Our Self Sufficient Home

I’ve shared with you my new project/hobby of couponing yesterday but I also want to give you some examples of what we’ve been able to save. I don’t plan to share these deals often unless you lovely readers enjoy them (so, speak up if you do).

On Sunday I was able to score my best deals in my short 2 weeks of couponing. Raleys in our area had a fantastic buy 4 or more deal for selected varieties of General Mills cereal for $1.50 each and I was able to pair that with multiple manufacturer coupons for $1 off 2. That brought the final price of Chex and Cheerios to $1.00 a box!! Raley’s also had Colgate Toothpaste on sale for $0.99 which paired with my $0.50 off coupon. Final price was $0.49 a tube! Read the rest of this entry »

With the launch of TLC’s Extreme Couponing I’m sure posts like this one are commonplace. I do however feel I need to share my experience for whatever its worth. As I mentioned before, I’ve been struggling for some time with a shoulder injury that has had an enormous impact on many areas of our lives. I wont bore you with the details. In short, I’ve had to cut my pay-the-bills job down to about 1/3 of the hours I was working pre-injury which has cut a considerable portion of our “extra” funds each month.
After watching Extreme Couponing once, my interest was piqued. How can you watch shoppers save up to 95% of their bill and not want to give it a go? Of course as the title of the show suggests, you will see EXTREME cases on the show at stores which allow coupon doubling (not available in my area). I have not set my sights on a 95% savings but anything is better than nothing in my eyes. So, I set out on a new project. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been absent for quite some time and have missed logging our progress and obstacles we’ve encountered along the way. Lots has been happening, though not much in the way of actual progress on the house and property.  Life carries on whether we’re checking things off the to-do list or not. Our focus has been split between many things in the last 6 months or so and house and property projects have been seeing less of our time. I’ve been nursing a shoulder injury for what seems like an eternity which has dramatically limited the physical work I’m able to do around here. Between our pay-the-bills work, the house work, dogs, medical stresses, and finding a few minutes each day to enjoy the company of the people we love, this project has taken a back seat.

We are now nearing the end of December and should be in full winter mode. We’ve had 3 pitiful dustings of snow and are still seeing daytime temps in the 50’s and its dry, dry, dry. Sure doesn’t feel like Christmas is in less than 1 week.

We powered right through summer and fall in the blink of an eye and are still behind schedule on the garden area.  We lost some of our fruit plants over the summer while on a trip to visit family…watering boy didn’t do such a great job. Our garden was nothing to write home about this year and paired with the loss of 4 of 5 blueberry bushes and 1 of our fruit trees and still not having been able to complete our fencing in the backyard/garden area we’ve been feeling a bit defeated in that arena.

We have made progress on the exterior of our home. I spent a few weekends with some help prepping and painting a portion of the exterior of our house. What a difference that makes! But that project can’t be completed until some siding on the back of the house is replaced and in order to do that we need to remove the deck. Each project we’ve tackled has held true to the “opening up a can of worms” line.

One of the last posts I made was about our second dog Bee who has been with us for about 8 months now. She turned our daily routines upside down nearly from day 1. She came to us with a bad case of whip worm which wasn’t diagnosed until we had had her for 2 months. She has been improving slowly after finding a combination of worm treatment and digestive tract support. Life with Bee is starting to normalize and we’re able to sleep again!

Now that life is starting to become a bit less chaotic, I’m hoping I can find the time to keep this project up to date. Lord knows we have a million projects we’d love to be able to share but the challenge is finding the time!

They’re codling moths and they can ravage your apples. Momma codling moth sprinkles her eggs on the leaves and flowers of the apple trees and once hatched, the larvae burrow into those juicy apples and feed for weeks.
We have not yet had any issues with this kind of pest but it’s all about prevention.
We opted for this easy, organic method to control apple moths.

It’s simple. Pop open this cardboard square which has a glue like substance smeared on the inside walls, drop in one of the lure squares which will stick to the glue, then hang it in the tree. Read the rest of this entry »

We have finally seen the sun! According to the weather forecast, we’ve finished up with the gloom for at least a week (fingers crossed). I snapped some pictures of the blooming flowers we have around the house today. It’s so nice to finally see color…blue skies and bright flowers.

This is the group of naturalizing daffodils I planted in the fall.

Read the rest of this entry »

I recently undertook my first real quilting project. I had in mind a table topper with bright colors that would suffice for Easter and all of spring. I went to the fabric store with the intent to keep the visit short, in and out was the plan. However, once I got in there I couldn’t narrow down my options. Thank goodness for charm squares is all I have to say. For those that aren’t familiar, a charm square is a bundle of precut fabrics, usually in the same design theme, packaged together for quilting purposes. I walked out with a bundle of Moda Fabrics Fresh Cotton squares and 2 different larger pieces of fabric for both the front and back of the project. I just could not resist the vintage charm of the Fresh Cotton prints.  The trim and batting would be leftovers from a different sewing project.

Once I decided on the 4 prints, the squares were cut in half on a diagonal to create 8 triangles, 4 for the front and 4 for the back.

For the front, the 4 triangles were pieced together to form a square, then trimmed with the main print for the back of the table topper, then placed onto the main square of fabric. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve been tied up with many chores lately, hence the lack of recent posts. One of said chores is training and entertaining the newest member of our family, 4 month old standard poodle, Bee.

She’s been with us for a week and adjusting well. Our other standard poodle, Moose, has been playing the role of mentor and seems to be helping Bee get into the the swing of things here at our home. Read the rest of this entry »

Every spring we invest in a variety of garden seeds, plant as much as we can fit into our garden, and stash the remaining seeds. When the seeds are pulled out the following spring I always question how viable they are after being stored in a ziplock bag in the pantry all summer and winter. So, the challenge is how to store garden seeds to maximize shelf life.
The 3 most important factors in seed storage are moisture, light and temperature.
Seeds germinate in warm, moist, and bright environments. Therefore, to successfully store seeds a cool, dry, and dark environment must be created.

