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Recently, i wrote an on-line review for a local business (the best barbecue ever), and today when my husband went there to buy dinner, they gave us some of it for free as thanks for the great review!  I was so pleased and happy that i had just gotten paid for my writing for the first time ever, and i imagined, for a moment, being a professional critic.  Then i remembered Anton Ego 's words, and his monologue about the worthlessness of his profession (yes, i realize this is a cartoon character), and i thought maybe that's not the road for me.  And plus, i don't think it counts if the businesses you review PAY you.  Haha.  Just so we're clear, these people weren't paying me.  I didn't write the review because i expected something.  I just wrote the review because it was true.  Just so we're clear. Anyway, with completely unrelated motivations, i remembered a magazine i would like to plug.  A dear friend of mine from college, Joy Moore, is Cop...

Today was a momentous occasion for me.  I'm not sure i realized it was going to be.  Initially, i just wanted to get my house cleaned. I wanted to get my house cleaned because my aunts were coming over......all of them.   O.k., there are just three. These are the aunts to whom i am blood related - my dad's sisters. Two live here in Texas, and one lives far away in Michigan.   So they are rarely ever all together in one place.  One of the sisters (i'm not telling which one, and i betcha can't guess) is having her 70th birthday.  So the northern one came to celebrate with her.  The last time she was in Texas was for another sister's 60th. When i realized that they were together for someone's SEVENTIETH birthday, i thought, "you know, this is kind of a big deal," and i got out my camera.   See all that white hair?  I dig that.  I'm hoping i get to have that when i'm old and beautiful like them.  There's a scripture that says ...

This first picture was taken directly after the chicken incident.  For some reason, i thought i should go give the chickens some more food right before bedtime.  It was late enough in the day that they had already started roosting in the coop.  My oldest chickens roost way up in the rafters of the little coop, and when they saw me with food, they started coming down.  Chickens are not graceful, but usually they avoid me - or maybe they just coincidentally miss my head - but today.  Today, one of my hens came out of the rafters, slammed full force plus gravity into the side of my head, and then scraped a stripe down the side of my face while she plummeted to the ground.  And she left this reminder on my face.  Honestly, i'm surprised it's this nice.  When i walked, dazed, out of the coop, i was pretty sure i was bleeding. Earlier, in the day, i took my new lawnmower on its maiden voyage around a tiny piece of the yard.  James was trying to g...

Let me start by saying that cabbage, boiled, has never seemed like a good idea to me, unless perhaps it was for the purposes of punishment.  I'd eat it raw, in a stir fry, in an egg roll with lots of soy sauce, but boiled doesn't do it for me....................until now. Some months ago, while it was still chilly here in the soupy south, my sister-in-law (the one who takes most of the gorgeous pictures that end up decorating my blog) served this simple but amazing dish at a small family get-together.  She told me how she did it, but i was afraid i had missed something important, so i didn't want to try it. Finally, a couple of weeks ago, i tried it, and it worked.  It's like some kind of weird cabbage and beef miracle.  There's no way those few ingredients should taste so good together with so little effort. Before i get started, please let me say that my sister-in-law, i believe, found this recipe - or one something like it - somewhere on the internet.  ...

I'm trying out that term, food sovereignty.  What do you think?  I saw it on someone else's blog, referring to self-sufficiency, or what i have called vendor independence. But that's not what this post is about. Yesterday, i wishfully predicted that we might have a fully hunted and foraged dinner last night.   Not so much. We did go fishing, and while we were there, we ate store-bought fried chicken and cheese flavored Munchies.  I'm a little embarrassed, honestly.  But it all worked out for the best because neither of us caught anything all night, AND i lost my tackle (lures, weights, hooks) twice to some giant monster under the sea (tire, log, really big sedentary fish).  And then, after i had given up - because we were out of things for me to attach to my line - James' line somehow mysteriously got all turned into a bird's nest on his reel, and we gave up and went home....fishless.  Then we just went to bed. Today, i knew i had to fix my smilax...

First Summer Fruits On Wednesday, my delighted husband rushed in the house with treasures!  Peppers!  These two little green cayenne peppers are the first fruits of our summer garden.  Woohoo! The one on top is abbreviated because said delighted husband BIT it to see how hot it would be.  It was pretty hot.  Haha! FYI, i don't think cayenne peppers are ripe at this point.  I think they're supposed to be red.  Not sure.  He was eager. The Shortest Recipe Ever! Garden man took the in-tact pepper to his dad, so i was left with this lone 2/3 of a pepper on my counter - and not sure what to do with it.  Until yesterday, when i was crock potting a chicken.  This, by the way, is the best way to cook a chicken, unless you're frying it.  Just stick the whole thing in the crock pot and turn it on.  Trust me.  I stuck a piece of an onion and several garlic cloves inside the bird.  I also put a small amount of orange juice ...

