Reflections of katlupe

Friday, April 04, 2014

Time To Start Seeds!

Time to get started with my garden. Right now that means starting my seeds inside. It is still quite cool and we are running our wood stoves. At night though, our house gets pretty cold once the wood stove is banked back for the night. I am thinking of trying a few different things to keep them warm during that time. Seeds need to be kept really warm. My oven has a pilot light and I did think about setting them in there for the night. But I am afraid the propane would kill them. So that is out. I could set them on top of the stove, and the pilot lights on each burner (I have 5) might give them a little warmth. The propane should not affect them up there in the open. That is an idea I might try.

This morning, I am accumulating all my seed starting essentials. Yesterday, I bought seed starter to start them out with. This morning I went down to the root cellar and got all my containers. Or a large amount of them. I still have more downstairs. I only needed the little ones to start the seeds in. I brought up trays that I keep them on so they are easy to move around. I save plastic containers that meat and produce come in from the stores. I use them to put under the little planters, to catch the water that drains out of them.

This is one of my favorite activities. I love to garden. I love to see it progressing during the spring and summer. It is an activity that my husband and I share. I used to share it with my father. When I work in my garden, my thoughts are always of him, and his skill as a gardener. After such a hard winter (they are always hard here anymore), spending time outside, listening to the birds, and being in the sunshine, is something I crave to do. How about you? Are you starting your seeds yet?

Thursday, April 03, 2014

Live Your Life To Be Self-Sufficient,

Religion and politics. Now everyone knows that you should not discuss either with other people, whether they are friends, family or online friends. Dangerous territory. I have been watching for few months now, how "preppers" (people who are doing what they call "prepping," which is making preparations for an emergency.) use both, to build a following and justify whatever they say or do. Most of them are just about guns and storing bulk foods. I belonged to two such groups on Facebook, and found they are not anywhere close to a homesteader.

Homesteading is what I do. It is living your life by being self-sufficient as much as possible in this crazy, rush-rush world. Prepping is mainly buying stuff to store, learning as much as you can about what you would do if something in fact, really did happen, and storing ammo and guns. They are much more political and religious (legal type religion) than homesteaders are. They promote the fact that they don't want all these laws and yet, they are the very ones who push their beliefs and rules on everyone else. That is just like the government they say they are fighting against.

Instead of stocking up on bags of beans, rice and wheat, since we do not eat any of that, we grow a lot of vegetables and buy local meat which I can. I make soups, stews, chili and can it all up. I make a variety of main dish entrees that are canned for future meals. I do not dwell on the scare tactics of the government to get you doing what they want, because they have scared you into doing it. Instead just take one day at a time. Do what you can for your family.

If you are living your life to be self-sufficient, preparing is already part of it. It is not something you just start doing and will only use it in an emergency. You will use it every day. It will be your daily routine.Then if there is an emergency of some sort, you will have food stored, you will have a wood stove with a load of firewood, you will have food growing in your garden, you will be prepared. Nothing to get alarmed over. Just your day to day life. Not going to break out the bag of beans and rice you were saving for this occasion and discover that you hate it. Or wondering if you have enough water stored. Or trying to figure out how to start your generator that is still in the box it was bought in. Learn to homestead instead. And do it NOW!

Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Spring Walk At Peaceful Forest Homestead - Wordless Wednesday

Monday, March 31, 2014

What Is This? Springter!

It seems March is as bad as February and January were. More snow yesterday afternoon and through the night. We woke up to snow covering everything once again. I was so looking forward to seeing grass! And the raised beds were poking their faces out from under the snow. This morning all I saw was white snow.

This little bridge, called High Bridge, is near our house. It lives up to its name, because it is up pretty high. A one lane bridge over a creek. It is over Ludlow Creek which flows from Lake Ludlow and is one of the cleanest lakes and creeks in our area.

Our road was not plowed due to the mud underneath. The highway department is trying to keep big trucks, especially the logging trucks, from driving on it right now. So I think they didn't want to damage it any further.

This is a little church not far from our house. It is historical and has been here since the 1800's. A lot of people in the area attend this church.

New York is anything but flat. As you can see, lots of hills and mountains in the distance. I love it. And I guess that is why I am still here, suffering through the cold winters.

