see. 

Homesteading 101

We've been called crazy, we've been told we've lost our minds. Some people actually say they admire us.  My friend keeps telling us to keep it up, Agenda 21 is coming. If you don't know what Agenda 21 is, Google it.

What are they talking about? Homesteading,  while holding down full time jobs. Homesteading, the new buzz word.  Yes, my husband and I both work full time outside the home and we homestead also. That's why people think we've lost it sometimes.  Well...most of the time.

It's hard enough homesteading when one doesn't work, works part-time or even works seasonal.  But throw in 45+ hour work weeks with crazy schedules and kids and we sometimes wonder ourselves why we do it.

I can tell you why we started doing it. Back in the day it was actually cheaper to do it that way. I am the ultimate tightwad.  We started off with a few laying hens and meat birds. Feed was cheap.  Guess what?! Feed is no longer cheap.  When eggs come on sale for $1.99 a dozen, you wonder why you're still mucking out the chicken coop on a beautiful ,summer Saturday morning instead of heading out to the beach. 

Then there comes a time when you start to think of what you're putting in your body instead of saving your money for your children's inheritance.  Because honestly, what are they going to do with all that money you're going to leave to them? Buy expensive organic produce at the local farmer's market? We might as well teach them how to do it for themselves.

Homesteading from a kid's point of view is well...depends how old the kid is. Our son loved the animals when we was younger. When a piglet would die he would cry for days.  He'd love to help clean the goat stalls, pick up the eggs from the chickens, plant his own little garden.  Now that he's a teen  I'm lucky if he asks if the goats have kidded yet.  But I know someday all the hard work and knowledge will become invaluable to him.

 I hope.

To us, homesteading provides us with clean, good quality food. We know our animals are happy and healthy. No factory farms here. My husband is good at making things easier for us. Automatic waterers and feeders make life easier. Raised beds for the veggies instead of plots of land help with the weeds and the sore backs. Prevention is also key. Keeping your animals in top physical and mental condition helps with avoiding vet bills. That goes for equipment also.

Good homesteading is also knowing your limit.  How far are you willing to go mentally, physically, emotionally and financially. Use common sense, I know common sense is almost becoming extinct but it's still out there.  At the moment we have several goats, laying hens, meat birds, fruit trees and 7 raised beds for the veggies.  I, not my husband, would love to have fibre goats (even though I don't knit) and another 10-15 dairy goats.  Not going to happen.  We are almost at our limit with time, finances and land.  

The only other thing coming on our property in the next year or so are bees.

 But it's easy to get off track. I know, been there, done that.  It's good to write down your goals. Otherwise you might become like Sophia in that old sitcom The Golden Girls and digress.

Looking back throughout the years, reading old posts on my blog, I wouldn't change a thing.  We've learned so many things like, even though you only need a litre of goat's milk a week, she's still going to give you five litres a day. So deal with it! We also learned that we  are not full time cow people, but that's another article.

And we're still learning things every day. Like just this spring, I learned that a 150 pound goat that doesn't want to go on the milking stand, actually weighs 500 pounds when you try and pick her up!

Some days I look at my husband and tell him that we are selling everything and moving to Halifax in an apartment where someone else can grow everything and we'll buy it. Then I can keep our apartment clean and go to the gym to keep fit instead of pitching 150 bales of hay. He lets me rant for a while and then I go to the barn where I sit and hear the goats munching, burping and farting and think, "Man, this is the life!"

Superstars!!

Last year while at work I was listening to the local radio station.

It's an english radio station and it's not really local.  

It's about an hour away. So our Home Hardware store doesn't advertise on it because there's three more localler (if that's a word) Home Hardware stores around it.

There's one small convenience store that does advertise on it and I just love their commercials.

One of the employees changes his voice and personality to make fun of the boss

and advertise the specials of that week. 

It's really funny and gets your attention.

I thought I wish our store could do that. 

But the only radio station we would be able to advertise is the local french station

which is just up the road from my house. (and most of our customers are english and don't understand a lick of french.)

But I approached my boss about doing it on the french station anyway.

He loved the idea!

So I approached the radio station and they loved the idea also. They had been hoping some of their advertisers would do something like that.

So with that Agnes and Bernadette were born...I mean created.

Two elderly sisters.

My friend Susan works with me and she's also Acadian French like I am.

So she's Agnes and I'm Bernadette.

People love listening to the commercials on the radio.

We're not like the other store that makes fun of the boss.

That's going a bit too far and disrespectful.

But we're not opposed to insulting each other while we advertise what's going on at the store.

Like two little cantankerous old ladies are apt to do.

Then for the staff Christmas party, our boss approached us to do a little skit, to put faces to Bernadette and Agnes. And this way, the rest of the staff can see what we do.

That led to our P.R. person asking if we'd do "commercials" for the store's Utube account.

So here's our first two ads.

I hope you enjoy them. 

Bernadette and Agnes with the Spin Mop

Bernadette and Agnes with The Heft

Have a Blessed Day

Lisa