Update: Growing Tators In Buckets

This post contains Affiliate Links.

     Growing Tators In Buckets was first published on December 29th. Just 2 days before I published Our Top 10 Posts of 2014. In just 2 short weeks, the post is now #3 on my top 10 views of all time. AMAZING! Thank you to everyone that has shared, commented, tweeted, pinned and loved our Tators post. However, it was not just the views that has grown at an alarming rate, the tators have as well! 

     Now if you remember, our potatoes started out like this. They were just in a box, under my kitchen cabinet, waiting to be planted in the spring. Or so I thought... I guess they had a different idea of when they should be planted. 

     January 8th was when we first noticed we were getting stems growing up. Previous to that, we would uncover the potatoes just to make sure they were still in there. It seemed to take forever for the little stems to show up. Then, they started to grow fast! 

     Due to weather and my job hours, we were unable to cover them up on. It was a few days later that we added 3 inches of compost soil. They were already starting to form leaves. I'm sure after we watered them, the depth was not still 3 inches, but they were still covered.  

That following Monday, we looked again. One side of the bucket was already growing from up out of the soil. The other side was still growing, just not as fast. We decided not to add any more soil to the lower side of the bucket. Zoey added 3 more inches of soil to the higher side. 

     Now here it is January 14th, and they have already grown out of the new soil. It is so amazing to watch them grow! The lower side is starting to catch up, but the high side still towers over them. Unfortunately, we have to wait till Saturday to cover them again. I work from sun up to sundown at my job, but just the 2 days a week. 

   Honestly, I did not think the potatoes plants would grow this big, this fast. I thought it would at least take until spring to get to the top of the bucket. At this rate, I think we are looking at another 2-3 weeks. That might be a problem. While I have said all along, plants under the soil only need the sun for warmth, once they get to the top, they will definitely need the suns rays to survive. It is the dead of winter and I do not think they will survive indoors. At this time, we do not have any indoor growing lights and I am afraid they will not grow well in the garage with just the florescent lights over head. I may need to invest in a grow light soon... Not really wanting to grow using electricity in winter, but man, this is so exciting! 

     Zoey has been keeping up with the growth in her Science Journal. Every few days she gets out her spiral notebook and draws what she sees in the bucket. Then, she writes a small paragraph about what it is doing, or what we have done. This brings science and writing together. (AND a bit of art! ;) ) If I had really thought about it, we could have created a little chart to keep up with how fast it has grown in so many days. Also, I think it would have been a really good idea to have written an inch line from the bottom of the bucket to the top of it in a Sharpie Marker or some other permanent marking tool. That would of been fantastic! I just was not expecting this to go this well! 

Want to see the original post?

    

So what do you think? 

Will they actually grow some spuds?   

Disclosure: I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online. 

Learning To Chop Wood

This post contains Affiliate Links.

     It is 38 degrees, and guess what my kid is doing? Learning to chop wood. One of the many 'prepper' goodies she got for Christmas was a camping hatchet. (She calls it her Tomahawk.) It is kind of like THIS ONE, just not as fancy. You can see the rest of what she got HERE. 
     She got a short lesson from daddy on how to chop wood, and I supervised. She wanted me to come out to watch her, but I could not stay outside for long. Not only am I not that crazy, (It's cold out there!) I also had to keep watch on the wood burner. We decided to use some of our preps to make pinto beans. Cooking them on the wood burning stove required me to keep the wood burning hot. So I was running in back and forth, but mostly, watching from the window. 

 I'm ready! 

     I know, she is so scary! She ended up moving out of the front yard and into the driveway for more stability. Zoey actually did a really good job. Once she learned how to chop is a smaller area, and turn the limb so she could chop on the other side, it took her no time to get the limb off of the branch piece. When she was finished, she handed me the wood and told me to go put it in the wood burner for the beans! 

      You can tell she is pretty excited to have chopped her first piece of wood. Once spring hits, we are going to see about chopping enough wood to build an emergency shelter. Hmmm... we will definitely have to research that! :D

Disclosure: I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online. 

Take A Hike

This post contains Affiliate Links.

     Along with our new motto for the year, 'Do More,' we are also following our old motto of 'If you're going to talk the talk, you better walk the walk.' And that is just what we did, We took a walk! Full G.O.O.D. bag, gear and all! It was a bit chilly, 42 degrees. Maybe that is not chilly for where you live, but it is for Texas. Definitely, a lot chillier than I want to go for a walk in. However, the girl has been begging me to go out since BEFORE we got her New G.O.O.D. Bag. (It was my idea... That is what I get for thinking out loud!) So today, we messaged our Super Awesome Neighbor, Bree, and asked if she wanted to go with us to test out our bags. She messaged back, "I'm in!!" However, when she showed up, she didn't bring a back pack. She got a little lecture, agreed she needed to make up her own bag, and will come prepared next time.

Here are a few pictures of our first hike in full G.O.O.D. Bag gear!

Getting ready to head out.

 And away we go! 

Hiking across the bridge to the road. 

I swear she tries to give me a heart attack! 

 Are you going to wait on us? I guess NOT!

Zoey and the Awesome Neighbor Bree! 

(She will probably kill me for this! BAHAHAAA!)

Zoey stayed in front of us for most of our hike. 

