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By Penny, March 31, 2010 7:38 pm

I so desperately wish that I had the ability to show you lovely pictures of my seedlings, but the computer is still kaputz.  At any rate, I will give you the update without it, though it will be a sad update, indeed.

Two weeks ago, I planted some of my Brussel sprout seedlings in the garden.  In order to protect them, I covered them with “hillbilly cloches.” 

My husband drinks at least a two litre bottle of Diet Mountain Dew per day.  Rather than waste those bottles, I try to recycle them in some fashion.  I cut the bottoms off of the bottles, saving them for starting seedlings.  Then, I used the tops as cloches.  I planted the seedlings, covering them with the cloches.  To help harden the seedlings off, I put some branches from a pine tree over the cloches, to offer a bit of protection from the sun.  It seemed to be effective, as I only had two die, and those seedlings were ones I didn’t think would make it anyway.  Hooray for recycling and hick-engineering.   I would have loved to post a picture, but you will have to envision a garden plot with Mountain Dew bottles growing out of it.

Our warm weather seedlings are growing merrily away in the front windows.  Interestingly enough,  we have relied, once again, on hillbilly engineering.  A friend lent us one of his aquarium lights to use as a grow light.  We bought two L-brackets and some rope; then, we attached the L-brackets to the window frame and suspended the aquarium lights from wood flooring pieces, left from the fire, which were screwed to the L-brackets.  Not pretty, but the way I see it, my house is not a show piece; it’s the place where I work and play.  I am curious to know if the neighbors think we’re growing anything illegal.

For the last bit of redneck recycling, I planted some peas. Rather than buy special poles, we used some pine limbs that had fallen during the snow storms.  We made teepees out of them, stripping them down to poles and tying the tops together with the rope leftover from the light.  The best part: these pea teepees are in the front yard.  Good thing the neighbors think we’re “quaint.”  However, out of deference to the neighborhood, I did plant Blue-Podded Peas which, in addition to being delicious, are a lovely ornamental with purplish-blue flowers and pea pods.  After the peas are spent, I plan to sow Scarlet Runner beans which are also quite gorgeous… or, at least, that’s what the picture in the seed catalogue shows.

 In the back yard, I didn’t bother with teepees and just stuck branches in the ground. I suspect that batch will look like modern art once the peas have climbed up the branches.

With just a little ingenuity and eccentricity, you, too, can reap the frugal benefits of hillybilly engineering and redneck recycling.

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By Penny, March 30, 2010 12:33 pm

After a long silence, I am back to joyfully announce a plan to get our own homestead. As many of you know, I have been increasingly disgusted with the public school system. What you may not know is that my husband was equally disillusioned with his college education. Everyday, he would come home from class, complaining that he had learned nothing or, worse yet, that his professor had been wrong!  Looking at our goal of a homestead, we realized that DH finishing school would put us no closer to our goal, and, in fact, would put us farther behind because of the added debt from the student loans.   

 Bearing this in mind, DH came to the conclusion that it would be best if he quit school so that we could work towards a deadline for a homestead. Here’s what we’ve done.

1. Picked a number and a date. We have replaced “someday” with two years.  We are going to shoot for having $60,000 saved in two years.  Will it be hard? Heck, yeah! Doable?  We think so.

2. Budget.  Okay, seems like a no-brainer, but we have been pretty lax with keeping the totals of our spending.  I made up a spreadsheet with a budget and a running total for each of our categories.  It has only been a month, but it is up to date.

3.Reduced spending.  We examined our different spending categories.  There were several “fixed” spending categories that were not quite as fixed as we thought.  We have managed to knock off at least three hundred dollars from our monthly budget.  For instance, I applied for a loan deferment for my student loans, with the hope that I will be able to forgiven for part of my loan. That deferment will free up money for our monthly budget, even though I will still have to repay it.

4. Make more money.  Between us, we have come up with several ways of making more money. The obvious would be DH finding employment, though we are waiting until after the new puppy is housebroken.  Putting an advertisement in Craigslist, we are going to rent out one of our rooms, which will definitely help with income. In addition, I am trying new ways to increase our income.

5.  Psyching ourselves out. I hung a white board in our bedroom, behind the door.  On it, we keep the debt and savings totals for our goal.  We list every little bit of money that we get that will be added to the totals.  Also, I have posted little Post-it notes with the phrase “60 in 2” on my notebook, our fridge and even over my desk at work.  In addition, whenever we choose not to spend money, we say the phrase “60 in 2.”

 Hopefully, with all of our hard work, we will be able to reach our goal.  Having a specific goal will motivate us much better than an ambiguous “someday.” It will be much easier for me to stay at my job when I can see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

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By Penny, March 29, 2010 1:25 pm

Totals for the month of February can be found here.

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By Penny, March 16, 2010 5:19 am

Since my husband and I have become more conscious of our food, we have come to certain conclusions about the decision to eat out.  After really examining how animals are treated, we have agreed to only eat seafood or vegetable dishes when we go out to eat, which is a rarity indeed. 

However, we found out that a local restaurant offers muskrat on Thursdays.  For $16 each plate, we recieved two muskrats, a side of fried potatoes, and a side of stewed tomatoes, per plate. Was it frugal? Not necessarily.  To mitigate the expense, I fried the leftover potatoes for DH for breakfast the next morning.  Then, the following night, we had the muskrat and stewed tomatoes in a gravy with peas, served over biscuits made of fresh ground flour.  The night after, we had the gravy served over noodles.  Still not as cheap as one of my meals from scratch, that meal was probably  stretched much further than anyone would have anticipated.

The meat itself was fantastic, better than squirrel I would venture to say.  It was cooked superbly, which is important because, as one of my students said, muskrat can be the best thing you ever ate or the worst thing you ever tasted, depending on who cooked it.  There was the added satisfaction of knowing that the muskrat was free and naturally fed until it was killed, that it was trapped in local marsh, that the trapper was a local owner of the gun shop that we frequent, that the restaurant was locally owned, and the waitress was a local lady, working to feed her children.  All in all, it was gratifying, both ethically and epicurally.

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By Penny, March 15, 2010 7:17 pm

Well, folks, I am still here, plugging away. Unfortunately, there was a computer accident, so I am without the means to post frequently with pictures.  However, I promise that, as soon as I can, I will post a how-to about creating pots from newspapers and pictures of my seedlings.  

Sweet alyssium, lavender, chamomile, rosemary, and a few tomatoes have started coming up. I still fear that the peppers may never germinate, though I am holding out hope.  More to come on our indoor lighting scheme, involving two L brackets, screws, rope and an aquarium light.

Miss you all!

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By Penny, March 5, 2010 8:51 pm

On Feb. 22, I planted some seeds in newspaper pots in my living room.  I started Bull Nose Bell Peppers, Brussel sprouts, lavender, rosemary and chamomile. In order to have some greens in a hurry, I also started a large porcelain pot with lettuce.  Today, March 5, I have noticed that the peppers and Brussel sprouts are up! Yay!

Blurry picture, but I promise that it is leaf lettuce!

Yet another blurry picture, but they are baby brussel sprouts!