Times of Extreme Frugality: It Don't Mean a Thing, if It Ain't Tied with String

Conventional wisdom would tell you that the world is held together with duct tape.

However, on our homestead, we've got the world on a string... baling twine, that is.

We were introduced to the wonders of baling twine back in our Woodchuck Acres days when we bought our very first chickens.

If you want to be able to deal with the delightful odor of chicken poop, bedding in the coop is a must. In a bit of serendipitous luck, our neighbors up the road baled and sold hay, and they were willing to sell us spoiled hay cheaply.

And that hay was tied with baling twine.

I took one look at that string and thought "Safe fine, safe bind", channeling my best Dorothy Sayers in BUSMAN'S HONEYMOON. 

Since then, everywhere we have moved, we have found more uses for the stuff.

In McDonough, it kept the smoker going when I worked with the bees and kept tarps snug over firewood.

In Indiana, it helped hold together the electronet encircling the sheep.

In Michigan, it helped hold stuff on the trailer when we moved back to NY.

Now we no longer have farm animals, but still import hay for mulch. The weather this spring was a real detriment to getting in hay but when the rain finally stopped, the farmers made up for lost time and we have found several good deals on mulch hay.

And the stash of baling twine has been replenished and put to good use.

Tying up tomatoes,

and peas,

fixing the hummingbird feeder,

or hanging a homemade bird feeder.

Baling twine. A reusable, free resource that is invaluable here on Silk Road. Or as we say, blessed be the twine that binds.

Times of Extreme Frugality: Shoelaces and Earthquakes

My ever helpful sister called the other day to cheer me up from my so-far-this-summer-sucks depression.

"We didn't have an earthquake," she offered.

Yup, that did the trick.

                                     လလလလလလ

When Tom and I were first married, like many couples we didn't have much money. He was a full time student and I worked part-time for minimum wage-- a whopping $2/hour. We managed to pay the rent, buy gas and groceries, but not much else. Then the shoelace on Tom's shoe broke. Rather than buy a pair, I CROCHETED SHOELACES FROM YARN. 

After he graduated and we were only poor instead of very, very poor, I vowed that, as God is my witness, I'll never crochet shoelaces again!

I never have. 
And I never will. 

This is my cathedral

Morning has broken,
Like the first morning.

Blackbird has spoken,
Like the first bird.

Praise for the singing,

Praise for the morning,

Praise for them springing...

[it's Just-]

With heartfelt thanks and apologies to e.e.cummings

It's Just-
spring     when the barnyard is mud-
slushy the little
gimp farmer

sings          Golly          Gee!

and chickensandsheep come
running for grass and
tidbits and it's
spring

when the farm is almost green

the funny
old farmer sings
Gol     ly     Gee!
and kittensandrabbits are binking

from sunshine and freshair and
it's 
spring
and

     the
          
          stiff-kneed

farmer      sings
Gol
ly
Gee!

The Face of Frugality

I'd love to look like this when I go outside to work.

Mary Jane of Mary Jane's Farm

But instead, I usually look like this.

The poster child for parsimony.

Thriftiness has many faces, many forms. How you decide to spend your time and resources is different than what we do. Our brand of frugal has enabled us to live the life we enjoy; we've traveled a bit, paid off a mortgage, retired early. 

At Lick Skillet, our version of living on the cheap looks like this:

Waiting for wood stove season to cook down tomato sauce.

Drying clothes outside twelve months a year.

Taking advantage of Jansport's lifetime warranty on packs. I think I bought the original in the 1970's; this is the second or third time it will be replaced.

Tom's National Association of Pastoral Musicians shirt acquired in 1989. He wore it often, then used it as a pj top, now it's a work shirt, soon to go to the rag bag.  

And me dressing like this:

Do you live a life of intentional austerity? Share your thoughts and photos--top that photo of me, if you dare!

Blow, blow thou winter wind

Does anyone remember the book and movie (the 1950 version) "Cheaper by the Dozen"? The father, a time and motion expert, tries to run his family on modern efficiency principles. I'd like to see him try it on this small holding powered by whim and woman.