Apple Cider Vinegar. In the last year or so, while beginning this homesteading life, i have heard (or more likely read) the words "organic apple cider vinegar with the mother in it," as the answer to more questions than i can expound to you.  Seriously. You've seen apple cider vinegar, right?  It's the brown vinegar that's sold next to the clear stuff.  You might actually buy the clear stuff, but not everyone buys the brown stuff. But that's o.k., see, 'cause the brown stuff in the store, that you can get for a couple of bucks.....has been pasteurized.  They cooked the good stuff right out of it. It turns out that apple cider vinegar - or ACV - when in its natural state, has a whole lot of "good bacteria" in it.  I know that's an oxymoron for some people.  But it's true.  It's kind of like yogurt, in that it's got the good stuff God made, for what ails ya. Anyway, i frequent a couple of message boards, and one of them got to...

I was looking through the various blogs to which i am subscribed, looking for something interesting to read this morning, while having a little breakfast.  The pickin's have been slim lately.  It seems like there is little writing happening, and thus, little reading. Then i remembered, "if you wanna get a letter, write a letter." So this is me, writing a letter, sort of. I had planned to share the beef and cabbage recipe with you, sans pictures.  But my husband bought the makings for it again (apparently he liked it), so i'm going to wait and take pictures while i prepare - and then share.  Good enough?  Hint:  it's just cabbage and beef.  It's not really even a recipe.  But it's really good. Instead i can share with you some updates in the world of hunting and gathering and farming. We picked something like 5 quarts of wild black berries (a.k.a. dewberries) on Thursday.  Last night, i made a cobbler with some of them, but i won't s...

Let's see, i wrote last on Tuesday. This is Saturday. Is it Saturday?  Yes, i think that's right. Somehow, someone pushed the fast forward button on this week, and it was suddenly over. I'm sure a lot more stuff happened, and i wrote a lot of it to you in my head.  Since you missed out on all those bits, i'll share one of the highlights in a form you can read. Yesterday (i think it was yesterday), my darling and i spent most of the day in Houston with family.  We arrived home very late at night after it had been storming for several hours. On days like that (days when we're gone until after dark), i come home and make sure all the chickens are in their assigned positions and lock them up for safety and go to bed. That's when i found my 3 youngest chicks, without their mother hen, completely unsheltered, and apparently drowned. These chicks are only about 3 weeks old, and they were completely soaked to the bone, cold, and unresponsive.  One, i was...

Glimmers of Progress I think over there in the side bar somewhere, i've mentioned our desire to be less dependent on the grocery store for our daily sustenance.  Other people call that "self-sufficiency."  That's the fun word that has been passed around a lot lately.  But i am keenly aware that i am fully dependent on God, so i don't like to make goals or labels for myself that exclude Him.  I call it "vendor independence." One of the elements of vendor independence, we feel, is to become good fishermen.  We live a very short drive from a very large lake, and after you pay quite a bit of money for a license to fish, the fish are something like free food. At Christmas, we were given very nice matching rods and reels that have gotten very little use until now.  But this evening, we went fishing, brought home two decent sized catfish, and ate them for dinner. This was very satisfying. It wasn't a whole lot of fish, but it was very satisfying t...

What has been keeping me from you lately? Sometimes it's just general absentmindedness.   But most recently, it was ..... well, i don't have a word for it, so lemme splain. We live in the woods. But our particular place in the woods happens to be open (and i mean wide open) to the entrance road to our little neighborhood.  In fact, we're the very first house in the neighborhood.  This means that every single person who comes into our neighborhood passes by our house. Normally, this is fine.  It makes nice opportunities to meet our neighbors, to talk about chickens and rabbits, to hear people's thoughts on our yard upkeep, etc. Pretty much, if we're outside for very long during the day, someone will stop and say hello. We like that, by the way.  Our neighbors, all in all, are very kind friendly, and haven't actually made any direct comments about our yard upkeep. ~~ Rabbit trail ~~  When we first moved in, we were pulling stuff out of the house and...

I have recently been made aware that my public is concerned that i may never write again. Well, actually, it was my dad. But just in case you share his concern, please let me reassure you. It's all about cycles. Not those kind of cycles. I'm talking about cycles of inspiration for writing. Sometimes i write 3 times in one day. Other times, i don't. Other other times, i write in a journal that i just don't share with you. But it always remains that i will write. It's in me. Since i started recording my meals in my second grade diary, i have always had a need or a desire to write things down. So you may rest assured. I will write.  And i will probably write here. But i'll try to refrain from recording my daily meals for you. Unless they're really good meals requiring i share the recipe. Like yesterday i had beef and cabbage. That probably doesn't sound very good, but you have to try it. I'll share the recipe later. ...

Just kidding.  I'm not famous. However, when i shared my recipe for the best eggs in the world with you, back in March, or something, i was invited by the writers of a blog called House of Annie , to submit my recipe to their " Grow Your Own Round-Up ," in which they showcase recipes made from home grown, foraged, or hunted, ingredients.  More information on this is here . Anyway, those submissions, including my upside down mushroom eggs, more succinctly named "liquid gold" by the organizers of this display, have now been published at the link above. It's not really a contest, from what i can tell.  It's just a chance to share your recipe with a much larger audience.  There are 37 other submissions on that site right now.  You might enjoy checking it out.  I skimmed over it earlier, and i saw a couple of recipes i think i will have to check out also. I'm thinking of coming up with a more impressive recipe to share later in the summer. Mayb...