Meet Gianna Jessen

What I learned from little house on the prairie

We have really come to enjoy the Little house on the Prairie (LHOP)show and books. I have even bothered to google the people in the stories as it is loosely based on the life of Laura. I remember when I got to the book "Farmer Boy" it seemed so odd to have it placed in the middle of the other little house books. I mean there was nothing about the Ingalls, but it was wonderful. That book teaches more than any of the others, if you want to be a sustainable homestead/farm.

It was talking to my boss one day that it really clicked. We were talking about all the rains in Oklahoma last year and how it destroyed the beautiful wheat crop just before harvest. I felt like I was inside a scene from LHOP, I could just see it, Charles is looking out at the wheat as it is ripening and he is making plans for all the money that it will bring, the week before or a few days before the harvest the rains come. The entire crop, formerly golden and glistening in the sunlight, now broken and unusable. The farmers here suffered the exact same fate and from talking to a few people it is a continuous struggle every 3 years.

I began to look at the life of the Wilders, they had so much success and why wouldn't they, they had their hand in just about everything. There was no room for failure when you diversify. I went to wikipedia and looked up Almonzo Wilder (Laura's husband) and it turns out that he began their married life doing just as Charles (and most farmers today), with a single crop. After years of failure, debt and illness they had to give it up. I think it is fortunate that his family had moved from New York to the Midwest as was able to spend year with them to recuperate.

After the move he began to farm the Wilder way, he diversified and was able to find success. No one is going to get rich off of farming in a hurry, but diversifying ones farm (no matter the size), is the only way to grow it and make it sustainable. Well, I'm off my soap box now, lol. There are still more changes to come around here, we are growing this little operation as we can get the money :)

Life is good

Quick note on the political situation: there are no free lunches in nature and while this may seem like a wonderful victory for people like me who don't have health insurance, have special need children etc, this most certainly is not. Entitlement programs are oppressive by nature to the very people they are intended to help.

I will not be discussing it further than that.



The cows are doing well, they are enjoying their freedom to roam and have lots to eat. The chicks have not faired as well as we hoped :( There is still such a huge learning curve for us to overcome with this one. The layers on the other hand are LOVING the warm weather and we had 30 eggs the other day, lol. Last night something must have spooked them though, because we had to go find them way past their bedtime . . . very odd.

Buttercup appears to have been bred back to Quinn, and a potential buyer came to look at her yesterday. We are gearing up for resuming milk sales but it is a process. We will be moving Mag from the rest of the herd so that we can keep the calves off of her.

My potatoes and onions went into the ground this week as it snowed last weekend, I pray that they do well. We will also be looking at what other thing we want to plant in the coming weeks.



Oh and did I mention that we are having a new baby in November? Well, most likely at the end of October. We have decided to have a homebirth and will go the self pay route. We will talk to the dr in the coming weeks to weight the cost with her vs the midwife I found.




I am so excited to see Pickle, Dolly and Blackbird's babies this spring/summer :) It will be nice to get an angus bull to breed the girls back. Quinn is currently scheduled for the freezer, as is Missy. We found another freezer at a great deal so now we have room for both :)

Parental Rights

Santa Claus, St Nicholas and Christmas

I know it is nowhere near Christmas but I was have a discussion with a colleague and he was going on and on about Santa Claus and Christmas. And, as you might know by now I do not teach my children about Santa Claus. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, or at least that's what it's supposed to be. Where it get confusing to people I think is that somewhere along the lines the day has now become associated as a celebration of giving, in the spirit and tradition of Santa Claus. I take issue with this, Santa Claus is not real (I'm sorry to be the one to tell you), but the spirit of St Nicholas is alive and well. The thing is that I have no problem with St Nicholas, but I do not believe that it is appropriate to confuse the two events, the feast of St Nicholas is celebrated on December 6th, not December 25th. Now I know there are many who will argue that Jesus was not really born on December 25th, but here is the thing, that is the date that has been chosen and so I will continue to celebrate it on that day. There is no issue of giving gifts on Christmas but the mass commercialization is not about Christmas, it is far more about Santa Claus. This year we will be celebrating both days but in the spirit they should be, not the excesses that the retail industry has set.