On the other hand, age and below freezing temperatures are a powerful motivation to make a person more efficient.

Every day, when the sun comes up, I head out to take care of our animals. This month that simple sentence has taken on gargantuan proportions and I am trying hard to reduce the many trips in and out I usually make.

The cats need food and their water dish filled. The rabbits need pellets and fodder and hay and filled water bottles. The chickens get pellets, which they ignore, and fresh water. The sheep also need water and food.

In detail, the low temperatures mean every water source is frozen overnight, paths to cages are slick with ice, I'm carrying buckets and bottles down stairs I can barely navigate empty handed (gimpy knee still healing, see It takes a village), doors need to be unstuck, and everyone is hungry RIGHT NOW!


I start inside. I rinse and drain the wheat fodder I'm growing for the bunnies and set aside the squares of it they will get today. The extra set of water bottles gets filled with apple cider vinegar water. I put everything in a bucket, grab a plastic bag and a full gallon of acv water, bundle up, and head outside. If I'm lucky, the front door isn't frozen shut. I pass everything outside the door while simultaneously keeping the cats from coming inside and shut the door behind me.

I now head over to the steps. One by one, I place the bucket, etc. on each step, limp down one, and repeat until I've reached the bottom and head towards the garage, dodging kittens along the way.

In the garage I fill the catfood bowl and grab their water bowl, dump the ice outside and refill with acv water. Then I load up on rabbit pellets and head out to the rabbit cages, unwrap the tarps protecting them from wind and fill their food bowls with pellets and fodder. 

I swap off frozen bottles for thawed and limp off to let the chickens out. I pour them some chicken pellets but they have recently decided they don't like them and they jump under the bunny cages instead to root in the poop. I take their frozen waterer out of the coop and set it aside to take back to the house.

Next are the sheep and Monster Bunny (she lives in the barn because we didn't plan on four cages in our rabbitry but we got a great deal on 3 does instead of 2). I put her water bottle and some food in the plastic bag and grab the remaining acv water. At this point I realize I have forgotten the firewood canvas carrier which is perfect for carrying hay to the sheep--I may have gotten more effective but I'm not perfect. 

And by the way, the sheep have been trained that grain comes in a bucket so I put the rabbit stuff in a bag to fool them. It doesn't work.

Carefully, I navigate the slick walk to the barn and get my load through the gate. The sheep at this point are locked in the barn which makes this part easier. I open the dutch door and discover that ice is blocking the bottom door which will only open wide enough for the sheep to push out. HA!--This allows me to get inside and keep them out while I feed Monster Bunny. Monster Bunny, aka the rabbit who likes to bite, has seven kits which has mellowed her only slightly. I do manage to get my arm in the cage to give her food without losing any fingers and change her water bottle.

The sheep's water is also frozen, of course, and I manage to drag the bucket outside and dump the ice and give them a fresh drink. They look at me and baa reproachfully when they see I haven't brought them any hay.

So, one more trip down the icy path and into the house for the carrier, thump, thump, thump down the steps, and into the garage for hay. I get it to the sheep without mishap which I consider a big win.

Now I only have to get a bucket of water bottles, a frozen chicken waterer, and the sheep's frozen bucket into the house to thaw and I'm done...

...until later in the morning when all of the water will need to be replaced again, but by that time Tom is up and he is happy to help.

Now I can sit in front of the fire and appreciate the winter beauty while warm inside and congratulate myself on how efficient I've become.

Oh drat, I forgot to take out the thawed chicken waterer. sigh.

Grand Tour

Ivy, Dodge, and Maisie have spent the summer exploring our three acres.

Using electronet fencing, we have moved them to fresh pasture every week or so. They quickly eat down any fresh green stuff and then nibble on the coarser browse. 

And leave behind piles of brown nuggets.

We are now back to where they started and it's time for the return trip towards the barn. 

This puts them on the lawn RIGHT NEXT TO THE HOUSE. 

If they were any closer, they could join us for movie night.

Saturday Revels

Most people look forward to the weekend. When they return to work on Monday, they regale each other with tales of their adventures. 