  

     We didn't walk far. We started out late and needed to get back to make the hubby dinner. It was a good walk though. The road we took has a slight uphill angle the whole way up. We found out a lot about our bags. Lightening them up a bit, of course, is on the list of 'Hiking To Dos' but it is not at the top. Zoey had some issues with the back pack pulling her pants down. (I know you can hear me giggling from here! bahahahaaa!) She was constantly having to hike them back up. She saved some of her birthday money to buy her some camo clothes. We are thinking she might need some overalls. The back pack is a full adult size. It hits her on the hips differently than me. She also said the pack made her itch under her clothes. I'm not sure why, but maybe a good rub down with lotion might help in the cold winter wind.  (She claims she just needs a back scratcher.) However, she never complained about a thing when we were walking. I knew of the pant situation from seeing her struggle, but never a complaint. I found my bag to be a bit heavier than what I would like, but I can't think of anything to take out. (My pants did not fall down, I remembered to wear a belt.) Zoey also claims that we need to be quicker when walking. She walked in front of our Awesome Neighbor, Bree and I for most of the way. 

     What did she like about the hike? She found a 'Cool Rock.' No, baby, about the hiking with your back pack... "OH! It was AWESOME!!!!! I like my new back pack. It was not so bad walking in it. I liked that we all walked together." 

     We have plans to walk again soon. (Weather permitting) Hopefully, this time the SUPER AMAZING AWESOME NEIGHBOR, BREE will pack and bring her own G.O.O.D. Bag! 

(Yes, my friend, You have been challenged!) 

Want to see what we pack in our 'Get Out Of Dodge' bags? 

Click the pic! 

Disclosure: I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online. 

New Year's Resolutions To Keep

This post contains Affiliate links.

    New Year's Resolutions like loosing weight, eat healthier, quit smoking, pay off bills, not cuss, become a better friend, wife, mother never seem to be fulfilled in the coming year. We all try, we all promise, we all seem to come short of reaching our goals. (At least, that is what happens to me.) This year I have resolved to just 'Do more.'  
   Do more. Simple right? That is what I did this past year. I just did more. 

• When I started homeschooling my daughter in the fall of 2013, we had to resolve to do more with less. It was Zoey's idea to start the winter garden and to start doing more on our own. Her idea to become more self sufficient echoed my own dreams. The dreams I was not brave enough to embark on until a child wishing to learn homesteading as part of her homeschool sparked a revolution in our home. We were always mini 'Preppers' but we had not yet ventured into self sufficiency.   
• In trying to become more self sufficient, I turned my house into a homestead, sewed a larger garden, and learned a bit about food preservation. We began raising our own chickens. Now we eat our eggs and the meat we butcher. All of this has helped us to eat healthier. 
• Also, homesteading and being more self sufficient was a huge step for us. My motto of 'If you are going to Talk the Talk, you better Walk the Walk' was put into effect, full force. We have learned more than just homesteading. We have built pens and a coup from recycled materials. We have upped our preps, gear and emergency supplies. We have practiced and improved our skills with knives, bows and arrows. We budgeted and learned to reuse, recycle and re-purpose. 
• I didn't resolve to loose weight, I got up and moved more. For several years, I have worked in an office 2 days a week, behind a computer. When I am off, I have a sewing business that keeps me sitting behind a machine several hours a day. Zoey and I did lots of projects that got me up and outside of the house. MOVING! That makes a huge difference. 
• We joined a Homeschool Co-op. One thing Zoey missed the most about school was friends to have class with. I taught her science class. We both made great friends we love and adore. I will be teaching 2 science classes this coming year. EXCITING! 
• We brought up Zoey's reading level by researching all of the stuff we wanted to learn about this year. Foraging, food preservation, raising animals for food and the science of gardening were on her top interests list. Her want for knowledge on these subjects helped to open a whole new world of reading for her. She is an excellent researcher as well.

   So what will we 'Do More' of in 2015? Most of it has been yet to be determined. What ever sparks my daughter's learning creativity I presume. We have already talked about a few things, though.

• Wild Edible Foraging and using herbs for medicinal and edible use are at the top of our list. We will start taking classes at the Star Dragonfly Herbal Company. It is once a month and just a few towns over from us. Zoey also wants to start buying herbs from them each time we go. We have also bought various seeds to start our own herbal/medicinal garden. Zoey will also incorporate a butterfly fairy garden into the garden. 
• Our garden last year did not have a high yield. We believe this is because the area we grew in was not as nutrient rich as we had hoped. We have already done several soil amendments, and we will continue to compost and fertilize the garden area with the animals droppings. We will also be growing more in the front yard. Hubby has decided this was okay since the Mystery Plant did so well. We will also do some more Edible Landscaping.  
• Other classes we will be taking outside of our homeschool are bushcraft classes at our local state lake park. They offer things like using a compass, tracking wildlife, hiking, tree and plant identification, and geocaching treasure hunts. They also have a Dutch Oven cooking expo coming up. They are bringing in people to show us how to cook using cast iron Dutch Ovens. 
• That brings us to obtaining items to add to our preps and learning how to use them. We got a Pressure Canner for Christmas that we look forward to using soon. A meat grinder and slicer, flour mill, a new set of Cast Iron Cookware, Herbalogy books and kits, and a nice medical kit are just a few of the items we would like to add to our preps. This also means we will learning how to use them as well. Will we get all of these items this year? Probably not. But, this is a life long list, not a Must Have This Year list. We will add to the list as we knock stuff off. 
• Our storage area is very lacking. Our house has no room for storage in it. Zoey and I, with help from the hubby, will research new and clever ways of utilizing the space we have. We plan on doing a lot of canning this year, and yet we have no where to put anything else... hmmm... Clever ideas anyone? 
• We will practice more on our bows and maybe, just maybe, learn to hunt. This is one area our house is very lacking on. Hubby hunted with his father as a child, but has not as an adult. The fees for hunting licenses has kept us from it. Also, what do we do with the meat if we have killed something? So hunting and meat preservation is on our list of hopeful To Dos. 

     Our list seems a bit long. If we don't complete some of it, that is okay. We are not pledging to do all of it. Just to 'Do More!' What is on your list? 

Disclosure: I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online.