crunch crunch

Quite by accident, I've been sliding down the slippery slope into being some kind of homesteader.

It started, likely, with my childhood love of crafts. I learned sewing, knitting, crocheting, beading, quilting, loom knitting, moccasin-making...if there was a kit for it, I probably tried it.

In college, I learned to knit socks. When you make your own socks. you don't want to throw them away when they get their first hole, so you start learning how to darn holes. I was also on a very strict student budget, so I cleaned almost exclusively with baking soda and vinegar. After that, I always made my own cleaners. I've never quite stopped being cheap frugal.

Pre-Instant Pot yogurt making on the stove. Warning: this may require effort.

After I got married, I started making my own chicken broth. You see, before I had children I was on a kick to make lots of things from scratch, like bread, granola, and yogurt (the latter two in the crockpot, because that was before the fancy Instant Pot entered onto the scene). Some of that went away for a while when my son was born, but later came back. Some I never really did again after having children. It's a lot cheaper and easier to buy our sandwich bread at Market Basket.

The trifecta: pressure canner heating up jars, stockpot heating up broth, and Instant Pot making dinner.

When you make your own chicken broth and cook family-sized meals, you either need to dedicate a lot of freezer space to the broth--even if you cook it down to gelatinous, concentrated stock--or learn how to pressure can. So I started pressure canning my broths, which was a slippery slope to preserving food through jam-making and fermentation and sourdough starter babies.

With the quantity of broth we were going through, I started religiously freezing vegetable scraps and bones so that the broth was far cheaper to make. Meanwhile, I was growing cherry tomatoes and herbs in pots every summer and buying bagged compost. So, I eventually decided to stop throwing away perfectly good coffee grounds, fruit and vegetable scraps, and eggshells, and make my own compost. At the apartment, I used an old plastic storage tub with holes drilled on all sides outside (we did have a yard, but I wanted something closed to keep curious children and animals out) and added lots of shredded junk mail since we didn't have much in the way of yard waste. I collected compostables in a washed-out yogurt container, but eventually upgraded to a 2-gallon bucket when we moved and the trip out to the compost bin got longer.

Fancy.

Our outdoor compost bin is now five wooden pallets (four sides and a top) held together with zip ties. It cost me about $3 in zip ties and whatever amount of gas it took to make three trips to and from the nursery ten minutes away (which was getting rid of the pallets). Despite the freezing temperatures we had in the last two months, I can see the materials breaking down when I get around to turning the pile. As I said, I've never stopped being cheap frugal.

My crunch cred regarding cloth diapers has already been addressed, although I'll confess that we use disposable pull-ups at night now that both kids are potty-trained. Does homeschooling count?

What's next? I'm excited to start a larger vegetable and herb garden next summer, now that we have a large yard. I may risk starting some of our plants from seeds, now that we have older children and enough living space that they probably won't inadvertently kill the seedlings. I'm not sure if our town bylaws allow chickens, but since we live on a small dead-end street I would rather stay on my neighbors' good graces anyways.

a new chapter or two

I always think of fall as the beginning of a new chapter in life, even though it has had very little bearing on what we do the last few years. This year, though, I've started a soft launch of home preschool for the three year old and decided to continue my KonMari'ing of the house.

I emptied out our bookcase, and made up a box to give to the library book sale. Mr. Husband took a few out because he wanted to read them.

Then, Mr. Husband sent me to the library book sale to find Michael Crichton and Michael Lewis books. At $0.50/book, I might have gotten carried away. I guess I cancelled out any KonMari'ing of our bookcase. Oh well.

My decision to homeschool our 3 year old this year was for many reasons, but I was still anxious about starting. Before we began, I couldn't get him interested in any fine motor skills--beading, coloring, painting--it all turned into some truck-related game. I've been working out of 26 Letters to Heaven. It has a lot of ideas, but we can be flexible to fit everyone's mood and abilities. I've been pleasantly surprised at what's come out of it.

Week One:

Both kids enjoyed the gluing part, although the 1-year-old got a lot of help from me.

My late start actually worked out, because we were able to celebrate Michaelmas during our "A for Angel" week. I've been wanting to live more liturgically for some time, but felt overwhelmed until I decided to just try one thing at a time. So I got some ideas for a Michaelmas dinner, printed out some coloring pages to decorate our table, and made a blackberry tart. We said the St. Michael prayer with grace before we ate, and it seemed festive enough for a 1- and 3- year old.

And this week:

I was truly impressed with how neatly the 3 year old did this activity with letter B. We've been taking the crayons and stickers out more with both kids, so I guess we're starting a new chapter with art, too. Here's hoping we don't run out of steam in two weeks!

more {mis}adventures in domesticity

A year or so ago, I purchased this book:

And this weekend, I finally decided to actually make one of the projects. (Like the INFJ that I am, I spend a lot of time reading instructional books and thinking about doing the projects before I get around to the actual doing.) Instead of starting at the very beginning (for as we know, I have some experience sewing. For what it's worth.) I skipped to the middle of the second chapter, which had instructions for zippered pillow covers. I'd had it in the back of my head to refresh our living room with some throw pillows, but was always taken aback at the price of pillow forms. It finally occurred to me that I could just make my own. I found this tutorial, printed off some Joann's coupons, and set off to Walmart and Joann's for supplies with the children in tow on Friday. (We also made a second trip to Joann's on Saturday, because I am a masochist.)