I bet few of them will say they spent their Saturday washing kittens.

I discovered, much to my dismay, that our three little white kittens were infested with fleas. These are outdoor cats so they are not held to the hygienic standards of house pets. But when we can see the little black specks fur swimming and occasionally jumping off to bite a human, then something has to be done.

We're 11 miles from the nearest store and on a tight gasoline budget, so a trip to find flea powder would have to wait for a regular errand run. I turned to the internet; a Dawn bath was suggested.

I was not going to try to bathe cats by myself so I enlisted Tom's aid. He brought the victims in one by one.

I put a ring of Dawn around the kitten's neck. Fleas will run towards the head when they suspect you're out to get them so the soap necklace served as a barrier. Then we soaked the poor cat in the extra bubbly water.
 

Once the fur was wet, you could see how many fleas there were. Ugh! We tried to comb them out but we don't have a flea comb so that didn't work. We picked out as many as we could be most wouldn't budge. We can only hope the soap killed most of the critters.

When we felt we had tortured each feline enough, we rinsed them off and Tom towel dried them.

They were amazingly cooperative; we didn't get scratched once. Their mom, Dale, also has fleas but I draw the line at trying to wash a full-grown cat. 

They're out in the sun now, complaining to each other about how horrid humans are to helpless kittens.

What did you do this weekend?

Steady on the tiller

This post was going to be a rave review of the cordless Black and Decker Front Tine tiller, and it is a good machine...but you know us and mechanical tools (see  My Generator Rant)

I sold all of my bee equipment and decided to use the money to buy a tiller. We have always dug our garden by hand but I felt like that was getting to be too much for such senior citizens. I knew we could never cope with a gas powered machine and the finicky maintenance so, after tons of research, I decided on the Black and Decker.

I placed the order with Amazon and within a few days the tiller arrived. It required a lot of assembly but it went together fairly quickly. Then I tried to charge the battery. This should take 20 hours the first time but the charger was saying "done!" in 10 minutes and the unit didn't start. I called Black and Decker and they said "bad charger" and sent a new one. Same thing--no charge. So we packaged it back up and ordered a replacement.

At this point, our long suffering UPS driver knew the drill. He claims we are trying to give him a hernia but Tom helps him load the heavy packages so we're forgiven.

It didn't take long for the replacement to arrive. This time the battery charged as advertised. Then we took it for a test run in the garden.

It started right up and immediately bogged down. There was no way I could get it to move and Tom was exhausted after shallowly tilling two rows. We both agreed that it would be less tiring to use a shovel.

I know lots and lots of people happily puttputt down the garden tilling merrily away. I have to believe they have stronger arms than we do or are prithy to some esoteric tiller secrets that we'll never know.

Make no mistake. This is a good tiller, reasonably priced, free from dependence on cords or gasoline. But it doesn't work for us. I have come to the overdue conclusion that most machines are not for us and will not be ordering any more heavy, engine-driven products; maybe I'll spring for an extra shovel.

Our UPS driver will thank us.

Clear Saling

On the way into town the other day, we saw a sign proclaiming "Community Lawn Sales, 10 miles, Saturday". 

I always intend to go to lawn sales but rarely follow through. I don't like getting in and out of the car, driving all over town, and most of these sales consist of children's toys and clothes. But this sounded promising so we headed out early Saturday down West Walnut Road towards a lot of nothing.

It was a lovely ride, lots of hills and trees, and finally a sale. Our arrival coincided with that of two women and two children in an Amish buggy--luckily there was a shaded area to park the horse and the side of the road for us. 

We perused the goods--hmmm, children's toys and clothes. We popped back in the car and drove on. The next two were several miles down the road--some broken down chairs and tools and, yes, children's toys and clothes.

Back in the car. The next sign was at a Firehouse. This at least offered a rest room along with the toys and clothes. At this point we both remarked "If this were New York, there would be a bake sale along with the toys, or at least coffee and donuts."

