Busy, Busy, Busy

My husband felt sorry for me working out in the garden and hauling all my stuff around. So he bought me this little cart........it is a Neuton Garden Cart. Electric of course, runs with a battery that we can recharge by hooking up to our system. He bought himself the lawnmower and is waiting for that to arrive. So afraid he'll have to use the gas mower one more time before the Neuton gets here! This is along with our goal of being fuel free in five years. I mean fuel we buy, such as propane, gasoline, kerosene, etc. For the last month we have turned off the propane refrigerator and are now saving that money toward two more solar panels and the purchase of the solar refrigeration. It is not easy in this hot weather living without the refrigerator, though we did it back in 2003/2004 for a whole year.

I have been so busy here at Peaceful Forest Homestead with my garden. I am not complaining though, as it is coming up beautiful this year. Probably the best in all the years I have been here. It's a good thing too, as the price of everything in the stores has gone sky high! My friend ordered a 50 pound bag of wheat berries and it was $32. the day she ordered it, but they told her that when she picks it up the next week it would be more and they couldn't tell her how much more........well it was eight dollars more! Eight dollars in a week!

Last year we grew about 250 pounds of potatoes but this year, I am sure we will be way past that amount. And the plants are just thriving. I had planned on a rotation method with my raised beds and was not going to plant the potatoes in the same beds as last year. Well, I didn't plant in those beds at first, but then potatoes started coming up on their own! I guess last year, I left quite a few potatoes behind in those beds when I harvested. So I must have had more than 250 pounds. Since they came up on their own, I just added more seed potatoes in those beds to fill it up. It's ok with us as potatoes is one of our favorite foods around here.

I have been busy also working on designing a solar website for our friends who will be selling solar products as well as doing certified installations. I will post on that in the near future so keep checking back. They have some great things available as well as many incentives for people on or off the grid who would like to go into an alternative energy source lifestyle. I highly recommend it myself!