Another one lane bridge we have to drive across quite often. It is over the Chenango River which is up pretty high today. Spring time flooding is common here due to the rivers in our area. I hope it doesn't flood this year, even though it does not affect us. But friends and family live in those areas.

Have a good homesteading day!

Sunday, March 30, 2014

My New Business Of Selling In An eBay Store

Warming up!

After one of the worst winters, we have finally had our hopes of spring in the air. New York normally has cold, snowy winters. That is not unusual. What was unusual is the below zero temperatures for days in row. We would have below zero nights, many times. But not for a week or more at a time. That is how it was for us this winter. I, for one, got really sick of it (Can you tell?). My husband, too. He had to shovel snow and do many outside chores, while he was freezing doing them. Come on spring!

Lots of snow!

One of my projects during the winter was to open an eBay store again. katlupe's Shop is the name of it. I really do enjoy the process of listing the products and making sales. Like my husband always says, "It's making money while we sleep." What can be better than waking up in the morning to some sales you have to package up. I have greatly improved my sales there, by reading every eBook on selling on eBay that is sold in the Amazon Kindle shop. What am I selling? How did I start without buying the inventory? I started by selling all my extra stuff. Now I have done that before. But I had some stuff that was hard to get rid of. For sentimental reasons. But now is the time!

Lot of 16 Bradford Bells 1950's

I used to go all out for Christmas while my son was growing up. I would have two Christmas trees and decorate the whole house. My family always came to my house for Christmas. It was a house full! The food I spent days preparing. I loved it! After my divorce, and when my son went out to live on his own, I never quite celebrated Christmas the same. It wasn't the same. Not for me anyway. I have not decorated my house in years, or even had a tree. So time to re-home my decorations to someone who will appreciate them. Now why can't I give them to my son? Well, he doesn't stay in one place for long. And doesn't take care of things, that are fragile so well. If you know what I mean.

Lot of 5 Mirrored Christmas Tree Ornaments

I have been going through them slowly and will list them in my store. Maybe someone might want something new for next Christmas. It is hard to part with your things, but as you age, you see the value of them going to someone who really wants them. Besides I am in a new period of my life. I want to be a "Minimalist" if I can. I hope to sell a lot this year so I can start going out to look for new things to sell. Not new as in brand new, but going to garage sales, estate sales, auctions and thrift or antique stores. That makes it even more fun!

Raggedy Ann & Andy Christmas Ornaments

Monday, February 24, 2014

Our Horses Enjoying The Winter Months

I took a walk outside with my camera a few days ago. The sun was shining and the horses were napping in it. They like winter better summer. In summer they stay in the barn during the day and only come out at night. In winter they like to sleep in the sun, roll in the snow and when they were younger, they'd buck, run and carry on.

I admit, I haven't been that active myself. In winter, I stay inside most of the time. I used to help my husband feed the horses in winter, but now I don't go out there at all. I am so afraid of falling and breaking a bone or spraining something. So when I get out on a day like this and can get some good winter photos of my girls I take advantage of it. They gave me some good shots!

People ask how can they survive out there in the cold. Horses are livestock. They are equipped to survive in the wild, and that includes the cold. I mean I would not take a horse from FL or Texas and put it in a cold winter without conditioning it. But these girls have always lived in this area so they are used to this climate. In all the years we've had these girls, they have only shivered a handful of times. In that case, feed them hay. In fact, our horses will skip the grain and go right for the hay as they know it will warm their bodies up fast.

We have blankets for them, but have rarely used them. For one thing, if you put blankets on horses, it keeps their coats from growing. And in winter, they really do need that winter coat. Even if you think its ugly. We worked at a thoroughbred racing farm, and that is what they did for the race horses, who were working races. But the others could grow their coats freely. We only put a blanket on if it was needed. Another thought is that blankets block the sun from hitting them. They need the sunlight and it warms them up too.

Usually one of the horses will stand guard over the other two while they are laying down. Then they switch positions so the other one can lay down too. Though out here, these girls get so relaxed that we will find all three stretched out sleeping without any worry about danger. No noises really bother them much. They are used to hearing coyotes, snowmobiles and four-wheelers, day or night. Pretty calm compared to how they were in 2000 when Georgie Girl and Dark Shadow came here. Then when Tawny came in 2002, of course, she was never the spirited girl the other two were.

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