We had to laugh when we saw the sign for the next sale "Yard Sale and Bake Sale." Finally, something that appealed to us. So we bought our only purchase of the day--cookies and a can of  Big Red.

Big Red is a midwest phenomenon. I had never tried it and decided this was a good time to sample a bit of hometown soda. The flavor is very "red", it's supposed to be cream soda with lemon and other flavors but it tasted like cherry bubblegum to me. I think this is a case, like poi, that you have to have grown up with to enjoy. 

On to the next sale. And there were the Amish ladies again. We all agreed that the pickings were slim at these sales; they were at the limit of their horse and about to turn around but we pressed on, deciding to take a different route home. We did stop at one more sale but the snacks were indeed our only expenditure.

Hills and trees, buggies, cookies, and soda--one of our more enjoyable shopping excursions.

Hay there!

One of my favorite bloggers, Suzanne McMinn, just posted about transporting 55 bales of hay in her car and she and her daughter loading it into their barn Hay the Hard Way 

Our hay story is a bit different but just as hard!

Dennis, the nice gent who owns the picturesque barn across the road, just mowed the field around it.

  
It's been hot, hot, hot, so the hay dried thoroughly in a day.

Tom went over and started raking. He brought over several loads in the lawn cart and I went over later and did several more.

Then he had a brainstorm.

 Why not use one of our gigundo tarps?

He raked several piles into it.

Dragged it across the road, past the garage, and to the shed.

We pushed and shoved and got it inside to unload.

The shed is now partly full of lovely, FREE hay. There's plenty more left and if our backs recover and the heat lets up, we'll be over there raking it up.

Chickens in the Road gets it done with woman power, we do what we can with old people power!

A rabbit by any other name

Meet our new rabbit buck, Mr. Nutterbutter. He's a lovely Dutch bunny and a proven sire.

Obviously, we did not name him and I can't blame this one on the grandkids. The breeder I bought him from had saddled him with this moniker and I see no reason to change it.

First, because he's used to it and second, because I won't be using it anyway.

Sometime this past year, I have given up on naming the livestock. Ok, we did name the sheep and will probably name the kittens

as soon as we can discover a way to tell them apart. 

But by and large, most of the animals around here are just "Sweetie."

"Hi, Sweetie, how are you this morning?"
"Here ya go, Sweetie, nice, fresh water."
"Thanks for the egg, Sweetie, it's beautiful."

Simple, easy to remember, gender nonspecific, and nondiscriminatory. Kind of my farm version of a waitress's "Hon."

Would you like a warm up, hon, and thanks for reading my blog, Sweetie.

Neutral Territory

Our cat, Dale, just had 4 kittens.

STOP! Don't touch that keyboard!

I know some of you are ready to zip off a comment about spaying, unwanted animals, adoption, etc.

Let me explain the history of our barn cats.

We got our first cat in McDonough.

Atwell was a great cat--good mouser and reasonably friendly. She was visited by a smooth-talking tomcat and gave birth to two kittens.

Now, Woodchuck Acres was over-run with rodents, so the prospect of multiple outdoor cats was appealing. We found a home for one of the kittens and elected to keep the other whom we named Petrov.

And since we now had two female cats, we took Atwell to the vet and had her neutered.

Within a month she had gone walkabout never to return and Petrov got hit by a car.

We arrived in Indiana sans felines.

Skillet Farm also seemed to have it's share of pests and vermin. So we acquired two kittens, Dale and Penny.

Penny was the most energetic in chasing down small furry animals. She also was the one who disappeared forever within a month of her arrival.

The decision not to spay Dale was intentional. We like cats, we do not like mice and voles and rabbits who chomp our garden vegetables and find their way into the insulation in the garage. One cat can't keep up with three acres worth of nibblers.

We now have 5 cats. We don't expect we will have all 5 for long. You may not understand this, but cats at Skillet Farm are working animals, not pets. They live outside, are free to wander the neighborhood and sometimes meet up with unpreventable mishap.We will make future decisions about how many kittens to keep --we may give some away, we may even finally spay Dale, but whatever we decide is right for our situation.

Ok, let the comments begin!