Beware the Mother's Act

Ok,I'm not really an alarmist by nature, I can take most things in stride. This however is just plain ridiculous. HR 20 or the Mother's Act, is yet another government intervention that is likely well intentioned but will miss the mark. :( Now I'm not a fan of Ron Paul but given his experience as an OB, I give a bit more weight to his words on this matter.

A sweeping government policy for all new births in the United States has just passed the House of Representatives and is now headed to the Senate. The Mother's Act, if passed, will mandate that all new mothers be screened by means of a list of subjective questions that will determine if each mother is mentally fit to take their newborn home from the hospital. Just imagine that after your child is born, you are told that you can't take them home since a multiple choice questionnaire wasn't answered correctly. Just imagine being told that the only way you can take your child home is if you or your spouse goes into treatment or on anti-depressants which we know causes psychosis, delusions, and even homocidal thoughts. It just doesn't make sense. Unfortunately, this bill is on a fast track--No public debate, no public disclosure of the broad impact on our society and that is why we need you to act now!

The Mother's Act violates our Constitutional right to privacy and your right to liberty and it is just outright dangerous. That is why we need you to help stop this. We urgently need you to call and email each Senator on the HELP Committee and tell them you STRONGLY OPPOSE the MOTHER'S ACT and that you are OUTRAGED that there was NO public debate or disclosure on the impact this would have on our society as a whole.

Ron Paul has a link to the actual document and ways to Take action here

Pie-gate

I know I said I would post on Monday but I couldn't resist this one. Thanks to our friends over at CMR for getting the word out on this. Here is another example of Big government being overzealous:

Pennsylvania Pie Fight: State Cracks Down on Baked Goods
Inspector Nabs Homemade Desserts At St. Cecilia Church's Lenten Fish Fry
By Kris Maher

ROCHESTER, Pa. -- On the first Friday of Lent, an elderly female parishioner of St. Cecilia Catholic Church began unwrapping pies at the church. That's when the trouble started.

A state inspector, there for an annual checkup on the church's kitchen, spied the desserts. After it was determined that the pies were home-baked, the inspector decreed they couldn't be sold.

"Everyone was devastated," says Josie Reed, a 69-year-old former teacher known for her pumpkin and berry pies.

Sold for $1 a slice, homemade pies have always been part of the Lenten fish-fry dinners at St. Cecilia's, located in this tiny city near Pittsburgh. Similar dinners are held in church basements and other venues across the country this time of year.

After a state crackdown forbidding the sale of homemade pies, members of St. Cecilia Catholic Church in Rochester, Pa., proceeded with their annual Lenten fish fries anyway. The pie flap helped draw healthy crowds.

The problem is the pies are illegal in Pennsylvania. Under the state's food-safety code, facilities that provide food at four or more events in a year require at least a temporary eating and drinking license, and food has to be prepared in a state-inspected kitchen. Many churches have six fish fries a year, on Fridays during Lent. St. Cecilia's has always complied with having its kitchen licensed, so food made there is fine to serve. But homemade goods don't make the cut.

The disappearance of Mary Pratte's coconut-cream pie, Louise Humbert's raisin pie and Marge Murtha's "farm apple" pie from the fish-fry fund-raisers sparked an uproar that spread far beyond the small parish. The local paper dubbed it "piegate," and a nearby bakery donated pies to the church to help fill the gap at the dessert table. There are reports of other churches continuing to sell contraband pastries. Legislation to overturn the baked-goods ban is being discussed.

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture declined to make the inspector available for comment. Bill Chirdon, the department's food-safety director, says it has cited only one church in the past three years for unsanitary conditions. In that case, he says the church held outside picnics every week and let food sit in the sun and didn't respond to changes recommended by food-safety inspectors.