The amount of light seeds are exposed to is simple to control by the container used to hold the seeds as well as the location of storage. But consider the temperature and humidity fluctuation experienced over the course of a year in a house. One of the most critical factors of long term seed storage is consistency. The goal is storing seeds in an airtight, controlled environment. Read the rest of this entry »

While it’s snowy and frigid outside, the calendar says we’re about 8 weeks away from our last frost day. That means one very exciting thing: it’s time to start seeds!
Previously, I posted some information on the rockwool substrate we’re using this year for the majority of our seed starting.
Rockwool preparation was the 1st step. It was then nestled into homes inside the humidity domes we have set up.
8 weeks out from our last frost date, we’re starting Sweet Corno di Toro peppers, bell peppers, brandywine, persimmon, black cherry, san marzano and pear tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, spaghetti squash, butternut squash,  and herbs.

I’ve already started strawberry seeds and the rest of the veggies that can be transplanted will be started in the next few weeks.
The rockwool cubes make seed starting very clean and simple. Once prepped just pop a seed into the small hole in the top of the cube. Since the rockwool has already been thoroughly saturated during the prepping stages, there is no need to add additional water and depending on conditions, may not need to be watered again for quite a few days. Read the rest of this entry »

How to prep and treat Rockwool for horticulture use:
1. Place Rockwool in the seed flat or other container to soak. You may want to wear gloves when handling dry Rockwool to avoid skin irritation.
2. Add water with a pH of no lower than 5.5 and no higher than 6.5 for 30 minutes. To reach a pH of 5.5-6.5 you can either use a commercial pH lowering product or lemon juice. For precise results, I recommend testing the pH of the water as you add the pH lowering substance.
Read the rest of this entry »

Made of melted and spun rock, Rockwool is an inorganic man-made material used as a growing medium. More commonly, rockwool or stonewool is used as insulation.
Basaltic rock, a volcanic rock, constitutes the highest quality Rockwool because it is non reactive to nutrient solutions. Other ingredients include chalk and binders.
Rockwool material has been used since the mid 1800’s in various applications but not until the 1960’s was it discovered that the mineral composition could be modified to promote plant growth.

The material is comprised of 46% Silica, 16% Calcium, 14% Aluminum, 1% Magnesium, 8% Iron, 2% Sodium, 1% Titanium, 1% Potassium, and 1% Manganese. Read the rest of this entry »

At this point, I think mother nature might be trying to prove that she doesn’t need to adhere to the season changes in the calendar. Since the official beginning of spring less that a week ago, we caught the tail end of a winter storm which dropped somewhere around a foot and a half of snow over the course of 3 days with some additional rain and, currently, we’re cautiously enjoying the fury of a second storm.

Snow began at some point during the  night with heavy winds waking us up this morning. Each of us commented a handful of times how odd it was that we still had not lost power with the strength of the wind gusts between 40-60 mph and sure enough around noon the lights flickered and out it went. Read the rest of this entry »

About 8 weeks ago (16 weeks from our last expected frost) I started our strawberry seeds. It was rainy and cold and I needed a touch of spring. I had my heart set on starting the first seeds of the summer crop before I went into the garage to search for some seed starting mix I had left over from last year. I searched high and low and couldn’t find that bag of seed starting mix but with my heart still set on starting those tiny strawberry seeds, I grabbed some general potting mix, against my better judgment, and got to work.

I filled some peat pots with the potting mix I scrounged up while trying to continue to convince myself that my seeds would grow just fine in this less than ideal mix. Once the pots were filled and popped into the new seed starting trays with humidity domes, the soil was moistened thoroughly and the seeds were added. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, I shared my thoughts on the septic safe cleaners we used for various cleaning chores. Since then, we have tried a handful of different non toxic and septic safe cleaners.
Surprisingly, our very small local grocery store has a slew of options when it comes to non-toxic, eco friendly, and septic safe cleaners compared to the 2 or 3 options at the larger grocery store chains (another reason I love our local shop).

We’ve started using Ecos Laundry Detergent which runs about 7 bucks for 50 oz (1 oz being the suggested amount used for a full load in a front load washing machine). It’s formulated with replenishable and sustainable essential oils and low sudsing plant based surfactants. Their website states Ecos detergents are 100% biodegradable, non-toxic, and have a neutral PH of 7-8. Furthermore, Ecos detergents do not kill bacteria in septic systems and they are also safe for grey water systems.  Something that I love about this detergent is its effectiveness in cold water washing since the majority of our laundry is washed cold. It’s compatible with high efficiency washers as well as both top and front load. An added bonus for me (if you’ve read about my attempt to rid our house of as much chemical exposure as possible) is that Ecos detergents are free of 1,4 dioxane which is present in many laundry detergents and is known to pose health risks and contaminate ground water. Read the rest of this entry »

With the large quantity of precipitation we’ve had over the last few weeks and all of the snow melt, our very seasonal creek (only in times of heavy precipitation) has joined us again. It is a welcome occurrence on our property as we love the sound of the roaring water.

We enjoyed a small flow of water in the late fall which hung around for a few weeks until it dried up. The creek then reemerged, waterfalls, small rapids and all, early this month when the snow started to melt and grew even larger with the heavy rain we had over the last 2 days.
The first 2 years we had this property we had no noticeable water flow in this area so it varies greatly from year to year. Read the rest of this entry »