When I Grow Up: A Writing Assignment

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    In her writing class at the Co-op, my daughter was asked, "What do you want to do when you grow up?" This is her writing assignment paper....
                 I will wake up at 3 a.m. every morning. My husband will make me pancakes for breakfast with faces on them. I will have an off grid home in the mountains of Colorado. I will have 4 kids and I will homeschool them and teach them how to cook. My home will have 10 rooms and 2 bathrooms. My yard will be 400 acres. There will be a lake with fish in it. There will be a boat for me and my kids to fish in it. We will hunt for our meat and grow our own vegetables. My property will have 5 barns. The first barn will be for gardening and food. The second barn will be full of wood and solar panels to power my home. Me and my husband will cut down trees for the firewood.  The third barn will be for sewing and I will make my kids blankets and clothing. I will also make blankets to donate for people who do not have a home. The forth barn will be a play house for my kids with couches, a t.v. and lots of arts and crafts stuff. Animals will be in the 5th barn for when it is cold or rainy. We will have pigs, chickens, bunnies, deer, sheep, cows and horses. Our animals will have their own fenced in yards with gates. We will have a German Sheppard for our dog. My horse will be black and I will put blue stripes in my horses hair. I will have several freezers to put my food into. I will have a big diesel truck that is loaded with canned and freeze dried foods. They will be in alphabetical order so they are easy to find. I will cook all sorts of foods. My family will eat dinner together every night. My family will be prepared for all sorts of emergencies. If something bad were to happen, I would go get my Mom and Dad from Texas so they could be safe and live with us.  I will go to bed at 10 p.m. and pray to God every night. 

All I can say is..... <3

Volunteering: Raising Money For The Seniors

   

     My mom works at a local senior health and rehabilitation center. A couple times a year, they do fundraisers for the Resident Fund.

This fund helps to pay for things like personal items the seniors can not afford to pay for themselves, outings, and various parties through out the year, including presents for their Christmas Party. Recently, they had a Loaded Brisket Potato Fundraiser. Zoey and I thought it would be nice to come and help. My Mom was already out delivering when we got there. 

Zoey with my mother's boss, the administrator of Sunny Springs Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. 

     The did not have a whole lot for us to do, but we we able to collect money and deliver 11 potatoes to a local childcare center. (Okay, it is the local childcare center where I work at but we did promote, gather orders with help of my office worker friend, collected the money, and then delivered the potatoes by lunch time.)

 The box was really heavy but she insisted on carrying it herself! 

Best Brisket Loaded Baked Potatoes Ever!

     It was my off day, so after we delivered potatoes, we sat down and enjoyed our own potatoes. When we were finished, I had to mail some packages off at the Post Office. On the way there, we drove by a local Methodist Church and the parking lot was quite full for a Wednesday afternoon. My daughter asked what was going on there. I explained the had a Program called 'The Dinner Bell' that opened up the churches kitchen for lunch on Wednesdays. Anyone can come in for a nice hot meal. Zoey lit up and asked, "Can we help?" So after we dropped off my packages, we went back in to find out if we could volunteer for the next luncheon. I'll post our adventure there next week.

     Other ways Zoey has volunteered her time, is decorating a large jar for United Way. She was given a budget of $5 and she went to a dollar store to get supplies. Zoey worked very hard on it using craft foam, cute stickers and some adorable owl felt stickers. Then, she filled the jar with the left over money from her budget and some more change from my car. Her collection jar was super cute. I love her creativity and her giving heart. Her collection jar helped the team fulfill their goal of raising money for United Way.

     Zoey has asked that we find other ways to help in our community. I'll keep you posted! 

Getting More From Your Chicken: Freezing Chicken Bone Broth

    

     Small steps to being self sufficient! Raising, butchering, cooking, and preserving our own meat! We sent a rooster to freezer camp yesterday. Today, I roasted it and we ate it for dinner. It was the best rooster we have had so far! Three of us ate from it tonight, and I froze up 2 meal size packages of chicken for future meals. Right now, I have bone broth simmering on the stove. I plan on freezing it in different size containers and then repackaging them into a gallon size baggie when the are frozen. I did this last time, and used muffin and quart size frozen broth for things like gravy, soups and mashed potatoes, or some good ol' broth for a cold!. Mmmmm... my house smells so good!


What I put in my chicken bone broth:

1. 1 full chicken carcass broke up as best as possible. Breaking the bones helps to insure you get all of the healthy bone goodness. My carcass came from roasting a whole chicken.
2. About 1 cup of diced raw carrots that were from our Thanksgiving dinner a couple of days ago.
3. About 1 cup of diced raw celery, also from the veggie tray.
4. 1 clove of garlic, chopped and smashed
5. 1 small onion diced (it was about the size of an egg.)
6. Salt and Pepper to taste.

Next, I simmered it for about 3 hours. The remaining chicken meat had fallen off of the bones. The garlic and onions had dissolved into the broth and the carrots and celery were super tender. I strained the broth into another pot. Zoey and I munched on the celery and carrots for a bit before adding the strained portion into the pigs slop bowl. The bones went into the garden to compost. 

I dipped out 2 cup portions into recycled lunch meat packaging. These are very convenient when using for recipes. You can also dip out larger portions as well.

When they were frozen, I just popped them out of the plastic bowls and put them in labeled gallon freezer bags.

I also measured out 1 cup servings into muffin tins. I DO NOT recommend using disposable tins unless you just do not care about reusing them. When you pop the little frozen broth circles out it crushes them. Warming the bottom of them for a second might help with preserving them. I do not have any other kind of muffin pans. I picked these up at a local grocery store for .88 cents each. I would prefer to keep them but it will take a bit of work to get them back into shape.. We will see if my patience holds out.

Once Frozen, I placed them in a gallon freezer bag as well. Now when I need a quick pick me up when I start to feel sickly, I can just pop one in a coffee cup and microwave it. Although, the nutrients would be better preserved if I put it in a sauce pan to reheat. These work great for making mashed potatoes and gravies as well. 

     I would really like to learn how to can my chicken broth, but honestly, I'm a bit 'chicken' to try the pressure canner my friend loaned to me. Like I said, baby steps... At least I'm walking the walk towards self sufficiency... baby steps or not! 
What are you doing to become more self sufficient?