Mr. Chirdon says the pie episode has shed light on an often-overlooked aspect of food safety. "I've gotten a lot of letters from churches that are tattletaling on churches down the street that aren't licensed and don't meet standards for food service."

Fish fries gained popularity from the requirement that Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays during Lent, a period of 40 days of prayer and penitence that represents the time that Jesus Christ spent in the desert fasting before beginning his public ministry. The dinners are also a way for parishioners to bond as Easter approaches.

But the meals are a vital fund-raising tool, too. The events provide income to fix leaky roofs and to subsidize tuition at parochial schools, for example. "It's a way of helping to raise funds with a minimum number of volunteers," says Rev. Ronald P. Lengwin, a spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.

The Pittsburgh diocese, which includes St. Cecilia's, projects overall revenue to be flat this year, while costs are up. In March, the diocese said it would close four elementary schools at the end of this school year.

Meanwhile, home-baked pies continue to be sold at many other fish fries. At a fry in the school cafeteria of a Catholic church on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, the fish-fry director said they never bake pies at the school. Instead, parishioners bake pies, cookies, cakes and cupcakes and bring them in. Donations like those help keep costs down, he says. As for the regulation requiring goods to be baked on the premises, he said, "We're ignoring it. Don't tell anyone."

The ruckus at St. Cecilia's could lead to changes in Pennsylvania state law. State Sen. Elder Vogel Jr. has drafted legislation aimed at allowing nonprofits, including churches, to serve food prepared at home. That would cover fish fries held during Lent. "Once again, you've got the heavy hand of government coming in," he says. "These ladies bake pies, out of the goodness of their hearts."

Sen. Vogel, who sits on the state legislature's agriculture committee, says state officials seem willing to change the law. "They have more work on their hands than going after little old ladies baking pies."

The inspector's warning to St. Cecilia's carried no fine. But the inspector has raised some hackles by telling the women that the state would allow them to bake pies for sale in their own kitchens, if they paid $35 to have them inspected as well.

"Well, that's just ridiculous," says Ms. Humbert, 73, one of the parish bakers. She has been bringing raisin pies to the church for more than a decade and says she thought the women's kitchens "are probably a lot cleaner than some restaurants," but might not meet "nitpicky" requirements.

Ms. Pratte, 88, has been attending St. Cecilia's since she was a girl. She missed a step and spent two and a half weeks in the hospital earlier this year. She said it would be "kind of hard" to get to the church to do any baking. "I'd rather just make them at home," she says of her coconut-cream pies. Others say it's difficult to bake good pies in a strange oven.

Thanks to the publicity caused by the crackdown, the St. Cecilia's fish fries attracted more visitors than ever before. The church has cleared about $3,500 on each fry, according to Father Michael Greb, pastor of the church, who notes that regular donations are down about 10%. The fish fries are the church's biggest fund-raiser of the year.

Fish dinners, either baked or fried, cost $8.50 and are served with french fries, baked potato or two pierogis. Cole slaw costs 75 cents. The church typically goes through several hundred pounds of haddock and cod per fry and at least 20 pies.

On a recent Friday, the smell of frying fish wafted from a downstairs kitchen and dining hall to the upstairs foyer with its nearly life-size crucifix. Father Greb wore a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball cap and jacket over his black clerical clothes and sat in the brightly lit hall at a table with parishioners.

Some people had suggested that the women put their homemade pies in boxes to make them appear they had been purchased. But everyone insisted they hadn't.

Diane Rotuna, 62, said she donated two apple pies that she purchased from a local grocery chain, "just to keep it legit."

Story courtesy of WSJ

A new wave of pro-lifers amongst us

I was reading a great post over at CMR and I felt compelled to share, here is a snippet:

I talked to him for a brief while about the difference between adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. He didn't know there was a difference.

But then his wife insisted that embryonic stem cell research wasn't as bad as abortion. "You've got to admit that, right?" she said.

"Why," I asked.

She paused and thought for a moment. "Well...because...they're not babies. They're in a petri dish in a lab somewhere."

"So instead of finding fault with the fact that laboratories have humans in dishes," I said, "you choose to say that because the humans are in the lab it's OK to kill them."

"But they're going to just die anyway," my friend interrupted.

"So are you. That doesn't give me an excuse to throw you in a dish and start using you for parts, does it?"

"That's ridiculous," she said.

"Yes, it is," I said. "Look. I know what you're saying. It's because they don't look human. They don't look like us but the reason of 'they don't look like us' has been a reason given for mass murder and oppression throughout the centuries."

To read the whole blog entry, click here

Mark your Calenders

I read this post on Ordinary Recipes made Gourmet and it really touched me.

A Cause Close to My Heart: March 31st is Red Envelope Day

Recently, I joined Floridians Against Abortion to help raise awareness of what I feel is the importance of life. While it is good we want to save the planet and our animals from slaughter houses, I think that human life is equally important. Long time ago in my own life I aborted my first born. I never could have children after that. I've regretted that act all my life and even I was just 17 when it happened and now I'm almost 46, that decision is still with me. What could my baby have turned out to be right now? I'll never know because I didn't give him a chance. Yes, it would have been a boy. When I came to church for counseling, one of the things I did was have a memorial to him. I named him Joshua and I did ask the Lord to forgive me. I know He did but the stigma or the wound, if you will, still will always live in me. Joshua could have become an important person in this world with talents and gifts that would have touched many lives, but he didn't have a voice to plead his case and none of our aborted babies do. It's up to us to be their voices and scream to Congress that they deserve a chance just like our nature and animal life. And there are millions of families out there who can't have children of their own who would jump at the chance to adopt. That's better than death in my opinion. So, on March 31st, it is Red Envelope Day.

Now what that means is on March 31st, we're mailing a red envelope to send to the President. First, get a red envelope. You can buy them at Kinkos, or at party supply stores. On the front, address it to

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington , D.C. 20500

On the back, write the following message:

"This envelope represents one child who died because of an abortion.
It is empty because the life that was taken is now unable to be a part of our world."

We will mail the envelopes out March 31st, 2009. Forward this event to every one of your friends who you think would send one too. We're hoping to send 50 million red envelopes, one for every child who died [in the U.S.] before having a chance to live.

It may seem that those who believe abortion is wrong are in a minority. It may seem like we have no voice and it's shameful to even bring it up. Let us show our President and the world that the voices of those of us who do not believe abortion is acceptable are not silent and must be heard.

To learn more, visit Red Envelope Day. Let's join together and let the voices that can't speak be heard!

I'm going to get my red envelope today.

A word from our sponsor . . . oh right, that's me :)

I was recently under fire on a homesteading board over the life and death of Valentine. One member went so far as to direct others to my blog in an attempt to show my inconsistency (though I think it was more about showing my inadequacy). I don't claim to know everything or much of anything for that matter. I went into this with a head full of ideas of how things would/could be and living in the dream life that the books talked about. The people I talked to made it seem as easy as the books did, so I resolved that I could do this. More days than not that resolve is tested, it was especially true when my health became a factor and my dh had to take over most of the day to day.

But we pushed forward and I continued to keep you updated, taking you all on our journey. We've had some of the best times of our life and some of the worse. The thing about life is that you will not always make the right decisions and in retrospect it may not have even been the best decision, but you have to live with the consequences and learn from it. I could be that person who throws in the towel and says no more, I can't or it's too hard . . . but it's not my nature. I don't give up, I do better next time.

For those who read this blog because they are thinking about homesteading/farming/life in the country/whatever, remember this; life isn't always pretty, stuff always happens especially when you don't want it to and you can only be so prepared for everything, until you're not; so pick yourself up, dust yourself(and pride - it will take quite the beating from time to time) off and get back on track or make a new way. I hope to see you on the rest of this journey. God Bless.

Laura Ingraham on the O'Reilly Factor